Wadia 861 or keep Electrocompaniet mk2

You have a world class pre-amp, and IMO have no need to consider bypassing it. In my experience, doing so will cause you to lose dynamics, and, in the case of the WADIA, lose resolution as well as reduced volume comes at the expense of dropping bits. We keep yearning for more resolution ,,, SACD ,,, DVD-A ,,, Upsamplers ,,, etc - so I do not understand Wadia's scheme at all.

stay with the electro/bat

...within the limits explained in the manual.

If you keep the volume control in the range where it has full resolution (approx. 65-100), it is really the best solution. It adds _no_ distortion, unlike an analog pot. which add a bit at all volumes.

So if you can live with only a quite narrow window of volume-adjustment, Wadia's implementation of volume control is superior. If you need to be able to play both very loud and close to silence, then it wont work for you.

For me it works. Critical listening is done from 70 and up, and when played at lower volumes, it's just for background music where I dont care about the reduction in resolution.

Go with the Wadia. I like BAT products and owned a VK50se a couple years back with a ML CDP and Wadia 850, but it is nowhere near as transparant or dynamic as a stand alone Wadia product. This comparison was with an 850 too mind you which is a step down from the current 861 player your looking at. As for the digital resolution. If you like to listen to music at low levels your ears arent going to pick up any theoretical loss of "resolution" regardless. I dont know why some people even bring up that fact as its pretty useless.

This looks like a no brainer. Dump the Preamp and hear what you been missing !!!!!