[ledrover999]

Hello I have a Cowan Plenue L that has a ES9038 DAC and I want to buy the Burson Conductor 3xperformance.that has that same DAC. So how does that work? I also have a oppo player with a DAC. Basically what I want to know is if the signal is already converted when it reaches the amp with a DAC what happens? is it better or worse? The oppo player does not have the ES9038 DAC but a different one.

Thank you Raymond

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Hello I have a Cowan Plenue L that has a ES9038 DAC and I want to buy the Burson Conductor 3xperformance.that has that same DAC. So how does that work?

If you use the 3.6mm optical output converter on the 3.5mm jack then the Plenue L outputs a digital signal, bypassing its internal DAC and HPamp circuit.

I also have a oppo player with a DAC. Basically what I want to know is if the signal is already converted when it reaches the amp with a DAC what happens?

That depends on what other outputs it has and how you connect it.

If it has no digital outputs but has a fixed level line output then you use its DAC to convert the signal into an analogue line signal that bypasses the Oppo's HPamp circuit to feed that signal into a headphone amp's or a DAC-HPamp unit's analogue input which goes directly into its preamp stage, bypassing the DAC-HPamp's DAC circuit.

is it better or worse? The oppo player does not have the ES9038 DAC but a different one.

That depends.

If your player can output a clean 2V-ish signal then the difference can come down to how significant the voltage variance is in terms of how much noise is actually there that can get amplified or if t he voltage is too low, how much more the preamp on the amp or its amp output stage will have to work and whether that can introduce noise or distortion into the signal.

And then there's the minute differences in response that tends to affect imaging and microdetails, save in cases where some circuits tend to make CS DAC chips sharper at the top end for example (which not all CS-based DACs do).