Stan's New Dac - any reviews yet?

[Dougr33]

You could go one stage further and drive the power amp from the fixed output of the 7520, but you would be need to be very sure your software digital volume controls in iTunes and in Windows were not likely to mis-behave and deliver a dangerous pulse to your amp and speakers.

The output of the Airport Express would need to be well matched to the input sensitivity of the amp so that you did not need to use more than (say) 20% attenuation or you might hear some degradation in sound.

It would be safer to leave an analogue volume control in circuit - either the one in the pre-amp or that in the 7520.

A very good post, but I'd like to add my 2 cents: This just isn't worth the risk of something happening (on a reboot or crash) to the software volume setting, if matched with a superloud passage, damaging your speakers (as your amp will now be "turned up to 11"). And I think it's generally acknowledged that there's "some" degradation of quality, perhaps tiny, with the software volume use.