Soundcard,dac with high gain

[gasolin75]

My Triangle and Yamaha network amp is not the most bright sounding combination (despite what you might think) so i tried what i have of speaker cable.

Then i tried my M-Audio M-Track Solo and it dit sound a little brighter then using my cheap asus pci soundcard (to get optical,toslink out from my pc) with a dh labs toslink cable of good quality, general no bad

Only problem is gain, i have volume trim at + 8db on the amp (that is what it had when i used that input for my turntable, built in phonostage in my tt) and 8 on the soundcard but still a little low (same goes for a mackie onyx artist 1.2 usb soundcard,interface when i had one)

If i want something with gain control instead of a pci soundcard at 100%, it could be a usb studio soundcard (or dac), the one i have from M-Audio sounds fine but it needs to have higher gain

Just a little more expensive than my M-Audio M track solo, 60-70 euros, nothing crazy

What would you recommend ?

 

[staticV3]

What Amp do you have?

 

[gasolin75]

Yamaha r-n600a

 

[staticV3]

Yamaha r-n600a

The M-Track Solo and Onyx Artist 1•2 can output 1.2V via RCA.

For 30€, you can buy an SMSL PS100 with 2.0V via RCA.

With either soundcard set to 100%, the PS100 will play about 30% louder.

Regardless what soundcard you end up using, check with a multimeter that you really get the full, rated output voltage.

It's possible that you have another volume control somewhere in your system which is bottlenecking the output.

 

[gasolin75]

I don't use 2 cards

No just low gain from the soundcard

 

[staticV3]

I don't use 2 cards

No just low gain from the soundcard

I don't understand, sorry.

The SMSL PS100 will give you more than enough gain to easily push the Yamaha to its limits. It will be louder than your previous soundcards.

Should you give it a try and the PS100 is still not loud enough, then your gain problem lies elsewhere, not inside the soundcard.

Check with a multimeter.

 

[gasolin75]

How about this dac, it has the advantage of being plug and play and forget (no power button) and 2.5 Vrms

FX-AUDIO FX03 DAC USB ES9028Q2M 32bit 384kHz DSD256 Black - Audiophonics

This small, affordable FX AUDIO FX03 DAC is no less high quality. It incorporates an ESS Technologie ES9028Q2M DAC chip and an SA9137L chip, enabling it to decode up to PCM 32Bit 384kHz and DSD up to DSD256.

www.audiophonics.fr

 

[AnalogSteph]

I would press the reset button here and go back to Toslink into the receiver, which is likely fine, followed by investigating:
* the tone controls on the R-N600A
or, even better,
* system-wide EQ options

Having an audio interface on hand will come in handy as it enables the use of a range of measurement microphones using REW (with MMM). If you are serious about investigating the treble range, at least some form of individual calibration (either 0° or 90°, ideally both) is highly recommend, otherwise it really is a crapshoot as the results of 1000 calibrations of various models demonstrate:

1000 Mikrofonkalibrierungen - eine Übersicht

HiFi-Selbstbau - Das DIY Online Magazin für hochwertiges HiFi

www.hifi-selbstbau.de

This is likely to blow the budget, but I'd rather have that than wasting more money in the DAC department, where it is not effective.

 

[NTK]

The input sensitivity of the line level analog inputs for the Yamaha R-N600A is 0.2 V. I highly doubt insufficient output capacity of the source devices is the root cause.

R-N600A | Specifications

manual.yamaha.com

 

[gasolin75]

Just notice that the m-track soundcard,interface always has had low gain,max gain is more like a turntable

Just tested it and gain is no more than mabye a couple of db low max 3db of precived difference, volume trim is 8 for the analog in and the m-track card for the optical,toslink volume trim is 3.5db