Hi everyone,
I am new here and in the process of buying a complete new system. The speakers I have selected after listening to 20+ different floor standers are the Klipsch RP-8000f, and based on a whole lot of research I have also settled for a Purifi amp with the EVAL1 buffer which I still need to order. I am really struggling with how to drive the amp without losing the benefits of it (low noise, clean and excellent SQ).
My main concerns are volume control, balanced input (or not) and avoiding blowing up my speakers because of the input Voltage/gain of the EVAL1 input buffer. As you all know the Purifi EVAL1 power amp has max volume at an input Voltage of 1.5V. Ideally, one would hook the amp up to a balanced XLR DAC for a fully balanced connection but I wouldn't rely on just the volume control of a balanced DAC as I am reading online that some DACs sometimes revert to 100% volume after a power outage for example. That would blow my new speakers/ears (and amp?) and is an unacceptable risk. I would therefore need to add a passive volume control (like this
JBL Nano Patch+) which may or may not add distortion/noise. How have you guys solved this problem? It also just seems silly to use a balanced DAC with a 4V RMS output to then limit that gain before it goes into another gain stage (EVAL1) and then into the Purifi modules.
An alternative is to go with an unbalanced DAC and use a modified RCA to balanced XLR cable (
like the one from March Audio) just because that opens up a whole lot more DACs (at lower prices, such as the
E30) to choose from, do you see any issues with that approach? However, if you then add a passive inline attenuator such as the
Schiit Sys passive preamp (which adds noise at reduced volume) to make sure that the E30 can run at a higher volume (with lower distortion, right?) and for the aforementioned speaker/amp safety reason, won't you lose all the benefits of using the March Audio 'balanced' RCA to XLR cable? With this setup [E30 DAC - RCA to Schiit Sys - March Audio 'balanced' RCA/XLR to Purifi EVAL1 amp] there would be an unbalanced RCA connection from the DAC to the Schiit, followed by the 'balanced' RCA/XLR connection to the amp.
Furthermore, does the EVAL1 contain the necessary RF filters to stop the issues as recently raised by March Audio in
this Purifi thread?
Apologies for all the text, but how can I best drive a Purifi EVAL1 power amp and how do you guys drive the amp? I just want to hook it up via Toslink and computer via USB whilst having remote volume control without running the risk of blowing up my speakers and ears!
Cheers