(Unless you’re using the Pure-Direct switch, which you’ve already said you don’t want to do) the highest quality result would be to go digital, direct to your AVR.
That will be better than any DAC you could put in the signal path.
I am sure if I had the money I’d have an audio/visual room set up for us BUT it must be a living room too. I want my husband and dogs around me.
I designed the conservatory we live in. IKt’s 23ft long and 13ft deep. I sit almost in the middle. I have the tv up on the wall in front of me, a Panasonic 65" GZ950 I think. We are likely to upgrade to the new flagship model later this month, HZ2000 I think it’s called. From all the reviews and from reading the specs it will be worth buying. Luckily we have a really good supplier who will allow us all the time we need viewing it and then send Paul and Andrew over to set it up.
The new Yamaha upgrade of the flagship Rx-A3080 I am not so sure of. Never mind the main feature of a huge knob right in the centre of it, it doesn’t seem to have upgraded the ESS Sabres but it has upgraded a lot of the visuals and sound settings and will upsample to 8k. Now if that is anything like playing a dvd in a 4k machine which upgrades to 4k, then that may make it worth while although from all I have read just the film maker setting makes it worth it.
Our living room (family room) is our TV room and music room. I don’t want to get up and go isolate myself upstairs to listen to music. I frequently switch between listening to music to watching TV and back. Right now, if not using headphones, my Bose serves the purposes of surround sound for TV and stereo or multichannel for music. It’s great for TV and adaquate for music.
The information in the manual says nothing like that about Pure Direct. It just says it by passes tone and any adjustments one has made.
Thank you kindly for all the effort you put into that. I understand it. It’s what I wanted to know and has settled my confusion.
I’d better check I have understood!
I get from this that the higher res the digital file is, the more information it gives the analogue signal and that is why we hear, meaning John and I, hear the difference in different resolutions.
If that is not what I was meant to understand, please tell me.
Pure Direct bypasses all of the digital signal processing offered by your AVR (YPAO room correction, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Aventage Surround:AI, …).
That’s why you said you didn’t want to engage the Pure-Direct Switch — because you would lose the Digital Signal Processing features that it bypasses.
The way those features work is by converting the analogue input signal to digital. The Pure-Direct switch bypasses that conversion.
While this is all correct, it doesn’t affect the original question. If OP has a microRendu streamer feeding a DAC, the only limit on the resolution of PCM or DSD that they can listen to is based on the lower of either the microRendu or the DAC. The capabilities of the DAC(s) internal to the AVR don’t affect the sample rate that can be played in this case.
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I think you are reading something into the OP’s question that wasn’t there.
You are correct that the digital inputs to the AVR are limited to the maximum sample rates (384kHz PCM/DSD256) supported by the internal ESS DAC. If the OP had a digital source file with higher sample rate, then to play that file, he would have two options:
- digitally downsample the file and then feed that to his AVR or
- feed the file to an external DAC that supported the higher sample rate, and then feed the resulting analogue signal to his AVR.
The former would still produce superior results to the latter.
But the OP wasn’t saying that he had digital source files with sample rates higher than 384kHz PCM/DSD256.
You may want to reread the thread starting at post 8
I think this entire thread has been spent trying to explain that the sample rate that goes into an outboard DAC doesn’t need to match or be in any way constrained by the sample rate of an AVR if you are using the analog inputs on the AVR.
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I have.
And, making allowances for some (hopefully now resolved) confusions about input vs output and digital vs analogue, I stand by what I said.
You sound as if you have a lot of expertise in this field. I find it difficult yo understand experts because they assume the person they are talking to knows what they do and leave a lot of info out as a result.
This is what I think you are trying to explain to me: even though the manual doesn’t say so, when using PD mode it isn’t just cutting out any adjustments I may have made like EQ etc, which I have not done, but also the DAC. Therefore the analogue signal goes to the speakers unmolested by anything. That does make sense except for 2 things. I am not saying you are wrong, not at all. I just need to understand this. I’ll tell you I have given you the benefit of the doubt and altered the speaker set up so that now the front speakers are not at the front but either side of me, sort of. If I have them directly next to me, like distant headphones, they are 152cm(5ft) approx both sides from my head. However, my armchair is further back making my head about 61cm(2ft) backwards from the speakers but still central. This gives me the enveloping sound I like rather than having the music coming at me from approx 335cm (11ft) away either side.
Okay now for the 2 things I don’t understand: if having the DAC is pointless if I don’t use PD, then so are Roon and HQP. However, the main issue is why does the music sound so much better when using Roon and HQP and having the avr set to 9 channel stereo.(Although I have 6 main speakers only, the same stereo comes out of the 3 pairs and the are used subs.) It has been years, many, since I have listened to my Yamahas without using a DAC. I wouldn’t do without a DAC. Anyway, so it sounds much better with the DAC and according to your knowledge it ought not to. Also the analogue signal may well be going into the AV’s DACs before I hear it, they are still DACs, so the music it spits out is analogue.
I have been listening for some time now with PD activated and thus music only coming out of the two speakers. I have had make adjustments such as disable the EQ I was using. Why? Because the music sounded like it was playing off a cassette tape - hiss. It does seem to have disappeared now.
If it turns out you are correct, and it is now likely you are that I understand what you were writing and the changes I have made, then it opens up a new door for me. I can buy another DAC. I will not part with this one as my husband needs it for his cd’s. No, there is no way I can teach him to use Roon/HQP. Despite being a world renowned writer and History lecturer, in a very specialized field, he is a technophobe. It took 3 years for him to finally understand how to get the news on and still needs me to set the CDQ to play cd mode before he can be left to play the cds he wants.
There are other analogue connections on the Yamaha so no problem adding another DAC. I could even use Audio 4 which uses XLR but I don’t understand them. Okay, I know they are a different analogue connection, but any better than RCA or about the same?
kind regards
I don’t think that’s the case. I assume you are talking about the upsampling/DSP functions HQP (or Roon). Those manipulate the digital signal before it is converted to analogue.
What I am suggesting is that you send that “improved” digital signal directly to your AVR (which accepts up to 384kHz PCM or DSD256), instead of converting it to analogue and sending the analogue signal to your AVR (where it is re-converted to digital, …).
Compared to what? No one is telling you not to use HQP. We’re (OK, I’m) telling you that you will get better results if you eliminate the external DAC and send the (HQP-improved) digital signal directly to your AVR.
There are benefits to using XLR (instead of RCA) analogue cables in certain circumstances. The main advantage is that they eliminate “ground-loops” (which can result in an audible 60 Hz hum). They are also better for long (several meters) cable runs.
If you’re not experiencing a 60 Hz hum, and your cables are short (a meter or so) then I wouldn’t worry about it.
How would I do that? Optical and coaxial limit the res of files one can send. I am not sure if coaxial is dig or not.
Compared to not using them.
You can use a Roon bridge without using a second DAC.
384kHz PCM / DSD256 is the maximum sample rate the ESS DAC inside your AVR can handle. If you’re not bypassing the internal DAC (using the Pure-Direct switch), then that’s the highest resolution you are ever going to achieve.
“Also the analogue signal may well be going into the AV’s DACs before I hear it, they are still DACs, so the music it spits out is analogue.”
You didn’t explain this to me. I’d like to understand why this is detrimental to the analogue signal being sent. Does it not go into the AVR DAC and out the other end the same as it went in? The implication is that sending an analogue signal thru the DAC damages it somehow so that analogue signal it spits out is degraded somehow.
I am still enjoying the sound of the PD on and the two speakers being used as I explained and it is a simple matter to turn it off to watch films.
It is all I can achieve because of my DAC. Did you see how I told you I have switched to PD, bowing to your superior knowledge. Therefore I no longer have to worry about the DAC capabilities being higher than the AVR’s DACs.
No analogue→digital→analogue conversion is completely lossless. What comes out is not quite what went in. So the fewer such conversions the better.
Eliminating one of the two DACs in your signal chain (either the external DAC or the internal one inside the AVR) means that you simplify
digital →analogue→digital →analogue
to
digital →analogue
If that works for you, that’s great. Your external DAC is probably better than the built-in DAC in your AVR, so bypassing the latter should be a net win.
There would still be ways, with multiple DACs, to drive more speakers in PD mode. That is if your AVR has analog multichannel inputs.