[Blakeh]

Hi there!

This is my first post, and I hope none of these questions are too "newbie".

I am looking to purchase a soundcard with one purpose in mind: to get bit perfect digital out from my computer's CD-ROM drive to my Adcom GDA-700 external DAC. As I understand it, I will need to purchase a soundcard that has a two pin digital in on it so I can connect it to the digital out of my Plextor CD-ROM drive.

Since Chaintech's site seems just about useless for specs or manuals, can anyone tell me if the AV-710 does indeed have this two pin digital in connection?

Also, though I play very, very few games, I was wondering if I had the card setup in the above configuration (digital out only), would the audio from games (and standad windows applications) be sent to the external DAC for decoding?

Thank you very much for any information.

Cheers,
Blake

 

[Mr.Radar]

Why are you playing back CDs directly from your drive? Wouldn't ripping (especially with PlexTools or EAC) to lossless/uncompressed audio (resulting in lower jitter and better error correction) be much better?

Now, for your question: No, the AV-710 doesn't have a digital input. The only card I think that has one is the Creative Audigy series but it doesn't have a bit perfect digital output.

Yes, audio from applictations/games/Windows noises would be sent to the DAC.

 

[amol]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar Why are you playing back CDs directly from your drive? Wouldn't ripping (especially with PlexTools or EAC) to lossless/uncompressed audio (resulting in lower jitter and better error correction) be much better? Now, for your question: No, the AV-710 doesn't have a digital input. The only card I think that has one is the Creative Audigy series but it doesn't have a bit perfect digital output. Yes, audio from applictations/games/Windows noises would be sent to the DAC.

My guess is that he must be using the digital out from the cd rom drive to the external DAC, the DAC is meant for a digital input isnt it ?

secondly, the Audigy card series doesnt feature a digital IN, you need a M audio delta series card, or the new formidable EMU series for a digital in.

 

[Mr.Radar]

No, he's talking about the SPDIF output on CD-ROM/RW/DVD-ROM/RW drives to a soundcard as a passthrough to an external DAC, and IIRC, only the Audigy cards have internal digital input connectors (I'm far from 100% positive on that too).

 

[richx]

The DMX 6Fire 24/96 also has the 2-pin S/PDIF internal connector. But I don't think there's a need to use that when your PC will be able to transfer audio digitally without using that cable through the ATA bus. The only disadvantage of this over using the internal S/PDIF cable is higher bus utilization.

 

[Blakeh]

Quote:

Wouldn't ripping (especially with PlexTools or EAC) to lossless/uncompressed audio (resulting in lower jitter and better error correction) be much better?

That's a good point. Unfortunately, I have too many CDs in my collection to rip them all to a drive for playback. I was hoping for a simple solution that would allow me to pop a CD in my drive and play it in a such a way that it was not converted into analog until it hit the Adcom DAC.

Quote:

No, the AV-710 doesn't have a digital input.

Thank you for this bit of information. That's exactly what I needed!

 

[Blakeh]

Quote:

your PC will be able to transfer audio digitally without using that cable through the ATA bus. The only disadvantage of this over using the internal S/PDIF cable is higher bus utilization.

I didn't realize the ATA bus would carry the digital signal -- that's good to know, and makes my goal much easier to obtain.

So, would this scenario be correct:

CD-ROM -> IDE Bus -> AVR-710 -> AVR-710 Digital Out -> Adcom DAC

And the signal would stay in the digital domai until it reached the Adcom DAC?

Thanks again,
Blake

 

[NeilPeart]

You must ensure that your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM supports DMA access and digital playback (almost all such devices do nowadays) and the associated playback software (foobar2000, Winamp, WMP, etc.) support such playback method (via the IDE/SCSI cable rather than a cable to the soundcard), and make sure you flash the AV-710 with the AudioTrak Prodigy EEPROM.bin file so it will enable bit-perfect digital output. Using a glass optical cable (like the affordable and awesome-sounding one available on eBay) would also isolate the digital output from the dirty PC power supply and rely on the DAC’s much cleaner PSU.

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blakeh That's a good point. Unfortunately, I have too many CDs in my collection to rip them all to a drive for playback. I was hoping for a simple solution that would allow me to pop a CD in my drive and play it in a such a way that it was not converted into analog until it hit the Adcom DAC.

If you follow the advice above you could do that but if you ripped each CD the first time you played it back through your computer (i.e. if it hadn't been ripped before, then rip it), before you know it you'd have most of your collection ripped and you wouldn't have to dig through your CD collection to find a disc.

 

[NeilPeart]

I own 500+ CDs and I was able to store all of them in FLAC format on my 250GB RAID1 with room to spare. If you have 1000 or more CDs and under 200GB of storage, consider storing them all in LAME --alt-preset standard/insane MP3 or simply storing your favorites in FLAC and the others in LAME MP3 format.

 

[breez]

HDDs are cheap nowadays (especially compared to what a large collection will cost). Consider it. It so much easier to access a large collection of music when you don't have to swap the CD all the time.