I know this involves personal preference, but can anyone suggest the best, or most suitable, I/V stage for me, please?
A Buffalo3 will be feeding either:

i) my opamp-based volume control/preamp - diyparadise Beyonce2 (PGA2311 chip)

or if I choose to use software-control of the DAC for volume adjustment, I can forget the preamp and go straight to

ii) my T-amp - diyparadise Charlize2 (TA2020 chip)
Note that the Charlize2 has no input coupling capacitors.

My speakers are MA Alpair 7 fullrange, in compact cabinets.

So ...

- IVY ?
- Legato ?

and although it's outside the scope of this forum, perhaps ...
- transformer output, as per Joe Rasmussen's suggested configuration on the diyaudio forum ?

Thanks.