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Topic: USB dac as pre-amp, how does it work (Read 3247 times) previous topic - next topic
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USB dac as pre-amp, how does it work

Hello -
I'm curious about something...
I have a Toppng DAC and like many of these types of DAC it can be used in "pre-amp mode" or direct.
(It's a usb dac used with windows, foobar, etc).

Now, when I use it in normal or direct mode I can still control the volume through the Windows volume mixer,
and I have checked and found that this seems to be linked to the Topping driver - ie running ToppingUsbAudioCpl.exe
brings up a dialog screen where output levels, buffer size etc can be adjusted, and changing the volume here will
change the volume in the mixer and vice versa.

So am I correct in assuming that by doing this I am actually physically controlling the DAC as though it were in
pre-amp mode? (In which case, what's the difference !? ).

thanks in advance, and apologies for a possibly rather boring question!