Budget DAC with remote control?

[senhorzorro]

Newbie here,
Just got a new TV and see that RCA outs are a thing of the past. I am thinking of getting a DAC to use the TV's optical out, but my amp (SMSL Sa50 ) has no remote for volume. I was looking at the SMSL C100, but wondered if there were any other options?
Also wondered if there are any potential problems of using a DAC as a volume control, instead of being done at the power amp stage?

 

[staticV3]

SMSL C100, but wondered if there were any other options?

There are definitely other options, but the C100 seems to me like by far the best value.

Also wondered if there are any potential problems of using a DAC as a volume control, instead of being done at the power amp stage?

Using the volume control built into the DAC holds some risk.
As the attenuation is done digitally, a bug in the DAC's FW/OS could result in the volume suddenly shooting up, potentially damaging speakers and ears.
Here's one such example of that happening on the Topping E70: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...opping-e70-randomly-went-to-max-volume.42422/

That being said, my overall impression from reading lots of posts here and elsewhere is that SMSL's UI seems to be generally more responsive and stable than Topping's.

In any case, if you want to use the DAC's built-in volume control in favor of a traditional preamp, then I highly recommend that if your Amp has a knob as well, you set that so that 100% volume out of the DAC is just about as loud as you'll ever need during normal use.

That way, should the DAC glitch out and reset to 100% volume, nothing will break.

 

[senhorzorro]

Yikes, that doesn't sound good at all.
I see that nearly all TVs now use ARC / HDMI SEC for audio which makes perfect sense using only one remote. However, I can't seem to find any budget amps that use this technology, although there are hundreds of budget soundbars that do. I wondered if there is any particular reason for this?