Given you have an integrated amp, you have a volume control. I assume you have the SB3 connected digitally to the DAC...
The consensus is that you should preferentially use the analog volume control if possible. This means setting SB3 to full volume on the digital output side. Similarly on the DAC side, have it output at a constant (full) line level. Then use the integrated amp volume control to actually set the volume. This will preserve dynamic range through the digital chain. If you find that your full line level is not properly matched to the integrated amp, and you have to set the integrated amp volume control "too low", you can add attenuation between the DAC and the integrated amp. The benefit of adding fixed attentuation in front of the integrated amp is that the noise floor will get reduced as well as the signal, preserving SNR, instead of decreasing the DAC volume, which reduces signal but not noise, thus decreasing SNR. -- Eric Carroll Transporter-Bryston 3B SST-Paradigm Reference Studio 60 v.4 SB3-Rotel RB890-B&W Matrix 805 SB3-Pioneer VSX-49TXi-Mirage OM7+C2+R2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Carroll's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9293 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32929 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
