Just curious...

I'm getting that legendary (and extremely cheap) NEC 602 with caddy pretty soon and probably a Di/O dac for it (although I may go Muse II).

Look @ the transport...

Hello DJ

Check this out!
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_10_4/benchmark-dac-one-11-2003-part-1.html

I use a Cadillac CTS. I have had some sport mods done on it (thanks to a friend of mine) and it makes a great transport.

(Sorry, couldn't help it .)

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

Ah, but you see, if you put the receiver into Direct mode (or whatever, mine doesn't have it...) then the pure, pure, analog signal from the external DAC will pass through pristine to your speakers. You can tell I don't put a lot of stock in this. And even if I did, I wouldn't be using a 10 year old $5 CD-ROM drive as a transport. I will admit that good quality DACs could make a difference, but...

Okay...so that's how you can do digital to analog and still have it pushed through without modification by the receiver.

Nice..that clears it up!

Thanks,

Nick

Well if you use the digital input on your reciever, your reciever is BEING the DAC and the pre-amp and the power-amp stages in the audio chain. Is there a difference between using a dedicated DAC and transport as opposed to your reciever and the digital output of some standard CDP? Many people seem to think so. I got the pleasure to hear the NEC 602 transport that I linked above with a Di/O by ART and it just blew me away. You'd be surprised what kind of details are hidden away, that you wouldn't ordinarilly find. The differences are subtle though, no doubt about that. And as to using a $5 drive as the transport, well, these are supposed to be extraordinarilly good quality (probably because of the caddy).

I was reading up some more on these and someone pointed out that you could have a good DAC and if the transport (in my case it would likely be a DCM-380 5 disc carousel from Denon) was garbage it likely wouldn't help very much.

I wonder if this is true or not?

I have to admit I'm curious at how much one of these could improve, and in turn how they would compare to CD output from something like the Denon 5900 which is regarded as excellent for both audio and video.

This applies to me because we're looking at a 5900 for the DVI input and the extra benefit would be good audio for when I'm feeling snobby The rest of the time, the 380 will work for my wifes more practical need for a 5 disc changer.

I wonder if the 380 with a quality DAC would be a third step above the 5900.

-Nick