I ı was using s500 power with premiere dac as pre amp and dac. I felt it was too bright but most important problem i had was VVOLUME CONTROL. It was a digital volume control and had to be always somewhere between 85 too 100. With the gain control on my s500 it was possible but especially late night low volume şistening i was dissapointed. No soundstage and resolution compare to volume 85-100 range. So i sold the premier.
I am now using my MSB s500 amp with an Allnic L10000 300b tube pre amp and mola moşa tambaqui dac. It is a great system but fac lacks behind. So i want to upgrade the dac to cascade. But if the volume control is like a analog pre amp i can sell the allnic pre to found cascade.
Is it really a analog pre amp that cascade has?
By the way speakers are Estelon X Diamon Signature Edition
@agencal , the Cascade DAC includes a fully analog Preamp. I understand where you are coming from with the Premier, especially with the revealing performance of the S500 with Estelon speakers. For the Cascade Preamp, it is a new design that outperforms even the Select DAC’s preamp. We have lots of great feedback and the majority of Cascade owners use the internal preamp. Paired with the S500, this will be a knockout system
I am sure others will have some feedback for you as well.
So it means , it will act like any ordinary pre amp when it comes to volume control. It will not decrease bits and loose resolution in love volumes like premiere’s digital volume control? If do that is great.
As a soundstage freak may i ask how is the soundstage and holography?
It’s NOT a digital volume control. Its analog. One of the features my Cascade brought over my Reference MSB DAC was an improved soundstage and 3D imaging! Hope this helps. Scott
@agencal This is the volume control explanation section of the Cascade User Guide and it should help explain the implementation of it a little bit.
Preamp/Volume Control Information
The volume control in the Cascade DAC operates by reducing the output of the DAC modules passively when set below “100”, while keeping the output impedance at exactly 75 Ohms. This is done in the analog domain without the use of buffers or amplifiers using completely passive attenuation. At “100” the Cascade does not attenuate the signal, the DACs full power is available at the outputs and still has a 75 Ohm output impedance. For settings “101-106” the Cascade applies gain in the digital domain before conversion (the analog inputs also switch from a +0dB buffer setting to a +6dB buffer setting). Since the Cascades maximum output voltage of about 3.5 volts RMS is above the input sensitivity of the vast majority of power amplifiers, the majority of amplifiers will clip long before the DAC runs out of signal headroom. The extra 6dB of gain available above “100” is intended for quiet recordings that were not recorded with sufficient gain.
All of the Cascades attenuation settings, “0-99”, are close to lossless. They closely approach the theoretical noise floor and distortion produced by a 75 Ohm resistor at room temperature. This residual noise is called thermal noise. In fact, you can’t get below this noise level unless you lower the true output impedance (parallel more DAC modules for example), reduce the bandwidth (eg. apply a low pass filter), or lower the temperature of the system by a large amount (eg. cryo-cool the system). The only way to reasonably increase the performance is to reduce the gain of the amplifier itself, then increase the volume setting. This is an available option of our 500 series amplifiers.
Typical audio volume controls don’t come close to this level of performance. This is because of parasitic effects, such as the winding wire resistance in a transformer volume control, or the variable impedance (usually high) of a potentiometer based volume control. Even most “stepped attenuators” are essentially potentiometers with discrete steps and have a variable output impedance (usually high) with each setting. Active volume controls are usually much worse by combining loss (eg. a potentiometer) with gain (eg. an OpAmp).
I have my M500s set to minimum gain to get the lowest noise level and it works great with the Cascade. My speakers are nominally 91dB sensitivity but is it no problem setting the sound level to way to high for me to listen to, though sometimes I have a guest over who wants that full “dance club” experiance… no problem with with a Cascade setting in the 90s, but never close to 100.
Most listening I do in the sound room is between 75-87 and it’s enough to shake the walls with any of the speakers we have had in there even with the M500s in low gain.
Excuse me if i am asking too much but i did not get my real answer. Maybe my bad sorry
With premiere’s digital volume control even the gain on my s500 is at its lovest i needed to close down the volume down to 50-70 range for late nigt listening. It was a disaster. Lots of detail loss and no soundstage at all conparing 85-100 range. I think it was becouse digital volume control was lowering the level by lowering bits from dac chip. That makes the problem i describe.
So with cascade’s analog volume control it is not a bit lowering method but like an ordinary analog pre amp i can listen in low volumes with the same detail and soundstage like it has in 85–100 range.
I have had the Cascade since it first came out. Yes, the output is passively attenuated, not digitally. From listening I can say that setting the output to a low level does not intrduce any artifacts.
It’s good to be particular about this because so many DAC’s do level control digitally, but not the Cascade.
If you use Roon and the Render module on Cascade, you can adjust the level from Roon, but the level adjust is carried out on the Cascade, Roon does not do it digitally. You can hear the level control relays click relays when you change the level with Roon. All analog all the time .
From the MSB Cascade information page:
“They are passively attenuated and then immediately exit the XLRs”
Check out the MSB info page on the Cascade.
Scroll down to where the heading is Unrivaled analog performance.
@Dan is correct. The Cascade Preamp is fully analog. The Cascade has no digital volume adjustments or control. At the low listening volumes you are using it will perform wonderfully with full resolution! This is exactly what you are looking for
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