I'm arranging a new system and have made a shortlist of speakers (in the €4K-€5K-ish realm) and a couple of power amps based on the Hypex Nilai (or perhaps NCx500) or Purifi modules. Power amps based on these modules seem to be of exceptionally high quality, offer all the power needed (I'll retire my Audiomat Solfege 2x25W Class A tube amp) and are relatively cheap. Now I have trouble finding a decent preamp/DAC. It needs to have:
- Volume control (I highly prefer this to be a proper analog control - not a software controlled rotation dial, I don't trust these things)
- XLR output
- DAC (of course decent and recent)
There are a lot of small (cheap) Chinese DAC's that have these features, but they seem to cater the laptop/headphone market. Also there are a lot of streamers with a digital volume control (Eversolo, etc.). However, I already have a Bluesound Node 2 that can be the streamer (I'll be using the digital out to the Preamp/DAC). Finally, I can find a lot of (sometimes very expensive) separate components. As I only have the streamer as my source it seems a bit crazy to buy a preamp just for the volume control (then it is just an expensive volume knob).
Hence it is the combo I'm looking for. I find it odd that this is so hard to find... It would be the perfect component to complement a power amp setup (be it stereo or a pair of mono power amps). Is there something decent without breaking the bank?
- Volume control (I highly prefer this to be a proper analog control - not a software controlled rotation dial, I don't trust these things)
- XLR output
- DAC (of course decent and recent)
There are a lot of small (cheap) Chinese DAC's that have these features, but they seem to cater the laptop/headphone market. Also there are a lot of streamers with a digital volume control (Eversolo, etc.). However, I already have a Bluesound Node 2 that can be the streamer (I'll be using the digital out to the Preamp/DAC). Finally, I can find a lot of (sometimes very expensive) separate components. As I only have the streamer as my source it seems a bit crazy to buy a preamp just for the volume control (then it is just an expensive volume knob).
Hence it is the combo I'm looking for. I find it odd that this is so hard to find... It would be the perfect component to complement a power amp setup (be it stereo or a pair of mono power amps). Is there something decent without breaking the bank?