I am creating my system and trying to decide on a DAC. I don't have a preamp at this time and the preamps I am looking at are quite expensive. Several DAC's that i'm looking at doesn't have volume control either.
Depending on your budget..... i believe some of these Topping dacs like E70 velvet, D70, D90, etc or the SMSLs, etc should have some halfway decent volume control. You ’may’ not need a separate preamp, depending on how picky you are.
If your budget is a bit higher, you could go with some higher quality dac/preamp combo unit like the Rotel RC-1590 mkii.
Of course, sky’s the limit on how much you could spend with varying results.