DAC Info that may be helpful

Tfish

Can someonehelp please? My equipment consists of Cyrus products and have just purchased the DAC X to compliment the CD 8X. I am waiting for the new CD transport to become availiable! I am interested to know what, if any, the settings on the DAC entitled Phase Adjust and Digital Filter Response do to the sound. The Digital Filter Response (Fast or slow roll-off) seems to alter the tone. The default setting is Fast roll-off but seem to be a bit bright for my ears! If anyone has had experience of the DAC X and these settings I would be very much obliged for an explanation.

hebegbnz

Fantastic Thread! Hopefully still alive?

I am convinced I need a DAC and just have a couple of questions.

What I am trying to achieve;

I want to connect my Media Players (Popcorn Hour) Coaxial Digital output to an external DAC, simply to improve the audio quality of my digital music collection (mp3's)

I also want to connect my DVD/CD/SACD via the digital output to an external DAC, again to improve the audio quality of CD playback. Never been happy with this device, for obvious reasons.

Q1: The following statement in my DVD's manual should only apply to DVD-Audio and SCAD and not affect the CD playback quality should it?
“Due to copy-control restrictions and bandwidth limitation, full resolution audio output from DVD-Audio or SACD playback cannot be sent through the coaxial or optical digital audio output. To listen to DVD-Audio or SACD in full resolution, please use HDMI or analogue audio connections”.

Also I can set the SACD output to PCM in the player setup.

Q2: Is using the Optical output of the CD player and into the Optical input of the DAC an acceptable connection for CD playback.

The DAC that I am looking at has only one Coaxial and one Optical input (VALAB) and I want to use the Coaxial connection for the media Player. Not interested in switching cables dependent on what my source is!

There was an earlier posting by CJROSS suggesting that the Coaxial digital output connection should be used for stereo PCM output not the optical output.

Thanks in advance, any help appreciated

MaturityDodger

Ok, I realise this is a very old thread now, but I have some DAC questions that aren't answered in it. Hopefully we'll get a bit of a refresh for the modern market.

1) Does anybody actually make CD transports without DAC any more? I can't find any except for super high end.

2) Some higher-spec amplifiers now have a DAC built in. In terms of sound quality, is this likely to be as good a solution as a separate DAC feeding a separate amp?

3) If using digital out from the transport device, then would, say, a blu-ray player be as good, or better than, an actual CD player? Looking through the thread the primary concern is jitter, so would blu-ray (or even DVD) which can handle data at a much higher rate than CD be better?

sounddog

Not sure what you consider "super high end" but Cyrus have the CDXT SE  at £1550 and April Music have the Stello CDT100 at (I think) £750. I'm sure there are others...

There's nothing to stop an integrated solution being as good as similar priced combinations. My MF A1008 for instance basically has the same DAC circuitry as the MF X-DAC v8. Some good fully integrated solutions are available from Cyrus, Peechtree and Naim.

Maybe... There's a lot of variation. There have been some good DVD players with low jitter / low (EMI) noise output. But there are many more which are poor.

Eloise

MaturityDodger

Thanks for the info.
To me that is pretty high end, £750 is roughly what I was aiming for as an absolute maximum for my entire solution (or at least whatever I buy at the moment, room to add in future).
I'd appreciate some advice on what sort of thing to go for, but I'll post my full problem statement in a new thread to save the DAC chat from going too far OT.
And my blu-ray player is a Philips BDP5100. I can't find stats for the jitter or EMI noise you mentioned.

tushma

Can someone please tell me is there any significant difference between using dac magics optical or coax imputs, cause i have on my media player only optical out. Thnx!

dean999

in distances less than 5 metres there is no difference. optical is not affected by EMI & RFI, but coax can be , so a well shielded coax is preferred in an electrically noisy environment.

hebegbnz

My experience with a $300 Oppo DVD player using the digital output via Coax into my Valab DAC was tragic!

I have read a few posts on this forum around the difference between Optical and Coax and I can say that the common opinion, for my DAC, was Coax. However that may vary between DACS.

MaturityDodger

What was the problem? Just sound quality? My BR has no optical, so I have no choice but to go with coax.

1graber2

Nice! bringing this thread back from the dead!
Re: Audioenthusiast questions, I concur with Sounddog's responses, and will ad some info, though sounddog is probably more knowledgable than I am, but I think I might be able to ad some basic info.
1. there are also many cheaper transports out there: they are in the form of a regular high-quality CDP, rather than a dedicated "transport" that is sold and marketed solely as a "transport". The CDP is a transport and DAC in one, so you can buy a good used CDP which has optical outs in the back, which bypasses the DAC in the CDP, allowing you to use your own external DAC (connnected from the digital outs on the CDP).
You will simply have to research used CDPs with reliable transports, and either make sure the laser is properly aligned to read the info from the CDP, or just plan to send in the CDP to a repair center to make sure the laser and internals are working properly. It would be wise to set some money aside just for this, to make sure it is up and running properly from the beginning. I sold my Arcam CDP (MSRP $750 USD, bought for $375 USD), which, in retrospect, I should've just kept to use as a transport.  

2. Integrated vs separate DAC-PreAmp-Amp. As stated, both can be very good, depends what you want. For example, In the old days of audio, there were mostly integrated amps, then audio engineers and manufacturers found that they could improve the sound quality with separate preamp and amp. Then in the 90s, early 2000s, the technology had caught up enough so that they could create integrated amps again which sounded AS GOOD OR BETTER than separates. Thats why we go back to this answer for you: it depends. Both are good, just do some research and decide how much versatility you want in your equipment (separates gives you more options for the long run and will allow you to properly experiment with different equipment).

3. In general, dedicated DVD or CDPs sound better than "all in one" systems.Why? b/c the internal componentry is geared towards ONLY ONE TYPE of processing and sound/video. The Oppo name has gotten rave reviews in the US for an All in One solution. Also, using the Oppo, for example, may allow you to use the internal DAC for video, but also may have a digital out inthe back which allows you to use the Oppo as an Audio Transport, feeding to an external DAC that sounds best for audio (as opposed to video).  

The good thing about products like Oppo is that it can "read" many different formats: CD/DVD/DVD-Audio, for example. E.g. for me: I could buy the Neil Young Volume one in DVD-A, but my CDP at home does not support DVD-A. However, if I had a universal player like the Oppo, I could play Neil's DVD-A,but only use the Oppo as a transport, as I use the digital outs in the back of the Oppo and send the signal to a DAC which is better for audio only rather than audio and video.

Good luck to you, let us know what you decide on and how it works for you
Gary