I use the dCs Elgar direct into my power amps. I also have the Z-Systems digital preamp in front of an MSB Platinum straight in. I also can use a very high quality Vishay resistor shunt to ground stepped attenuator that I put into my poweramps. With this setup I don't have the variation in sound due to the preamp and extra cables when I do the comparison between digital and analog attenuation to impact the comparison. I've listened carefully to all three and there is no sonic difference due to attenuation in the digital domain with these specific units. Cutting out the preamp and the cables gets you closer to the music with these units no matter how expensive your preamp is. Caveat, this is not generalizable to all units and poweramps.
Digital volume control, WADIA style
Some of the highest ranked CD players and digitall processors let you control playback volume level in digital domain. This feature lets you drive the power amp directly, without the preamplfier connected in the audio chain.
One pair of interconnect cables becomes obsolate as well, which is good - we shurly can all agree here.
What you gain overall is a much shorter and simpler signal path. Good achivment, indeed.
But all this comes at a cost. Do we loose anything?
Yes, we do, and it is due to little recognized manipulations conducted upon the digital data stream. We are begining to play with the digital bits representing our musical signal now. Much like genetics, isn't it?
To what effect? Well, this is the question of this tread.
Some well respected manufacturers, Wadia and dCS to name two most noble of them, encourage their customers to take this digital manipulation road as being clearly superior and less audiable than even the best preamplification (=analog manipulation, let me call it by it's name).
Some others, Theta and Mark Levinson comes to my mind at the time, steer away from digital manipulation.
For those who really need some means to control the volume from within their processors or players they incorporate analog volume control circuitry in some models.
What is your personal expirience?
Is digital volume control much audiable?
Is it better than top class preamplfication?
In which case artifacts introduced to the music are easier to detect and more irritate you?
One pair of interconnect cables becomes obsolate as well, which is good - we shurly can all agree here.
What you gain overall is a much shorter and simpler signal path. Good achivment, indeed.
But all this comes at a cost. Do we loose anything?
Yes, we do, and it is due to little recognized manipulations conducted upon the digital data stream. We are begining to play with the digital bits representing our musical signal now. Much like genetics, isn't it?
To what effect? Well, this is the question of this tread.
Some well respected manufacturers, Wadia and dCS to name two most noble of them, encourage their customers to take this digital manipulation road as being clearly superior and less audiable than even the best preamplification (=analog manipulation, let me call it by it's name).
Some others, Theta and Mark Levinson comes to my mind at the time, steer away from digital manipulation.
For those who really need some means to control the volume from within their processors or players they incorporate analog volume control circuitry in some models.
What is your personal expirience?
Is digital volume control much audiable?
Is it better than top class preamplfication?
In which case artifacts introduced to the music are easier to detect and more irritate you?