In article , Wally
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

If there is a serious problem with the transport, then it may be
losing data. Having a nicer DAC isn't likely to help with that.


I don't think it's losing data, but then I don't know what that sounds
like. There's no scratchy/jumpy digital noise, it just sounds dull,
soft, mushy, indistinct compared to my mate's Arcam.

The sound of 'lost data' depends upon the details, and the DAC. :-)

The clearest example I've had of this was some PDO Cds that had the 'brown
rot' problem a few years ago. This eventually caused them to misbehave.
Listened to via the Meridian 263 DAC, the loss produced rough swishing
sounds like bursts of noise. Listened to on a Quad 67 the sound just got
very vague and dull. (This was using the Meridian DAC outboard from the
Quad, so reading the same data/errors in each case.) The Quad seems to try
and 'hide' serious losses by smoothing them over when the meridian seems to
decide "bugger it! I'd better let them hear this isn't right!" :-)

Pay yer money and take yer choice on which approach you'd prefer... ;-

Assuming that the data stream is okay, I'd imagine that almost any
external DAC would be an improvement. The difference between my player
and the Arcam was big. It occurs to me, though, that some of the cheaper
DACs on eBay might be quite early models (late 80s, early 90s, perhaps).
How would these typically compare with modern mass-market domestic kit?

Afraid I can't really say. In normal use, my experience is that DACs do not
often make large differences once the system is essentially decent.

FWIW I'd recommend considering Meridian DACs like the 263 and 563.
These sound fine to me, and seem to work very well in my experience
with a wide range of sources.

How would you rate them against the Meridian 203? Is there a particular
spec of DAC that's worth looking out for, like that oversampling stuff?

I should give a 'health warning' that reactions to this area seem to depend
upon personal preferences as well as the choice of source, etc. Hence you
might not share my own views. However that said...

Not heard a 203 in some time. However I decided once I'd heard it that the
263 was superb. It is my impression that the Meridian DACs seem to do a
particularly good job of latching onto external data steams and ignoring
imperfections like jitter. Works very nicely with DVD output at 48kHz,
despite nominally being intended for 44.1kHz.

I tend to be dubious of some of the claims made for 'upsampling'. etc. Most
DACs over/upsample in one way or another, so much of what you read in
magazines seems to me to be marketing re-arrangements of the deckchairs.

The advantage of the 563 over the 263 is that it has a wider choice of
input formats. Note though, that each DAC seems to have gone through
different 'versions'. The advantage of the 263 is that it is cheaper than
the 563. :-) However mine only has a co-ax input.

In general I tend to prefer classical music (and some acoustic jazz) to
rock or pop. For my taste the Meridian DACs seem excellent. Have a relaxed,
natural sound to my ears, and seem able with good material to give an
excellent stereo image. They also seem to be very well engineered. However
you may well find other DACs suit you (or the other items in your system)
better. My own impression is that once DACs are well made, their 'sounds'
become fairly similar, and any residual differences are tiny compared with
those between, say, loudspeakers.

However they are stereo only, so not
suitable if you require multichannel surround sound from DVD's.

Stereo's fine - not into all that surround sound stuff. DVD playback is
very rare. I bought the player because the previous cheapie packed in -
the new one was chosen mainly because it had digital out (for putting
stuff on minidisk).

I just set my DVD to output S/PDIF. This automatically gets the DVD player
to extract 'stereo' from film soundtracks that are Dolby x.1 surround, and
gives me the LPCM track if there is one.

Slainte,

Jim

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