I thought you should use -20dB, but never mind.
I believe I have much less actual listening experience than most of our users. 
What I suggested came from my understanding of how different kinds of volume works. It also happens to match conventional audio wisdom.
Great finding.
Indeed this is expected.
The SYS is $49 but I will pay up to $100 if it had a remote control. I am needing a simple, good, inexpensive passive analog volume control (with remote) like that for a small secondary system. So far I have not found any.
Do you know of any?
Thanks in advance
I believe you went the right way. Keep the volume at the amp. Many moons back I and a good preamp without gain control and a DAC with 6v XLR out (and to hot on RCA), at 9 o’clock it was too loud and 12 o’clock was the sweet spot for the amp. Attenuation was transparent and the way to go. plus the cheapest…
Bang for buck the attenuators are amazing! (although arguably just turning the DAC volume down is free).
For the price I’m tempted to get the -20dB version to compare.
I spoke to Sugden recently about using their own dac and the answer was that I would have the same issue, just as the output figures you quoted would suggest. Their advice as to use attenuators as I am now doing. I have -20dB XLR attenuators which seem to be fine and largely solve the problem. I have some RCA Rothwell attenuators available as well should I need to use the unbalanced outputs.
I had previously been using the Leema Dac’s own analogue volume control without a pre amp but there was definitely something lacking with this arrangement (I have a very similar second system to compare with). Using the Sugden pre amp was a significant improvement but the excessive sensitivity was unwelcome. In hindsight I should probably have tried a passive pre amp but they are not something I have any experience with.
A little late in responding but had to add.
As per PSAudio I have the DSD volume set to 92 while I control my volume with my pre amp
So instead of having fixed volume in Roon it is preferable to set at 92 per PSAudio?
Hi Joe…the easy answer is yes.
My question to PS AUDIO was not in relation to ROON. I had just received my CJ 17LS MKII and I wanted to know what is the best way to regulate the volume and get the most detail from the DSD.
Their recommendation was a setting of 92 on the DSD and use my CJ remote for addressing levels of volume.
Doesn’t help the conversation necessarily, but I was stoked to see Soma in your initial post. It’s one of my all-time favorite Pumpkins songs and is criminally underrated imo
I wanted to thank @Nic and the group here for a very helpful conversation. I am looking to solve a similar issue, and am excited about the Rothwell attenuator discovery here. My concern is primarily for child volume safety issues with my setup, as comfortable listening is around 10%-20% (7-8 o’clock?) on my Atoll IN100SE amp, on all three of my sources (Pro-Ject Tube Box S2 phono, Roon via Innuos ZenMini, Marantz CD Player).
I want to significantly bring down the max volume on all of these because the Atoll volume knob is big and tempting. It seems like the Rothwell’s are an intriguing fit here, and now I am just deciding between 15db and 20db, and if ordering directly from them is the way to go. Thanks all for the good thread here.