Help me I’m confused

Hi all

I don’t know whether I’m a bit stupid or this is too complicated for me to understand

I have 2 set ups

  1. A Marantz amp/dac and Elac speakers

  2. a raspberry Pi4 with dragonfly black and headphones

I get lossless music out of the Pi and Dragonfly and CD quality from the Marantz ( at best )

My question is:

Do I get lossless because of Riopee or the Dac

If I want lossless from my speakers am I better off getting a Pi and hooking it up to a DAC and roon ready amp rather than the Marantz that is just roon tested?

David, CD is lossless for all intents and purposes.

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The DAC in the Marantz isn’t as capable as your dragonfly.
I have a Marantz and it can do 24/192 native. I believe. I added a different DAC and have more available options.

When you select the DragonFly you are bypassing the onboard Marantz DAC.

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Ok thank you for that

So my Dragonfly is hooked up to a Pi4 standalone

So can I connect something like a schit Dac which is Roon Ready to my Marantz streamer ? And choose the schit Dac as the endpoint ?

Welcome

Yes. You can.
You can even route the rpi4/dragonfly into a rca input on the marantz and use it that way to save a few bucks while sorting it all out.
3.5mm-> rca should not be a big cost.

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@David_Pullum does the Marantz have non digital inputs ? You could connect another DAC to those.

Edit,
As said by @MamaTried

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Thank you

the Pi4 and dragonfly are over the other side of the room to use with my headphones

So just to confirm for me if I get a schit Dac I can plug that into the Marantz via what port ? and then the speaker cables plug into the schit Dac ?

@David_Pullum stick the Marantz model number in here mate.

Basically you want to bypass the internal digital circuit of the Marantz and just use it as an amp in this case.

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Ok I see so it’s an MCR 612

The model number we can give you specifics.
In general, aux1 would be fine.
Plug output from the Schiit into the aux inputs. set the tuner to the aux1 input.

Your speakers stay as they are connected now.
It’s basically a nerdy tape deck or cd player (you could use those inputs too if unused)

Given that model. You have 1 analoge input for rca and 2 for digital.
depending on which you want to use from the DAC, you would pick the corresponding spot.

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Haven’t figured out which one yet , I find it hard enough to work out how this all works :grinning:

Plug the external DAC in the ‘analog in’

Then select that via the input button on the remote or the amp

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That’s great thank you for all your help

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Schiit doesn’t make a Roon ready DAC.

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Before purchasing anything new, I would connect the digital out from the RPi 4 (if it has that) directly to the Marantz. It is a fantastically simple setup and it is good to test with what you have first.

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