Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Want New CD Player

I was playing around earlier with my setup. My Yamaha 5 disc changer was hooked to the Denon 3805 via optical cable. The alternate setup was using my old Audio Alchemy DAC-In-The-Box, the same optical cable and some high quality interconnects in lieu of the Denon onboard DACs.

After playing few songs and switching back and forth I found that using the Audio Alchemy DAC seemed to give a better soundstage (vocals more focused to center, rather than slightly dispersed), a little tighter bass and quite different highs.

I say different highs because the jury is still out on that one. Cymbals seemed a little more rolled off on the high end, but more realistic than the very high pitched and crisp sound from the Denon DAC. I need to play with more source material to make a final decision which to use when listening to music with the M60s.

I did adjust the volume to achieve a constant output when switching back and forth as there was a 2dB increase when using the offboard DAC.