So, just to make sure I understand...Normally if you have a CD player and you hook it up via digital to a receiver the receiver will not touch the signal and will just be a throughput to the speakers.
If you hook the cd to the receiver via analog cables the receiver will use it's own DAC's and convert the analog signal to digital and output it.
So where does the DAC1 come into the mix? If you had a CD player and hooked it up to one of these via digital inputs (as dictated by the inputs on the back) it would then take the signal and convert it to analog and you could output it to a receiver? If so, wouldn't the receiver just treat the input as analog and reconvert it to digital thus "affecting" the quality?
We had a discussion about digital to analog inputs a couple of weeks ago and I have to admit at the time I could hardly keep it straight. It could be that I have scenario 1 and 2 reversed or that I'm using the DAC1 incorrectly in scenario 3.
It's not like I could convince my wife to spend $850 on a little box anyway...no way in heck. But I'm still interested in learning.
-Nick
