Hello
thanks for the reply
Yea I agree the analog output varies widely. Besides the quality, the popping sound when you turn them on sometimes is a real pain.
about the DAC. I have my linux apps setup to pass the audio out the spdif. In some apps it is called ac3passthru and in some I just call out the hardware location of the spdif. I am using the Alsa sound subsystem. I just assumed that a DAC was not used in this case. I cant imagine why one would be utilized. By the same token I was thinking the dac on the squeezebox would only be utilized if you were using the analog output of the squeezebox. If you have some quick links to clarify this, I'd love to see them. this is something i havent researched, just assumed.
Now I looked at a couple of reference docs and maybe even on spdif output the mixing is done in analog ? I am hoping I am mistaken. Seems sorta silly, but my knoweldge is limited. My nvidia motherboard has a realtec ALC850 chip in it for audio.
link to ALC850. Most of this soars over my head.
Cant really comment on the cotton shielded silver wire, I just go middle of the road on that kind of stuff. Just ordered some HDMI cable from monoprice.com, and felt guilty they were so cheap.
I have a large mp3 collection that unfortunately is at 128kb. back in the day i just had small computer speakers, and couldnt hear a difference and stored all my stuf that way. Now I am using FLAC for all new stuff, and actually using lala.com to retrieve my old favorites to facilitate reripping in FLAC.
Using the spdif out is new to me, so thanks for discussing it with me.
Randy
ps. my daughters love the little smiley faces on here. the 4 year old calls em smiley stickers
Quote:
This actually opens up a whole new can of worms.
The next issue is the DAC. This is what converts the digital audio into analog (drivers are analog so there has to be a DAC somewhere in the pathway).
If you pop over to www.head-fi.org you will find people that claim to hear differences with cotton shielded silver wire. . . and further differences after the wire has been broken in.
The next question is what quality audio files are you listening to?
I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I have most of my collection ripped to FLAC and APE. So do I go for the Yamaha RX-V2700 and play mp3's or WAV, the $249 Squeezebox or perhaps get the $1999 transporter.
