dac explanation
Discussion
I currently use a Marantz signature cd player going via tos optical cable to Onkyo 605 amp. My question is would it be best to use the cd players dac by using normal interconnects to the amp or is the Onkyos onboard dac better. Many thanks in advance for your help.
Secondly using lossless encoded cd's on my mac mini via toslink to my onkyo will this give me a decent sound?
Secondly using lossless encoded cd's on my mac mini via toslink to my onkyo will this give me a decent sound?
The quick answer is try it out! Always trust a fair test.
The pro's and cons are these:
Firstly the CD player's DAC *might* be better at reproducing realistic audio compared to the amp. The difference is marginal if any.
However, sending the signal though an analogue cable where it is not needed will definitely degrade the sound. Even on a pair of £500 interconnect cables you can't get transmission as good as digital.
So, I would advocate that using the DAC on the amp would produce a cleaner sound. However, the DAC and processing of the AV amp may be optimised for a response from non-musical sources, so it may sound 'different' but that is subjective.
That said, I currently use the DACs on my amp which is an Integra (part of Onkyo group) and get a great sound.
With regard to the Mac Mini, I recently dumped a £3000 CD player as I found that the digital output of the mini was just as good. Moreover, you will end up using it more as using Front Row and the remote control is a real joy.
The pro's and cons are these:
Firstly the CD player's DAC *might* be better at reproducing realistic audio compared to the amp. The difference is marginal if any.
However, sending the signal though an analogue cable where it is not needed will definitely degrade the sound. Even on a pair of £500 interconnect cables you can't get transmission as good as digital.
So, I would advocate that using the DAC on the amp would produce a cleaner sound. However, the DAC and processing of the AV amp may be optimised for a response from non-musical sources, so it may sound 'different' but that is subjective.
That said, I currently use the DACs on my amp which is an Integra (part of Onkyo group) and get a great sound.
With regard to the Mac Mini, I recently dumped a £3000 CD player as I found that the digital output of the mini was just as good. Moreover, you will end up using it more as using Front Row and the remote control is a real joy.
If the CD player is a KI signiture (IIRC they were ~£500) I would say the DACs will be vastly superior to anything inside the 605.
However whether or not you can tell the difference will be down to the pre and power amp stages of the 605, which will no doubt be the bottleneck of your system sound quality wise.
The 605 was a near entry level AV receiver which comprises; 7x power amps, pre amp, DSPs and DD/ DTS decoders, video inputs and routing (+ upscaling?), DACs/ ADCs, so everything in it will be compromised.
By comparison a KI sig CD player is proper hifi.
Using your same CD player with even a budget stereo integrated amp would produce a massive improvment.
However whether or not you can tell the difference will be down to the pre and power amp stages of the 605, which will no doubt be the bottleneck of your system sound quality wise.
The 605 was a near entry level AV receiver which comprises; 7x power amps, pre amp, DSPs and DD/ DTS decoders, video inputs and routing (+ upscaling?), DACs/ ADCs, so everything in it will be compromised.
By comparison a KI sig CD player is proper hifi.
Using your same CD player with even a budget stereo integrated amp would produce a massive improvment.
Mr_Yogi said:
If the CD player is a KI signiture (IIRC they were ~£500) I would say the DACs will be vastly superior to anything inside the 605.
However whether or not you can tell the difference will be down to the pre and power amp stages of the 605, which will no doubt be the bottleneck of your system sound quality wise.
The 605 was a near entry level AV receiver which comprises; 7x power amps, pre amp, DSPs and DD/ DTS decoders, video inputs and routing (+ upscaling?), DACs/ ADCs, so everything in it will be compromised.
By comparison a KI sig CD player is proper hifi.
Using your same CD player with even a budget stereo integrated amp would produce a massive improvment.
I think you might be surprised by the quality of the DACs on the Onkyo gear.However whether or not you can tell the difference will be down to the pre and power amp stages of the 605, which will no doubt be the bottleneck of your system sound quality wise.
The 605 was a near entry level AV receiver which comprises; 7x power amps, pre amp, DSPs and DD/ DTS decoders, video inputs and routing (+ upscaling?), DACs/ ADCs, so everything in it will be compromised.
By comparison a KI sig CD player is proper hifi.
Using your same CD player with even a budget stereo integrated amp would produce a massive improvment.
OK, my AV amp is not quite Onkyo, it is made by Integra which is part of Onkyo about 2003 vintage, however the trickle down technology is there - the 605 looks almost identical to my Integra.
I am not saying it will have the same performance as mine, but I AB tested the DACs on the Integra for CD playback and compared them to my Chord DAC 64 which is of course a totally specialist CD DAC and I ended up selling the DAC64!
It should be pretty easy to set up an AB test to switch between analogue inputs and digital inputs remotely to get an accurate AB test done.
My bet is that unless the OP has invested a few hundred quid on analogue interconnects any possible gain by using the CD player DAC is outweighed by the extra analogue cable link in the chain.
The 605 was about £450 where as your Integra was what? £2K-£3K?
However I doubt you'll hear much of a difference, as the pre amp sections in most AV receivers (even up to about £1K) are pretty pants for stereo reproduction. Where as moving to a dedicted pre amp/ processor makes a huge difference to stereo in my experience.
However I doubt you'll hear much of a difference, as the pre amp sections in most AV receivers (even up to about £1K) are pretty pants for stereo reproduction. Where as moving to a dedicted pre amp/ processor makes a huge difference to stereo in my experience.
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