My worry was mostly that when I put my volume at 100% in software and listen from the RCA outs of my SMSL M100 it is way to loud to be able to use my HD598s or Moondrop Starfields. I’d like to use 100% volume on the computer to retain all the detail, as I heard digital volume change lowers quality.
Basically, I was just wondering if I could also use an amp as passive volume control to go lower than it’s input when using these headphones and be able to use 100% volume in hardware.
Sometime in the future I’d want to buy higher impedance headphones, so that’s why I’m looking at AMPs and not just a passive volume control.
EDIT:
To give you an idea of how low I’d need it to go I currently use about 5% volume when playing music directly to the audiocard using ALSA and mpd on linux (windows equivalent is probably using a media player that supports AISO drivers).