DAC DIRECT IN TO AMPLIFIER OR TO PREAMPLIFIER

We can have words and concepts learned by minimal acoustic experiments in our room..

Then we "dont know what we dont know" but we can guess it by listening our speakers/room ...

There must be a balance between all acoustic factors for exemple for a brass orchestra timbre of trumpets ,french cor , tuba, trombone, to be experienced rightfully with clear distict timbre tone playing in a spatial clear distibutions and transients and dynamic and the "rise-duration-decay time " and all the spatial distribution and extent qualities in 3-D...And we must learn how to control these acoustics factors in our room...

Then " i dont know what i dont know " it is true but i did not have so much ignorance as 12 years ago when i did not understood and perceived yet the contribution of each acoustic concepts ... But i learned them by experiments and how to control in some degree and act on them for better and worse...

then you are right :

Let your ears determine what sounds best after you run thru the many different configurations.

But i know even if i never listen to it yet what could be my best upgrade and why and how...there is a minimal acoustic satisfaction threshold and i reach it at low cost and i am more than happy... It takes lot of hard work and years of experimenting to reach it... Most people dont do that...They then catch upgraditis...And they, in an opposite way to me, suggest branded name of gear they own for upgrade not acoustic and electrical and mechanical embeddings as more fundamentals with the necessary gear synergy as i do ...

For sure we must learn and buy and make mistakes... I did for years ... But my point is that we will makes more mistakes and create more unsatisfaction if we dont learn basic embeddings controls... Acoustics being the most important... Dac upgrade is half the time unnecassary.. People do it because they dont know how to reach synergy and they dont learn any acoustics concepts by EXPERIMENTING...

I say that because i did exactly this BEFORE experimenting and learning...

My post made sense ONLY for people with a limited budget and people who cannot afford to buy illimited dac pieces or gear pieces to try them... Experimenting may cost nothing, but it cost much in time and in reading, this is why few did it...This does not change the fact i spoke about :  audio is about synergy and especially embeddings controls not about costlier piece of gear... 😊

Interesting approaches to digital level control.    Great to see innovation. Looks like these ideas could be very inexpensive and trickle down to commodity products. 

So the correct answer remains: it depends. 

I have a Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC and A Mola Mola Makua preamp. I conferred with the master US importer to confirm my long held belief and he did not equivocate AT ALL. It is ALWAYS better to have a qualify preamplflier in the chain. Always. I have never NOT used a preamplifier with my other DACS. 

I’m glad I came this one in my Agon weekly recap email. I started a thread recently with pretty much the same situation/question. I’m also have a Lumin direct XLR into class D monoblocks. My Lumin S1 (superseded by the X1) also has the LeedH volume control. I think it’s sounds nice, but I had to take the plunge to find out since I don’t have any friends that are into audio that I could borrow one from. I have a tube preamplifier arriving next week. I can’t wait to hear the difference- either way. Or, maybe it’ll sound the same? No matter what, at least I can finally hook-up and listen to my turntable again.

I have tried many preamps including Audio Research Ref 6se and Pass Labs XP 22.   My MSB Analog DAC sounds better direct to my Pass Labs XA 100.8.   Speakers are Wilson Sasha.                     Preamp adds coloration every time. DAC direct is more natural , has more detail and is definitely coherent across the frequency range