I may be mistaken but figured this was working the Amp harder.No the same, just letting the same amount of input signal through the volume pot to the power amp section, instead of shunting it to ground when the dac's vc is higher.
Cheers George
What volume level should a DAC be set to when feeding your Pre Amp
G'day All
I have an Accuphase DAC (DC-901) with a digital volume control that feeds my Pre Amp/Accuphase integrated Amp. The DAC is fed via USB. It reports its volume level in db and altering the volume on the DAC impacts the volume level coming out of my Integrated. I currently have the DAC set at 0.0db. This DAC level is purely a guess on my part not really understanding the technicalities of it all. I'd like to understand better the implications of this DAC volume setting on my overall listening experience and whether or not the setting I have in place currently is correct.
Any advice appreciated.
Cheers
I have an Accuphase DAC (DC-901) with a digital volume control that feeds my Pre Amp/Accuphase integrated Amp. The DAC is fed via USB. It reports its volume level in db and altering the volume on the DAC impacts the volume level coming out of my Integrated. I currently have the DAC set at 0.0db. This DAC level is purely a guess on my part not really understanding the technicalities of it all. I'd like to understand better the implications of this DAC volume setting on my overall listening experience and whether or not the setting I have in place currently is correct.
Any advice appreciated.
Cheers
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- 11 posts total
0dB FS (full scale) should correspond to 24dBu. Since 24dBu is a level related to 0.775V (1mW over 600ohm) it will correspond to 12.3Vrms. When you selected -15dB your DAC would output 24dBu-15dB=9dBu = 2.2Vrms. I'm not sure what nominal level should be. I looked at one of the power amps that outputs 125W at 8ohm and has gain of 26dB. That would imply 1.6Vrms input. My current power amp Benchmark AHB2 has high gain position of 8.2dBu=2Vrms. You should be OK. My previous DAC had jumper selections of 0dB, -10dB and -20dB. The best position for driving power amp direct was -10dB. You might find this useful: https://www.av-iq.com/avcat/images/documents/pdfs/measdigaudlvls.pdf |
plb02 OP It seems like your on a winner, it looks from other posts you have the Accuphase E470 integrated, it has poweramp inputs at 1.5v in for full wattage output on the back so you can forget about the preamp section, for the best most transparent/dynamic sound I would feed your dacs output which has up to 2.5v output direct into these poweramp inputs and just use the dac’s volume control. Cheers George |
- 11 posts total