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I'm a complete noob and I'm trying to understand something.
I have a dedicated preamp/line stage that I may be looking to replace it with a dac with a built in preamp. It (my current preamp) has got a max output of 16V/8V on it's balanced/unbalanced outputs. I use balanced. My amp has a input sensitivity of 4.2V.
Earlier today, I was playing some classical music and I noticed a couple of things. One, I was seeing peaks on the VU meters just slightly above 45W. So I assume I was using possibly up to 100W of power. Probably closer to 50-60W I suppose. Can't be 100% sure because I wasn't listening 1 meter away, and the speakers specs are 94dB sensitive. Not sure how much volume loss exactly I get listening 8 feet away and my room size.
Anyway, I was thinking of getting a DAC with a volume control and feed my amplifier like that direct. With a voltage input sensitivity of 4.2V, my amp needs 4.2V to get its max rated power, correct? What makes me very confused is when observing the power levels of my amp earlier today, (and, my ears, to make sure I was comfortable with the musical peaks) I had my preamp set to 50 percent. The volume readout is set as a percentage.
If the max output of the preamp is 16V, and the volume was set to 50%, that obviously means the preamp wasn't feeding my amp 8V, right? Wouldn't 4.2V basically blow up my speakers? They're only rated to 300W RMS. And they're 94dB sensitive, so feeding them the amplifiers max rated output of 450W I think would either cause instant deafness, or just blow them up.
I'm sorry if I'm not asking the right questions, approaching this wrong, or not providing enough information. I just want to know if a DAC with a preamp built in would be a feasible solution for me. A lot of the preamps I was looking at have a output of 4V, and I was worried that they won't work well.
I have a dedicated preamp/line stage that I may be looking to replace it with a dac with a built in preamp. It (my current preamp) has got a max output of 16V/8V on it's balanced/unbalanced outputs. I use balanced. My amp has a input sensitivity of 4.2V.
Earlier today, I was playing some classical music and I noticed a couple of things. One, I was seeing peaks on the VU meters just slightly above 45W. So I assume I was using possibly up to 100W of power. Probably closer to 50-60W I suppose. Can't be 100% sure because I wasn't listening 1 meter away, and the speakers specs are 94dB sensitive. Not sure how much volume loss exactly I get listening 8 feet away and my room size.
Anyway, I was thinking of getting a DAC with a volume control and feed my amplifier like that direct. With a voltage input sensitivity of 4.2V, my amp needs 4.2V to get its max rated power, correct? What makes me very confused is when observing the power levels of my amp earlier today, (and, my ears, to make sure I was comfortable with the musical peaks) I had my preamp set to 50 percent. The volume readout is set as a percentage.
If the max output of the preamp is 16V, and the volume was set to 50%, that obviously means the preamp wasn't feeding my amp 8V, right? Wouldn't 4.2V basically blow up my speakers? They're only rated to 300W RMS. And they're 94dB sensitive, so feeding them the amplifiers max rated output of 450W I think would either cause instant deafness, or just blow them up.
I'm sorry if I'm not asking the right questions, approaching this wrong, or not providing enough information. I just want to know if a DAC with a preamp built in would be a feasible solution for me. A lot of the preamps I was looking at have a output of 4V, and I was worried that they won't work well.