Also, thank you all for sharing your personal experiences and thoughts on this matter 
@James would you advise going down to 0.2V line level output to allow lower volume?
Like @Ermos I need to attenuate significantly, in my case when I am listening late at night in the room below bedrooms
If I remove the preamp and go direct from Bartok to my ATC actives, what are your recommendations for addressing the gain issue?
Thanks
How should we react to the two articles below that express opinions of dCS volume controls? Are they mistaken? I do not hear what they seem to.
Last paragraph: " However I also tried the Bartók volume control and would not for myself accept the sacrifice in sound quality: it significantly affected clarity, timing, image depth, micro detail and subjective dynamics, so I would leave it at one of the several fixed levels and use a top class external control instead."
“Running off a top-pedigree dCS source, Angel demonstrated how the slightest engagement of its volume control—which we can assume was executed to a very high level—was immediately obvious as a filtering effect. It sounded like an opacity command by contrast to his own analog controller.”
Just my personal opinion, 6moons is full of subjective opinions that very often has no real basis in fact. Only to be read if one wishes to indulge in mindless entertainment 
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I was influenced by the HFC article to try a preamp between the Bartok and ATC actives
Whether due to euphonic distortion or lack of digital attenuation, I do prefer it with the recently added preamp
But James’ post has now prompted me to A-B test … one for a snowy lockdown Sunday 
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The 0.2V and 0.6V output settings were added as a reaction to modern streaming technologies – AirPlay connecting to your system, whacking the volume up to full and blowing some drivers for example is not fun. Lower output voltages are a useful safeguard against such things. I once serviced a speaker which spat a voice coil across the room because of a smartphone jumping from being connected to the user’s car to their streamer via Bluetooth – by all accounts it gave the cat a hell of a jump.
With that said, to my knowledge in the event of night-time listening where a lower volume is required, the benefit of using a lower output voltage setting and keeping the volume control towards the top end of the range is that with a lower output voltage and higher volume control for quiet listening you keep the signal to noise ratio in the Ring DAC itself higher, as the volume control stage immediately precedes the FPGA’s output to the Ring DAC whereas the output voltage setting takes place after the D/A conversion. The signal to noise in the analogue output stage will still be lower whether using a lower output voltage or a higher voltage but lower volume control, but the conversion stage retains a higher ratio with a lower output voltage in this case. My advice would be to use whatever output voltage setting that allows for higher range usage of the volume control – though I will double check this point on Monday.
Talking about the volume control implementation used in dCS DACs, given the fact that the volume control is simply the last step in what could easily be a very long stage of digital filtering, if working at a lower volume control meant the maths behind this processing was in some way flawed and could create a loss of dynamics in itself, the effects of digital filtering would be pretty horrendous. This definitely isn’t the case when done correctly. The argument is therefore not whether a digital volume control is the correct way vs analogue, to my mind the conversation is actually around whether volume control pre-D/A conversion or post using one of a variety of methods is most appropriate. That becomes incredibly tricky to draw anything meaningful from, because the art of product design is being aware of the trade-offs with different approaches and striking a good balance between the competing compromises. It is possible to get good results with either, and I have no doubt every approach has been considered over the decades with a dCS product. From conversations with our engineers on these topics, honestly the sheer number of angles that are considered when designing each stage of a dCS DAC are genuinely staggering.
I will say that as is the case with every area of dCS products I have ever thoroughly investigated, the system as a whole and end user experience as a whole has been taken into consideration. We aren’t in the game to make products which will win at spec sheet comparisons, we are out to make ones that are at the forefront of what is possible for sound quality. For example, if digital purity was the name of the game, even at the expense of the “end product”, one could simply connect the DAC outputs to the output jacks of the product and let whatever is on the other end of it deal with load matching and such. Adding a line output stage to the DAC will add in the “downsides” an analogue stage will naturally bring (distortion, noise etc.), but will likely allow cables and (unknown) input stages down the chain to be driven much better than would be possible simply by connecting the DAC output directly. This is what, from a spec sheet, would be seen as a compromise in the unit design – but it is one that in the real world results in an improvement in system performance.
I appreciate this may not be a popular opinion in some areas of the internet, but any opportunity for blind testing should be taken where possible when A/B comparing kit. If sound quality is king to you, let your ears be the judge, not the parts of all our brains that are predisposed to want us to think a certain way about a piece of equipment. If that test concludes you prefer the preamp in the system, more power to you (I‘m sure there is a bad pun in there somewhere)!
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The verdict 
Then you are stupid.
I did several not just A/B, but A/B/X comparisons. Let us say: just my bad taste, or psychoaccoustics, or …?
Adding a line output stage to the DAC will add in the “downsides” an analogue stage will naturally bring (distortion, noise etc.), but will likely allow cables and (unknown) input stages down the chain to be driven much better than would be possible simply by connecting the DAC output directly. This is what, from a spec sheet, would be seen as a compromise in the unit design – but it is one that in the real world results in an improvement in system performance.
That is why I asked this community if someone is interested in a separate dCS preamp. It might break your philosophy, on the other hand it might open a practical choice.
I think most of us are in this for pleasure. If you enjoy it more routed through an old amp with the bass and treble turned up and the loudness on then why not?
Of course dCS cannot voice the dac to try to make a particular group happy. They have to make it as close to the recording as possible. It’s up to the individual to alter that to whatever they enjoy if they wish.
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James, thank you for this superb explanation. I am in fact going to spend some time comparing (the extended type, over time, not blind quick-switching) the Townshend with direct output at lower voltage. I won’t be surprised if I learn something new. But it might not change my listening much, because one of the reasons for the Townshend is its easier-to-use, unobtrusive remote. Hmmm, but maybe Mosaic for both voltage and volume control . . … Such wonderful choices we have.
I never thought this was about “breaking philosophy,” so much as it is not what they do. There are hundreds of high-end preamps that, almost by definition, are about individual taste. The DAC, however, is agnostic to all of them. Why step into an inherently lower market share outside their principal expertise?
Not just 6moons. Much of the industry/review press, even some of the forums like Head-Fi and WBF, is little more than hyperventilating tabloidism. The amount of advertising on those pages tells you everything you need to know. They are marketing and selling our wallets to the advertisers. Objectivity is a bit low-octane for that purpose.
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FWIW HFC carries no advertising so in that article Colloms and Todes may be less influenced by revenue; they are still of course only two opinions
Andy, I liked the Colloms piece as well, and other HFC work, and while I am not looking to pick a fight, it’s naive to think they are not affected by industry relations. They are affiliated with many others that do accept advertising. For example, Colloms’ reviews appear in Enjoy The Music, which accepts advertising, and HFC appears on ETM’s web site as an affiliate along with many others. It’s unlikely MC’s extensive reviews are uncompensated. Perhaps they are, but I hope you’ll forgive my circumspection.
P.S. I also think MC is over-infatuated with the Bespoke, which has caused me to be a little more wary of his enthusiasm. I demoed more than one passive pre in my home, including the Bespoke graciously arranged by Harry Sullivan. It was very nice, but to my ears, not the best or most convenient, and I didn’t buy it. To each their own. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Rafael Todes and Jason Kennedy reviews—both of which appear in advertising-supported publications—of the Allegri Reference, but some of the effusive “makes the music sound even better” has to be taken with a grain of salt. I think the Reference is superb. I like the technology it uses and the theory of its design. But its purpose was to add convenience to my system while doing the least damage possible to the music. I don’t think it makes the music sound “better” than straight out of the Vivaldi.
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I’m no defender of those two authors or their opinions, of course the pieces are compensated, we all have to make a living 
If they were affected by industry relations with dCS I’m ok with that; it led me to a demo, purchase and happy place 
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I can’t argue with that … That said, some, like 6moons, PFO etc., tend to veer more towards mumbo-jumbo explanations than others like Stereophile.
You’re also right about HFC, although their biases are not as apparent, once you scratch the surface, it becomes a little clearer that their allegiance is with the manufacturer community, rather than the paying subscribers; after my recent direct interactions with MC about their Ethernet cable/switch review, it became apparent that MC is more interested in staying on the good side of some very questionable Ethernet Cable/Switch manufacturers than providing their readers with actual science. Pity. 
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Agreed. When I first encountered 6moons, I rather enjoyed the unorthodoxy. After a while, it became tiresome.
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Great. Look forward to hearing if SNR varies by output voltage. And if it would even be audible.
Regarding those articles I wondered if they were referring to an older DCS design that maybe didn’t do volume attenuation so well but 7 years would be current Vivaldi I guess. Or a more revealing speaker than mine might reveal what I currently do not hear.
For no good reason I’m pretty sceptical of most UK hifi publications but less so about Stereophile. As a bigger operation I hope they would be less susceptible to review massaging. But who knows.
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I don’t think so though; dCS DACs have had excellent volume control going way back to the late '90s. John Atkinson @ Stereophile reviewed the dCS Elgar DAC in '97 where he had this to say;
For the next sessions I dispensed with the preamp, which gave me the simplest possible signal path: digital from transport to DAC, balanced analog from DAC to amplifier, and the Elgar’s volume control to set playback level. This volume control operates in the digital domain and appears to be properly dithered in that it is free from “zipper noise” as it is operated. With the analog outputs switched to High, the control setting varied between -6dB and -12dB, depending on the recording.
The result was an astonishingly detailed yet delicate presentation. One of the areas where 16-bit digital has traditionally underperformed is when the mix gets really complicated. With poor players/processors, all the soundsources blend together at climaxes, the sound resembling a giant mouth organ. Well, not only was this not what the Elgar did without a preamp in the chain, but it allowed individual sonic objects to be differentiated better than anything I’ve heard. It was equaled in this respect only by the combination of the No.30.5 and the Meridian 518, which is 50% more expensive.
Although my main Amps have changed over many years, my main dCS system has always been direct to Amp; it’s the explosive dynamics and clarity and delicate nuances that gets me every time, I can always hear some of it being lost when I’ve attempted to add a Pre-Amp in-between.
In my dCS system in the Study though, I’ve got a Nagra Tube Pre-Amp that does some real magic to the bottom end without affecting the dynamics and top end too much. I guess the added harmonics of a really good Pre-amp does enhance the experience for many.
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Why do you think there’s that difference between the two systems, Anup? (And what are the systems?)
It still gnaws away at me that I could eventually prefer a dCS direct to power amp…if I move up from the Bartók to Rossini, Vivaldi, or Bonzo Dog (or whatever the next top-end ones are called).
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My main system’s the Vivaldi stack, while my Study has a Bartok. The Bartok without the Nagra is no slouch, but I have the Nagra Pre-Amp in place mainly because of my reel-to-reel deck.
And the Vivaldi stack wouldn’t benefit from the Nagra pre? (I realize there are plenty of reasons we don’t all buy multiple Nagra preamps :-))