So
this may very well highlight my own misunderstanding of how these systems work, but yes, the RME has dual XLR analog balanced line out, however the volume controls the power output of those XLR outputs, which as far as I understand means that the signal is not only being processed by the internal DAC and EQ, but also the internal Amp.
It's not using the whole amplifier stage, just the preamp stage.
When people say "DAC-HPamp" there are actually three stages - a DAC with an analogue output stage, the preamp stage, and the amp output stage. Unless it's one of those digital gain amplifiers like the stuff from Wadia and NAD etc, regardless of whether there are preamplifier outputs or not, there is a preamplifier stage to control the amplifier output stage.
Think of it like the DAC being the ECU, the amp is the engine, and the preamplifier is the transmission. And those fancy digital gain amplifiers (
not merely digital volume control, like on modern Meier amps, plus any amps that uses a button or an HT receiver with an infinitely spinning rotary knob) or as they call them "Power DACs" (it's basically a DAC that feeds straight into an analogue output stage, nixing the analogue preamp stage) are basically Teslas.
Think of a Power DAC like a smartphone audio chip where the Power DAC is a Tesla and the smartphone audio chip is a Tamiya 4WD.
I do not want this Amp to process and color/degrade the signal to the higher quality amp downstream.
that making sense? Please correct me if I’m in error
Any preamp can have some coloration...if you hook it up to a test bench and find one preamp is 0.001% THD+N while another is 0.0005% THD+N. Unless it's a tube amp that deliberately colors it or a really bad solid state preamp I wouldn't really worry about it.
What I would worry about is whether the downstream amp has its own preamp and not just basic gain controls.
When your DAC or theater DSP has a preamp output you use that with pure power amps - like those monolithic boxes for home speaker systems - since they don't have their own preamps. You can also use a DAC with a preamp with powered monitors with only the most basic gain controls, or car audio DSPs feeding a preamp signal to amplifiers that have a similar gain control, for one reason: you're not supposed to stand and turn one knob on each pro monitor or even just the one knob on a Master-Slave home monitor system, much less have to park the car and reach into the trunk to twist some tiny gain knobs in an amp that's probably mounted under the seat or under some kind of plexiglass to protext the the heatsink from getting scratched by your cargo (hopefully with vent holes on the plexiglass).
If you're using an integrated amplifier to drive passive speakers or a headphone amplifier, you have to use a DAC's regular analogue line output. It's still analogue, since the DAC is a Digital to Analogue Converter, and not a DDC, but it totally can't function as a DAC without that.
If you want totally zero coloration from before the amplifier then the only ways to do that is to use one of a "Power DAC"...but then again if you want to use an EQ then there's going to be coloration anyway, not to mention a Power DAC can't integrate an analogue EQ. If you just want coloration that you dictate, well, then use a digital EQ with a Power DAC.
