Component Impact

In one of my older systems, I was sure I needed to change the amplifier until my dealer, who sold both, proved to me that the sound I was looking for was actually achieved by upgrading the preamp. The system had more solidity, tonal accuracy and more pitch-accurate bass. All the things I previously believed were attributable to the amp were accomplished by the preamp. Quite an eye-opener.

Ricred1, what pricerange DAC with VC are you looking at? Steve manufactures/sells one himself, so may be he refrains from answering to avoid perception of conflict of interest. I personally have been researching and playing with DAC + VC with and without preamps for quite some time so I can give you a pretty good lay of the land and guidance if I better understand your parametes. What digital source(s) are you planning to use?

"I would love to eliminate my preamp. What DAC with volume control do you recommend?"

There are only a few choices that enable actually eliminating the effects of the preamp:

1) Overdrive SE
2) older Bidat with external volume option
3) Weiss 202 because it has gain settings that can be used in conjunction with a little bit of digital volume reduction - only works with computer audio

The sound of these varies all over the map, so I recommend auditioning.

Another thing that helps significantly and even improves on the "no-preamp" system is to add a high-quality transformer buffer betwen DAC and amps. This has numerous advantages and improves SQ:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=108715.0

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Edorr,

What do you recommend under 5K? I will use the Apollo R as the transport for now, until funds permit me to upgrade.

Depends on what school of volume control thought you subscribe to.

School 1 says all digital attenuation over say 6dB degrades the signal and is to be avoided (Steve N. is a proponent of this school).

School 2 says unless you are doing more than say 30dB attenuation you are absolutely fine with digital VC, and in fact, it is better than analog, because you avoid an analog circuit (advocates of are PS audio and Bel Canto).

My personal experience is consistent with school 2. I am not claiming school 2 is right and 1 is wrong. I'm just reporting my personal observations.

So first, if you need significant amount of attenuation (over 30dB) you probably need an analog VC, whether you're school 1 or 2.

There are three contenders in the $5K price range with analog (or hybrid) VC:

Empirical Audio Overdrive SE
Weiss 202 (Hybrid)
Aesthetix Pandora (Tube - MSRP 6K / street price 5K)

Note that the Overdrive has no remote control. With PC audio you can do coarse setting analog on the DAC, and do fine grain setting digital in your music server (say amarra or JRiver). With a CD player as source, this is a problem.

If you subscribe to school 2, and don't need more than 30dB attenuation, your options increase. Three highly regarded contenders with digital VC are:

PS audio Perfectwave DAC MKII
Berkely Alpha II
Bel Canto VB3.5

There are other threads on this subject you can read up on. I'm sure I missed a few.

Fully support Steve's suggestion to listen to a few DACs and make up your mind.

Have fun!