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Preamps built Into DACs

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A lot of higher end preamps are also DACs. A lot of guys that buy these high end DACs already have a high-end preamp.

How much money could be saved on a $6k preamp/DAC if the preamp section was removed? In my case, a preamp on a DAC is redundant. I believe the preamp section should be an option on a DAC.

What say you?
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128x128mitch4t
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Mapman - there are only two DACs that I know of that use the reference voltage to control volume (which actually connects the DAC line-out directly to the amps):

Empirical Audio Overdrive SE

I believe the other is a dCS DAC that is out of production

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
edorr
714 posts
 
Steve, DCS latest gear has an all digital VC. Why would they have moved to all digital if they had a better mousetrap before? Given that their latest "stack" sells for over $100K I can harldy imagine they did this to save cost.

I have a hunch the latest digital technology allows for the design of a digital VC without any loss of resolution, while avoiding the signal degradation of doing anything in the analog domain. There is a guy in France that build the 64 bit TotalDac, that tried every VC implementation under the sun and settled for a digital VC. The 20K light harmonic Da Vinci is also a 64 bit all digital VC.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Mrvco in what price range??
Ag insider logo xs@2x
hk_fan
476 posts
 
Digital volume controls are much more troubling in my mind, as the only way to reduce volume is to start discarding data.
edorr
714 posts
 
They are equally troubling in my mind, and for this reason I have been avoiding them like the plague. However, my ears are telling me otherwise now, and the fact that a number of >$20 DACs use them suggest they can't be all that bad. It is conceivable an well implemented analog VC will elevate performance of such ultra expensive DACs even higher.
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