Will a DAC provide a higher output voltage?

[Founder_film]

Hi

At the moment I am running my DIY amplifier with a passive preamplifier. The amplifier is 20W and when running with my CD player as my source is plenty loud enough for my room and listening levels.

The problem is when I switch to my blu-ray player or iMac as the source I have to crank the volume up on the preamp right up to get a decent listening level.

My question is: would I get a similar output voltage as my CD player if I bought a DAC to connect to my blu-ray player and iMac?

The specs of the Dacmagic for example is 2.1V unbalanced and 4.2V balanced. I cannot find my CD players output voltage on the Cambridge Audio website.

Thanks

 

[cornyfeet]

i have a dacmagic and when playing from my pc/ cd player with the dac it become louder. i have to set the volume lower on my amp as i sit very close to my speakers. this can be a slight problem when listening at low volumes for me as my speakers arent symetrical at low volumes, but i lower the volume via software to counter this.

 

[Corasik]

a lot of CD's are compressed these days to make them sound louder, the output from most movies on the other hand is recorded quietly, so that when loud parts are needed (explosions, gunshots, starships.. whatever) there is plenty of bandwidth in reserve to blast out the effects.

To be honest, if you play a CD in a bluray player, it should be almost identical output level to a dedicated CD player. But a movie will always need the volume cranking up, and adding a dac wont change this, its simply how DVD and Bluray (and cinema film) movies are mastered.

With your Mac, if you use a computer volume control, it simply lowers the volume. Set to max and use the preamp, or use the computers volume and accept it will need the preamp cranked up. A dac might help with the computer if the computer has a poor quality output.

My amp is digital anyway, so all inputs are SP/DIF so the volume is identical from all sources, given the same music (IE CD in CD, CD in BluRay, CD in PC, or FLAC encoded from the hard drive). But movies are still much quieter

 

[Founder_film]

The iMacs output is the headphone jack. So I have to have the volume set to full to get a good output to the amp. I think a DAC would provide better sound quality and a proper line out. I need to think this one over and decide whether I want a DAC or a new amp.