So the analog Volume Wheel of the Pyra is not even a analog volume Wheel?
It's an analogue wheel, but not put in the analogue circuit before the headphones/speakers, instead it's digitized into the DAC input. (Therefore EvilDragon is wrong; there
must be a finite resolution. Atm it's afaik unknown how high the resolution will be; an informed guess was 10bit.)
I'm a tad disappointed too, I must say, most reasons already mentioned here. All the time when the Pandora's features in comparison to a cellphone/game console/pc were discussed, I regularly missed the aspect of the Pandora being a truly formidable audio player.
And a hardware, analogue, in-circuit volume wheel is an extremely rare luxury these days, which to my knowledge no other comparable device offers. I know all the arguments for this decision, and all pros I guess, but still, in my experience, especially when it is about very very low volumes, digital resolution often doesn't offer me a setting between "too loud for my wishes" and "mute". I hope I'll be proven wrong here. Another unknown might be the DACs reaction to the input of a scratching wheel. Also I share the doubts some people mentioned about having no 100% reliable means of shutting the Pandora off. So I'm sad to see that go.
And on the other hand, analogue stereo volume wheels always have a tendency to malform the balance when it comes to low volumes. This could be an advantage of the digitized wheel,
if that's mono or
if it's averaged befor going into the DAC.
These are some aspects not yet having been argued about... I hope... In summary, no reason to cancel the preorder here, though.