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Accuphase CDP Owners - Straight to Power Amp??

I've got an Accuphase DP500 hooked to a Plinius 9200 integrated. Recently out of curiosity I bypassed the preamp section of the 9200 and connected the DP500 direct to the power amp section. I thought the sound would take a dive given the built-in freebie volume control on the Accuphase may be inferior compared to the 9200's preamp. Well the result was quite positive, I would not necessarily say better as the presentation is a little different, but definitely not sonically inferior.

To Accuphase CDP owners I was wondering if you are running it straight to a power amp or do you prefer to use a preamp and if yes why?
noelpastor

Showing 2 responses by amfibius

amfibius
282 posts
 
What type of volume control is built into the Accuphase DP500? An analog volume control (i.e. potentiometer after the DAC), or digital volume control (i.e volume is changed digitally before the DAC)?
amfibius
282 posts
 
If it is digital then I am surprised that you did not notice a performance hit. Digital volume control discards bits before analogue conversion, so you lose resolution and puts the signal closer to the noise floor.

Also, most CDP's only implement volume control as an afterthought, so - (1) the output impedance of the CDP is not low enough, (2) it is not engineered to drive long runs of interconnect, (3) output voltage may not be high enough so you'll have difficulty driving low sensitivity power amps, and so on.

Perhaps your Accuphase has a really good implementation but i'll have to check the specs before further comment :) Good on you for trying, and thanks for reporting.
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