Thiel Owners

@coop_301 IMHO, the high bit internal volume control is preferable to the out board passive pre scenario.

Great, thanks again, I think that shouldn't be too hard to find with the current lineup out there.  

Happy Friday! All

@coop_301 I had a moment, and knowing that for a newbie setting up what your proposing can be a bit challenging; I found this:

Output voltage (Page 1) — ADI-2 Pro & ADI-2 DAC — RME User Forum (rme-audio.de)

While RME offers the very nice feature of adjustable voltage output from both single ended (RCA) and balanced (XLR) outputs, none of them conform to consumer industry standards. Regrettably this is all too common, making consumer system building that more challenging. On the other hand, this common practice might allow you to find a close to perfect match. This deviation while not ideal, might not necessarily disqualify the RME from consideration, but I'd recommend keeping your options open. With a 32 bit source, you should have a generous amount of wiggle room before bit stripping occurs. As such, given the choice, I would recommend going with a slightly higher rather than slightly lower voltage output. Please bear in mind that all these recommendations are restricted to the technical considerations (albeit, perhaps more critical for what your proposing, than might otherwise be the case). There are other considerations such as what sounds best to you!  There is a plethora of digital sources out there, I recommend you use these technical considerations to pare down the options to a short list, and then choose what sounds best to you. 

coop_301 -  Last year I spent considerable time selecting my front end. My particular bias is toward neutrality / honesty with stellar technical specs required and extra points for ubiquity in the pro record-making world. I landed on Benchmark. I chose their stand-alone DAC-B over their Hybrid Gain Control because separating the digital DAC from the all-analog preamp fits my needs better. You might enjoy adding it to your list.