Berkeley DAC into preamp or amp ?

Pbrennan - Yes 54-55 is the recommended fixed setting on the DAC when feeding a preamp, but how far down do you have to attenuate with strong signal sources (e.g. CDs with high playback level) when feeding directly to your amp?

I run it through a JRDG Capri but am selling the pre and will run it direct to a pair of older Jeff Rowland model 7m's. The dac is in the middle of it's volume scale most of the time. I have tried it both ways and cant say that I can tell the difference. Which is either high praise for the capri or a poor review of my ears.
I honestly think that I EXPECTED degredation from a dac at lower volumes (throwing away bits and that sort of thing) but cant say that I heard any.

My Berkeley rarely gets out of the 30s feeding directly into the amp. Any comments?

I recently tried the Berkeley running directly into the amp. My experience has been that such a setup always flattens the depth dimension of the soundstage, and this was no exception. In my opinion, any minor improvements over an excellent preamp (immediacy and such) are not worth what I consider to be an unacceptable compromise. In my case, I need the preamp for vinyl in any event. The exercise simply proved what I had heard on numerous 'direct feed' systems previously.

Curriemt11 - that's been my experience too, at least with a couple of Wadia CDP's I used to own. As for the Berkeley direct, do you recall how far you had to attenuate with most music? (I.e. what was the LED readout, and did large attenuation seem to affect the sound?)

Rja - what amp are you using?