Connecting a DAC directly to an amp?

@shkong78 

I connect Dave and HMS to Line Magnetic 508 pre input....It is working well....But I have Schitt Freya pre between Dave and my headhone amps to connect 20 ft balanced cables.

The Freya seems like a well-designed, simple preamp to provide high quality volume control with buffering or gain as needed between a DAC and a preamp.  I understand why you would use it to drive 20 ft interconnects.  Have you tried using it in your other system before the Line Magnetic 508 to compare whether it improves the sound vs. DAC-direct?  

I am curious because I previously thought I needed a buffer between my volume controlled Metrum Adagio DAC and my amplifiers but this weekend I rearranged my system so the DAC is close enough to the amplifiers that I can use 1M (XLR) interconnects.  At this length, it seems the buffer may not be needed for the same level of dynamics and tone although I am still evaluating. 

Connecting a DAC directly to an amp?

The very best:
Using my MSB Discrete R2R dac's digital domain volume control direct into most of the power amps I have, sounds so much more transparent, detailed and dynamic, than any active preamp (tube or SS), even passive

Second best:
If the gain of the power amp is too high, and the dac digital volume has to be turned down too low (and starts to bit strip), it's then left full up volume and a passive pre used. 

Third Best:
Active preamps.


Cheers George

I use a nobsound volume controller and it is more transparent than my Cary tube preamp. I would use the Cary if I wanted more tube sound although I find the ss amp to sound more natural. I'm quite surprised at how much better cd's have been with a nice sounding IC. Much less of that digital glare and more vinyl like. 

This is like groundhog day for me.  After going a week running my DAC directly into my amplifiers using relatively short 1M interconnect cables, I continued rearranging my system layout and reintroduced my buffer/preamp between the DAC and my amps and.....Shazam! Technicolor!  Better soundstage depth, better body, deeper tone, more impactful and deeper bass, and a more realistic and less electronic presentation.

It seems this happens every time I try to go without my preamp/buffer.  Maybe it is my SMc monos, which have input impedance of only 10K ohms, but it was also like this with my former Clayton amplifiers (but maybe not as profound an improvement), which had input impedance of 100K ohms.

The other thing I did was replace my well-regarded Oyaide power cords with 7 awg NOS Western Electric cords and wow, an immediately noticeable kick in the pants.  The amps are 650 wpc and are each run from their own 20A dedicated circuit.  Going from 10 awg to 7 awg made a substantial sonic improvement.  I don't typically notice huge improvements from cables and tweaks but this one was substantial.

It seems this happens every time I try to go without my preamp/buffer. Maybe it is my SMc monos, which have input impedance of only 10K ohms

Can't tar everything with the same brush, with this 10k input.

10k is a very low input impedance, there's no need for it these days, as things have problems diving it.
47k or higher is the industry standard, some tube amps like Rogue M120 mono were up to 1000k!!! (1mohm)

But if your source output stage is weak and maybe cap coupled (which could be too small with 10k) it's the problem, not because your going direct.

Cheers George