DAC or preamp + DAC

[Sonus]

Hello everybody,

I am trying to deicide between a Preamp and a DAC or a DAC with volume control.
I have a budget of 20K$ to work with.

The DAC has to have a USB input and can handle DSD.

Any advice or suggestions on what to audition?

The rest of the system's components are:
Wilson Alexandria S2 with Krell 402e and transparent ref cables.

Thanks

 

[jfrech]

Hello everybody,

I am trying to deicide between a Preamp and a DAC or a DAC with volume control.
I have a budget of 20K$ to work with.

The DAC has to have a USB input and can handle DSD.

Any advice or suggestions on what to audition?

The rest of the system's components are:
Wilson Alexandria S2 with Krell 402e and transparent ref cables.

Thanks

This is a tough one...normally I'd say get a preamp. But the better dacs are well...just better. With your system...I'd say try and stretch to get a dCS Vivaldi DAC...and go straight to your amp via your Transparent cables. You might also be able to get with a dCS dealer and get a certified used dCS Scarlatti DAC but you'd need the dCS Scarlatti Clock Plus to get USB for the Scarlatti System. But used you're at your price point and a killer dac and clock...

Also another killer option is the Nagra HD DAC. It has a VERY good built in analog tube preamp stage. It's just over 20k...but the swiss currency is fluctuating a lot right now...so maybe it's more...As a former Nagra preamp owner...I can assure you these are great preamps...you might like a tube option with your wilsons and solid state amps...

 

[edorr]

Hello everybody,

I am trying to deicide between a Preamp and a DAC or a DAC with volume control.
I have a budget of 20K$ to work with.

The DAC has to have a USB input and can handle DSD.

Any advice or suggestions on what to audition?

The rest of the system's components are:
Wilson Alexandria S2 with Krell 402e and transparent ref cables.

Thanks

Lot of innovation and newcomers on the digital side of the house. You definitely need to hear the new Berkeley Reference. In my experience adding a very good preamp will take things up a notch (I used ARC Refe 5SE), but the question is are you better off deploying the funds towards a better DAC. Opinions vary. In my experience, no preamp below 10K will improve over the volume control of the DAC, throw in a PC and IC and you need to spend 13-15K to get a preamp that beats the DAC direct signal path. So with a budget of $20K, I would say go DAC direct. If you are willing to shop around for good used the equation may change. I now use a Spectral DMC 30SS series II that I bought for $5.5K used. Probably better than DAC direct. I will say buying anything more expensive than the Berkeley for digital is insane, given the innovation and corresponding improvements in price performance.

 

[dallasjustice]

The krell has a 25db gain which makes it very reasonable with integrating a good digital volume control. The DCS gear is a good suggestion although you may be disappointed to find out that you will not be able to use a digital volume control in the 1 bit domain. There are some multi but SDM methods of doing it. I have no idea how that sounds since I don't do DSD.

If the DAC is well built, analog preamps will only benefit you if you need it for source switching. IMO, IME. Not interested in joining a debate society about analog preamps.

Btw, I love Krell amps. I used digital volume control when I had my 900e mono amps.

 

[dallasjustice]

Some DACs with excellent volume control and excellent analog output stage:
TOTALDAC d1
DCS
Auralic Vega
MSB

 

[edorr]

Does the Berkeley play DSD?
Keith.

Sure. As long as you convert it to PCM. Moot point for me, with 99% of content on PCM.

 

[daytona600]

this beauty does all above & fits in your pocket for $600 Cayin N6 & sounds superb

 

[asiufy]

Hello everybody,

I am trying to deicide between a Preamp and a DAC or a DAC with volume control.
I have a budget of 20K$ to work with.

The DAC has to have a USB input and can handle DSD.

Any advice or suggestions on what to audition?

The rest of the system's components are:
Wilson Alexandria S2 with Krell 402e and transparent ref cables.

Thanks

I've had very good experience with MSB's Analog DAC. For roughly $15k, you can get an MSB Analog DAC, with Quad Rate DSD input, a streamer, and an analog input, in case you want to plug a phono stage/phono preamp. Oh, and a dedicated power supply too.

Volume control is analog, so you don't have to worry about losing your bits there

It's the first DAC I've used direct to an amp, and where the dedicated preamp wasn't necessary.

alexandre

 

[Atmasphere]

We often sell preamps to customers that are digital-only. The reason is that it can sound better than with the DAC alone.

Now for the specifics that make this so:

first, Our preamp supports the balanced line standard while very few high end audio products do. So by interjecting our preamp we can eliminate the artifact of the interconnect cable, which is what the balanced line system is for. So we are selling to customers that have balanced inputs on their amps.

second, Many DACs will have a sonic (audible) degradation as the volume is reduced, which it must be in nearly all cases as DACs make too much voltage for any power amplifier. So you have to knock down the output voltage somehow, and apparently, theory or no, many digital volume controls are not up to the task. I've yet to run into a control that actually sounds as good as the one we make for our MP-1, although there are some that come close (many remote setups tend to be more risky in that regard).

Some DACs are using analog controls which can get around this problem. In the case of such units, it is probably a good idea to keep the interconnect cable short and then things should work fine without a preamp. If a longer cable is needed (+15 feet) then balanced line is a good option and I find that many modern DACs that have balanced outputs are not up to the task. That's where we often make a sale.

So the bottom line: it depends.