auxinput, thank you. I wasn't aware that adding a volume control could affect the output impedance of the source. This makes sense though because I ran my system with a placette passive in the chain and when I removed it and went back to the direct connection with the digital volume control it was like someone took 3 blankets off my speakers. I always assumed that was because of the additional interconnect introduced into the chain, but perhaps it was because of the impedance difference cased by the passive itself. If that was the case I would most definitely favor no volume control, especially since it will be built in to the chassis of the dac itself and I will not be able to do a comparison before I make the decision.
digital or analog volume control?
I am presently running my dac direct to my amplifiers using the digital volume control of foobar (for ripped cds) and MPCHC (for movies). When I play movies on MPC it indicates playback at 32 bit floating point, and from what I have read, Foobar does the same, and both sound great to me. I am having a dac modified (Monarchy audio M24) and my tech has given me the option of direct out (like I am using now - with no analog volume control) or either an alps or ldr type volume control - at added expense, the latter the most expensive. Is the analog volume control better sounding than the digital that am presently using?