Life after Yggdrasil: Watering the Ash

I have this streamer's manual on my desktop and find only one reference to its preamp mode. It's on pg-28, and says nothing: So there is a "Pre-amp mode," and if you can figure out how to set it, you should be able to use your remote (or the volume pot itself) to set & forget a lower voltage output to your headphone amp. If you succeed in doing this, you in effect, be able to choose where on the hp amp's volume pot, you wish the useful volume range to be (which is what I do in my side system, as described in the post above):

"Pre-amp
With Pre-Amp mode enabled the volume of the device's analogue output can be controlled using the app, the remote or the rotary dial.
For more information see our FAQ."
​

I know almost nothing about the Rockna...it's way out of my price range, also larger than I could use in either desktop system. It's very difficult to tell, but I don't believe this DAC has volume adjustment. Thus, given its even higher balanced output (7.7 volts is crazy/high), you would only compound your problems in using a downstream headphone amp ... unless you put a preamp or volume controller of some kind between the DAC and hp amp (a lot of trouble to go to).

I'm a HUGE fan of NOS digital (my favorite); also of multibit/R2R digital. Different DAC designers get somewhat different sound out of their NOS or multibit designs, but in general, I find these designs more musical, less artificial-sounding, less "hyped," with less emphasize of transients and more rendition of the body of each note (ie, 3D instead of 2D).

RE: "Is NOS like using your Streamer with Network Cable and Play in Roon losless?" Not at all if your DAC is a delta-sigma design, not NOS (non-oversampling) or multibit design.

But I have to confess to extreme ignorance about streaming and streamers in general. Many streamers (incl. yours) have built-in DACs, but there's always a way to bypass that internal DAC in favor of an external DAC you like the sound of better. But many NOS and multibit DACs have limited at best capabiliities for things like MQA and DSD, if those things matter to you.

 

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bc ur losing bits.

can someone who is good at the bittage, please tell me if you reduce volume in the digital domain, does it throw away bits from a 20b DAC starting at 20b--so it goes down to 18b or something at 87% volume--or does it start discarding at the source material level, say redbook 16b? So it reduces immediately at 99% to less than 16b?

I feel as though it's the latter, bc digital volume attenuation sounds like shit.

 

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/how-does-digital-attenuation-work.5687/