Audio, hi-fi and car audio - Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?

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Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:33:51 GMT
"Wally" wrote:

The best value for money in jitter immune DAC's is reputed to be the
Benchmark DAC1 which uses a sample rate convertor in front of the DAC.
It is a little out of your price range at $850 (no UK distributor
either).

Aye, a tad pricey. :-)

And, IMHO, the wrong solution to the problem. Can we say 'aliasing' ?

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:56:15 +0000 (UTC)
(Stewart Pinkerton) wrote:

I still have my trusty 203 in its original box if you're interested,
but I still recommend a new player.

Damnit! (out of interest, how much were you asking?)

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?

In article , just me
writes

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , just me
writes
It's a comparative thing. The DAC on my DAB tuner (Sony STD777es)
sounds
inferior then when compared with the sound whilst connected through
the
DAC
of the Arcam Black Box 500. I would assume that lesser DAB tuners
would
also
benefit in this manner. Yes the bitrate of the transmission has a
large
bearing on the sound, but then so does the DAC. When I buy a new
Freeview
box with digital output next month I should benefit from the superior
bitrates seemingly available via this platform with some broadcasts.

Yes better, but NICAM and FM still sound better.....

Not really relevant though. No UK radio transmissions employ NICAM (do
they
elsewhere?) whilst the radio services offered via Freeview aren't
available
on FM.

NICAM is used to feed the main FM transmitters in the UK well BBC ones.

I should have been more specific, but I think it was clear I was refering to
domestic broadcast services and not network operations.

Well the higher rate of the NICAM distribution enhances the FM
signal:-))

The extra radio channels on freeview are not available on FM as you
rightly point out. However freeview does use higher transmission rates
then T-DAB..

Which takes us back to my previous point, "When I buy a new Freeview
box with digital output next month I should benefit from the superior
bitrates seemingly available via this platform with some broadcasts"

--
Tony Sayer

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?

Ian Molton wrote:

And, IMHO, the wrong solution to the problem. Can we say 'aliasing' ?

We very probably can, but we might be wondering what we mean by it...

Hmm, sample rate converter... Would this be something like taking a signal
at a given rate and then trying to interpolate additional bits that aren't
in the original stream, presumably with a view to increasing the rate? ISTR
a recent discussion about HDCD...

--
Wally
www.art-gallery.myby.co.uk
Latest work: The Langlois Bridge (after Van Gogh)

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?

In article , Wally
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

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!" :-)

Vague and dull is more like what I get from the Schneider player.

It is therefore possible that this is due to smoothing over lost data.
However it may simply be that the frequency response is poor and is rolling
off the HF. Hard to say without some measurements, etc.

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

Given that I don't have a handy DAC with which to test my cheapie
player, I suspect it's more a case of paying my money and taking my
chance... :-)

:-) That does tend to be the way around - unless you can pursuade someone
to loan you a DAC on a 'try before buy' basis.

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.

That leaves me feeling that almost any external DAC is going to be an
improvement over the player's internal one. Which leads me to wonder if
something at the (very) cheap end of second hand would make a good
improvement.

I'm biassed, but my recommendation would be for an old meridian DAC as
these seem well engineered, and sound excellent to me. Other DACs may be
superb, though. Some makers do seem to engineer a specific 'sound' which
you may prefer.

I've noticed in my browsing that some are listed as doing 30-something
KHz, as well as 44.1 and 48, and assumed that some were designed to
handle different rates. I've been wondering if I should be looking for
something which will handle 48KHz as well as 44.1, as a future-proofing
thing, but I'm feeling now that 44.1 will be sufficient for a good while.

If you are going to play the sound from DVDs then 48kHz is required. Also
check that your DVD can be set to output S/PDIF, not just the 'bitstream'
for surround Dolby, etc. Older DACs can understand S/PDIF but not the
bitstream.

(BTW This is yet another multiple-use of a word as 'bitstream' has also
been used for something quite difference to its meaning in this context.)

Slainte,

Jim

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