DAC and Power Amp.

[admin_exported]

Hello everybody!
I have 2 questions:

1). If I connect my laptop to a dac (like DacMagic) can I connect the Dac to a power amp directly? Will I be able to control the volume after that?

2). In the case the answer is no (for the volume part) I am thinking of buying a Mini DACPre from www.mglaudiolabs.com
They offer as an extra, a balanced audio output (XLR) with the possibility to control the volume even for the balanced audio.
I wander though, if a ballanced audio output is really worth it all that extra money they want since then the price doubles.
The power amp will be Bryston 2B SST2.

Thank you very much indeed.

 

[Dave_]

In answer to question 1, no you cant connect the dac magic directly to power amp as it's just a dac, it doesn't have a pre-amp section.So you would need a separate pre-amp to use the dac magic.

I've been looking at the Mini DACpre for a second system myself,mainly because of the add-on remote module, but if you can do without the remote function it's also worth considering Dacs from beresford and ibasso for starters which have inbuilt pre-amps.

Can't answer the second question as i've never used balanced connections.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the adviced. I was afraid that, that was the case for the DacMagic. I'll go for a Dac/Preamp option then.