I would love to spend another US $5,000 to $10,000 on some speakers and an amp, but no more. My Nucleus and Oppo 203 have me covered on that end (plus Meridian Prime and headphone amp).
I know that, the first half. Are you saying that whatever the res that Roon or HQP will upsample to, any amp/avr will play?
My DAC will show PCM 384kHz on the panel when the file has been upsampled to that. My DAC is connected to avr via RCA.(BTW I always wondered if using the XLR is wiser?) The music plays. If HQP upsamples any higher than 384 no sound will be heard. I assume this is because my DAC is a 384 max PCM and max 256DSD.
So this DAC that handles files at 1536kHz PCM and DSD 1024, will play through my AVR because the DAC can handle those resolutions? I know that using a digital USB port it will not play higher than 256 or maybe 512, which ever it is, it will not play a 1024DSD for sure.
No one is suggesting (or at least I am not) a correlation between intelligence and the ability to hear the difference between a low level mp3 recording and an equivalent hi-res version of the same recording.
Whether those of us who are interested in high quality recordings like it or not, many (possibly most) people do not consider it worthwhile to spend a great deal of money on hi-fi equipment that will highlight the difference.
My brother has a massive collection of Classical music on vinyl, CD and tape and streams music in fairly highly compressed mp3 format, and is content to listen to his music on equipment that is a tiny fraction of the cost of my own. We all have very different priorities.
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I really donât know what you are on about. Who said anything about a digital output on a DAC?
My DAC connects to the MicroRendu via USB. The DAC connects to the av via RCA or XLR. I use RCA just because I know what they are. Iknow XLR is also an analogue connection but no idea if it is better or just different. This is analogue. It does not connect digitally. The DAC has other outputs but I have never used them.
So if the DAC shows PCM 1536 that is what will go thru the analogue cables having first been converted to analogue? The sound would not just not work? as it does now?
Yes. An analog output from a DAC can be used by any device with an analog input. The digital input to the DAC is irrelevant because the device just sees the analog signal.
You did in your first post.
DSD and PCM are digital signals. The output from a DAC is an analog signal.
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As i have said many times I donât get audiophile language and perhaps if people were not so pedantic they would know exactly what I was asking instead of making the first point of call making me out to be a fool.
I refuse to believe you are so lacking in. understanding that you do not understand what I was asking. Dimi did.
I have used DACs for years. Do you really think I donât know that it converts digital to analogue? Do you really think I donât know that the signal going from the DAC to the amp is analogue?
My question was simple. Just because the first half wasnât worded in the correct audiophile manner people chose to either ignore it completely and talk about people not knowing the difference between one type of file and another. Which was neither reasonable nor an answer. It wasnât offensive at all though, just baffling.
Un like some of the other answers that made it clear the writer thinks me an idiot who doesnât know what a DAC is.
I have always enjoyed this forum. I wonât be able to again for fear of not wording a question properly and shamed for it.
Iâll get my answers some other way.
Your question has been answered already many times. It makes absolutely NO DIFFERENCE what digital signal you feed your DAC, the output to the amp is the same - an ANALOG wave form that is fundamentally the same regardless of what resolution and sample rate of material was feed to the DAC. As long as the DAC can handle the file it was feed, it will produce the analog signal to the amp and you will hear music. I donât really know how to make it any more clear than that.
I really donât know what you were trying to ask. I can only go by what you did ask.
Dimi said he was unaware of any amp/avr with an inbuilt DAC that could handle a digital input of more than 768kHz.
That doesnât mean that there are no amp/av devices that can handle an analog signal from a DAC which can accept higher res digital signals. The opposite is the case. Any amp/av with an analog input can do so.
Iâm not sure how Iâve managed to upset you. I didnât mean to. I was just trying to understand what you were asking and make sure you didnât have the wrong idea about the usefulness of the DAC you were considering.
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An analog waveform is continuous. Music is the constantly fluctuating waveform. Out of a DAC it is sent down the cable as voltage. If you were to play a single 100 Hz tone and looked at the output of the DAC on a scope youâd see this:
Digital âcapturesâ that waveform with varying degrees of resolution. The higher the sampling rate the more âpointsâ on the waveform are captured. When converting digital to analog the âspaceâ between the captured points must be filled in. With enough resolution the DAC can accurately fill in these points. However, the conversion itself can cause artifacts and its a tradeoff as to which artifacts different people find offensive in the playback system. One way to reduce the number of artifacts is to upsample the digital, that is add more points, which pushes some of these artifacts outside our ability to hear them. Thatâs a bunch of maths I donât understand well enough to explain. Here is a picture representing how those points are captured.
Everything between the dots is put back by the DAC to construct the analog waveform out the back.
Anything analog in (after the DAC) is trying to preserve the analog waveform. In the case of a pre it may be attenuating it to provide volume control and in the case of an amp it is amplifying it provide a high power version of the signal to drive the speaker.
It does not matter the digital input resolution. The goal is to output a waveform that matches the originally recorded waveform. The accuracy of that can be dependent on resolution but the basic structure of the waveform (the peaks, valleys, and amplitude) will remain the same out the back of the DAC.
Edit to add: The above example is for PCM. DSD works differently in how it captures âpointsâ. The DSD Wiki has a good example of the difference between the two. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Stream_Digital
Edit2: Added links to where I got the images.
Pic1: https://www.chegg.com/homework-help/draw-100-hz-sine-wave-3-v-amplitude-following-parts-draw-wav-chapter-1-problem-5q-solution-9780131457898-exc
Pic2: https://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2017/03/03/997-hz/
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What I am trying to understand is not what you have written. It is my fault of course for being too stupiud to know how to word my question properly.
I understrand completeky evrything you wrote. I knew that years ago.
Here is the bit I do not understand and I hope I can be smart enough to be understood.
IF the analogue doesnât care what resolution the original signal was and the resolution only applies to digital anyway, then why do I hear a difference between differing digital files when they are converted to analogue thereby no longer having a resolution (I was told on here that there is no resolution in analogue). I am trying to understand this part but people are too busy assuming I am as thick as two short planks and donât know what a DAC is and that I don;'t know the amp receives an analogue, not digital, signal. If that analogue signal doesnât give a monkeys about the resolution of the original digital file, then why bother going thru a DAC? The analogue signal must be affected by the original file. I am feeling very frustrated because I am trying very hard to word this properly and canât.
Maybe this way: the present DAC digitally accepts 384 PCM and DSD128. My husband as well as I definitely hear the difference when these are converted to analogue signals and are fed to the av via RCA cables to the analogue inputs on the av.
If the DAC were an R2R(I do not know what that means) and accepted digital files at 1536PCM and DSD at 1024, when they are converted to an analogue signal and pass thru my analogue cables into my av via the analogue input will the sound be different? Or is there a limit to what can be played back thru the analogue input? Or put out thru the analogue out of the DAC? This is all I wanted to know. Perhaps it is a moronic question but it is something I do not know or understand and to me in a situation where one recognizes oneâs ignorance of something, one asks, except when one is likely to be shamed for not knowing or not wording it properly.
I really cannot think of a good reason why anyone would think I donât know what DAC is or how it works.
Perhaps it is the lack of understanding of what I was asking that is the real problem.
Dimi was the only person who understood my question. Whether or not Dimiâs answer was correct I donât know as Dimi isnât sure either. It doesnât matter. Dimi understood what I was asking and didnât feel the need to shame me but answered to the best of their ability. Kudos to Dimi.
Dimi was answering a different question about the specifications of inbuilt DACs in amps/avs.
The answer to your question is that there may be small differences in the analog output that make an audible difference because of resolution, modulators and filters etc. but those differences will not prevent the analog signal from being used by any downstream device with an analog input.
Expanding on my previous here is a reason you hear a difference when using Roonâs sample rate filters. https://kb.roonlabs.com/DSP_Engine:_Sample_Rate_Conversion
See the difference in fluctuations of the waveform for pre-ringing between linear and minimum phase filters? Itâs those fluctuations you hear and the filters, amount of ringing, can be impacted by the input resolution. This is one of the artifacts you are hearing.
Thank you. I understand that.
There are a number of different ways to design a DAC. Most modern DACs use integrated circuits and the SABRE is a popular chip.
In contrast an R2R DAC uses discrete component resistor ladders rather than integrated circuits. The name refers to ladders built from resistors with two values R and 2R.
I use an R2R DAC, the Holo Audio Spring. Mine is the first model and the II which is currently available has increased capability, a remote and better USB section.
My av has two ESS sabre 384 dags in it.
IF I have understood you correctly, because my av also has analogue inputs the signal will bypass those DACS?
Therefore a DAC that is of higher res than mine, like the Chord Qutest which I see touted along with Roon and servers for, would still produce sound thru my DAC at the 786PCM setting on the DAC when it has converted to analogue?
Yes, thatâs right. The inbuilt DAC in your amp/av is only used for digital input. An analog input doesnât go into it.
But your second paragraph is confusing. If you use a Qutest or any other external DAC then the analog signal into your amp doesnât (and canât) go through the internal DAC.
Except if the av receiver is using any kind of DSP or room correction such as Dirac or Audessy, in which case the analog signal from your DAC will be re-digitized by the AV receiver. Some receivers may have a Direct mode that bypasses this or you can turn off the DSP manually. Itâs hard to fully answer the question without knowing the brand and model or receiver.
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You have to be very careful with AVRs. All AVRs that support room correction and/or bass management have Analog Digital Converters (ADC). They will take an analog input, convert it to digital, do the room correction stuff, run that processed signal through the DAC, then send the result to the output section and your speakers. Because of this ADC operation, the AVR destroys all the work any previous DAC or filters or upsampling, etc already did.
There is usually some kind of âpure directâ or other setting to turn off the ADC for analog settings but that turns off the LFE sub port as well as any multi-channel processing (Dolby music, DTS Neo, etc). But if you want to hear an external DAC you must find this pure or direct or whatever its called and engage it to bypass the ADC.
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Thatâs not correct.
All of the analogue inputs to his Yamaha AVR are run through an ADC (analogue-to-digital converter), processed, and then run through the (pair of) internal ESS DACs. The only way to bypass the analogueâdigitalâanalogue conversions inside his AVR is to engage the âPure-Directâ switch.
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