In article , Wally
wrote:
Following the recent thread about adding a DAC to my Schneider DVD
player, I went ahead and purchased a used Meridian 203 when it was
offered by a subscriber here. It arrived this morning and it's been
playing all day...

[snip]

I found that using a coax cable resulted in a little 'tick' noise when
skipping tracks. It would happen right at the start of a track. I tried
an optical interconnect and it stopped happening. I presume this is down
to some sort of interference, but can't really say what's causing it. I
note that the Lock light on the DAC goes out between each track, which I
gather has something to do with the player not sending timing
information unless it's actually playing music, so it might be related
to that.

It is unlikely to be interference. The comments you make about the 'lock'
light going off when you skip tracks implies that the signal stream from
the deck is being interrupted in some way. This will cause the DAC to lose
lock and have to regain it when the deck starts sending again. The source
may differ in how it outputs signals during the re-start transient via
co-ax and optical links, and this may explain the 'tick'. However its not
an effect I've encountered using coax inputs to either a 263 or 563 dac.
The players I use seem to leave the output 'on' during track skipping, etc,
so allowing the dac to remain locked.


My feeling is that the differences between the Merdian DAC and the Arcam
player are slight, and that the difference between both of them and the
Schneider is pretty big.

This is in line with what I would have hoped. My own view is that the
'better' the dac, the more closely it is recovering the waveforms specified
by the information on the CD/DVD. Thus 'better' dacs should sound similar
since they are all trying to reconstuct the same pattern from a given
CD/DVD.

[snip]

With the arrival of the 203, I don't think I'll be going shopping for an
Arcam any time soon, if at all. In fact, the 400 quid I didn't spend
(and don't have!) would probably be better spent on some mods to the
speakers (current semi-plan is isobaric subs and reboxed mid & high,
possibly bi-amped).

Buy electrostatics. 8-]

My own view/experience is that loudspeakers and room acoustics are where
you can usually make the biggest improvements to the results once you have
a decent source/amp.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html