From that interview, it seems that their built-in room-correction software operates at a sample rate of 48kHz. There’s a strong implication
The issue is that doubling the sampling rate also doubles (roughly) the processing requirements needed. This is true for any kind of digital processing not just MultEQ. The AVR makers would have to add significant cost for more DSP processing and they have chosen not to do that.
that the same 48kHz sample rate applies to all of their built-in DSP, not just the room-correction stuff.
Either way, this applies both to the digital and the analogue inputs. Which probably means that the AK5358BET ADC in your Dad’s Denon AVR is operating at 48kHz, not at the full 96 it is capable of.
For one, it plays 11.2Mhz, DSD256 and 192, up to 384khz, thru it’s USB port on front. It reports that is what it is doing. That port plays digitally, although it will only take a flash drive. I tried connecting a USB external drive into it and though it powers it it reads it as ‘no drive detected’.
However, the sound of the DSD256 and the 192khz files was not good to our ears thru that input.
I also just had it from the horses mouth, an expert on the Yamahas, that it would be pointless to use a DAC of higher res than the Yamaha high end DACs, which handle 384khz and at least 256DSD, maybe DSD512, I didn’t look at that bit.
So no, that Yamaha does not downgrade any signal to 96khz. The RCA connections can and do handle very high resolutions. There is just no point adding a DAC which handles higher than 384khz PCM because that is the maximum the Yamaha DAC handles.
I am annoyed at myself for allowing a piece of misinformation to make me doubt not just my own ears but my husbands ears as well.
Just altering various settings in the DAC and Roon/HQP make it very clear that the Yamaha is not overriding them.
However, having been communicating witht he Yamaha experts, I now know NOT to get a higher res DAC as that WOULD be pointless because the AVR will not play higher PCM than 384khz.
I am leaving all as it is. I am satisfied now that my set up is working the way I hear it is and that there is no point getting a DAC with a higher res than the ESS DACs in the Yamaha.
Since you have access to a Yamaha expert, would you mind asking him or her, “The ADC in the RX-A3080, which converts analogue inputs to digital, what sample rate does it operate at?”
It is hard to find an authoritative answer to that question anywhere on the internet.
We do appear to be speaking at cross purposes. Analogue signal don’t have a resolution.
Edit: Just so we’re clear. When we’re talking about the “RCA connections”, we’re talking about the pair(s) of red and white jacks that look like
which are analogue inputs, and not the digital coax jacks that look like
(which are digital inputs). Right?
Those two are logically independent: digital inputs processed at 192kHz, analogue inputs digitized at a different sample rate. They could be the same, but they don’t have to be.
The RME ADI-2DAC is very good and is the only sub £1k DAC of quality that I have listened to that also does 768 kHZ. If you can ween yourself off that very high resolution, however, there’s a world of great DACs out there.
I currently use the Audiolab M Dac+ (£800) and have no regrets. A “left-field” choice would be the Audiolab 8300cdq, a CD player and DAC (same DAC as the M DAC+) combined (£1000).
At a similar price point (£800 - £1000), I would recommend the Mytek Liberty DAC, based on the information that it is a Mytek Brooklyn but without the pre-amp bells and whistles. The Brooklyn is very good.
I would also recommend the Chords you are unimpressed by, so perhaps take my recommendations with a pinch …
