From Mithat's Desk

Many folks agree that the DVA Digital Preamplifier DAC is something special.¹ Clients who have them love them. Last year, The Sound Advocate proclaimed, "The Van Alstine DVA Digital Preamp is unquestionably recommended!" And most recently, Part Time Audio included it in one of their "best of 2025" lists, stating, "My entire system sounded faster, cleaner and more powerful with the Van Alstine DVA Digital Preamplifier."

We've kind of grown used to this kind of praise. :-)

There are myriad details that make the DVA Digital Preamplifier what it is, including the high-performance discrete gain circuits that we covered previously, the carefully balanced reconstruction filter design, and the use of low impedance active voltage references for the DAC IC. This post is about another subtle yet important detail: How the DVA Digital Preamplifier resolves a dilemma regarding support for both XLR differential and RCA single-ended outputs.

A discrete audio opamp I designed a while back and that's used in AVA products to this day will celebrate its tenth anniversary next year. So, I thought the time was right to say some things about it and discrete audio in general.

If you peruse the things that Frank Van Alstine said in the previous century, one of the gems you might find is his view that audio gear shouldn't re-interpret an artist's intent. Rather, it should function as a perfect copy machine. Others have referred to this philosophy as "straight wire with gain."

I believe Frank needed to emphasize this at the time largely because of the increasing fashionability of single-ended class A tube power amps -- which as a rule came with with low linearity and high output impedance. The occasionally pleasant effect this combination can create became a marketing lever for many manufacturers. "Warm. Rich." Buzzwords for a loose low end and signal masking. What they never said was, "Not as the artist intended." Nor, "Works great for some stuff, not so much on others."