[dwc]

I'm in the early stages of understanding, so bear with me...

I'm planning to buy an external DAC[1] to use with my PC. Right now I am using an asus mobo (a7n8xdeluxe) with Nvidia N-Force 2 chipset, using the sound on the motherboard. I'd like to know if using the digital-out for cd listening is a reasonable option.

What I'm really trying to understand is what goes on with the digital audio once it comes off the cd reader in the pc. Does it go through a number of conversions, or does it come more or less "straight out" of the digital output on the mobo?

How would it compare to buying a standalone audio cd player for the same purpose? If I get the DAC-1, my budget is essentially shot, so I could not afford to spend much on a cd-player.

Thanks,
Dan



[1] looking hard at the Benchmark DAC-1

 

[dwc]

And what if I bought the Chaintech AV710 and used the Prodigy firmware? That's only a $27 cost...

 

[Asmo]

What is the rest of your setup?

Headphones?
Speakers?
Amps?

Is your computer silenced (quiet CPU/Video fans), good quality power supply?

I would go with the chaintech (with the flash) and not use the onboard digital output.

You should consider the rest of your gear if investing that kind of money into a source is worth it for you.

 

[viper_45]

I think the chaintech flashed with the prodigy bios would be a good idea. AFAIK, the digital output on your motherboard probably won't be bit-perfect by the time the windows kmixer messes with it. If you get the Chaintech and use kernel streaming in foobar you will be able to get bit-perfect output. Do a search for it on this forum for more info about flashing the bios. I think it'll probably make a difference on a DAC of that calibre.

 

[dwc]

Thanks for the replies. In the meanwhile I found the search button. (For some reason I thought search was disabled on the site.)

Anyway, apparently if you use foobar kernel streaming, you don't need to use the prodigy drivers to get bit-perfect output with the av710. Someone warned that the prodigy drivers might bork the analog output.

btw...Does "bit-perfect" imply that the cd-audio stream would be passed directly to the card's output, assuming all dsp's are turned off? I would experiment with crossfeed plugins, but don't anticipate anything else.


If I get the dac-1, I would get cans to go with it. Headphones would be senn 650's run out of the xlr outputs of the dac-1 with a custom balanced cable. That's for a different forum, but I'm looking for a cable maker to build the cable. Zu's out of my $ range.

No amp of note, headphones only. But my speakers are Alesis Monitor 2's, currently running through a 100w/ch amp I found on the street in front of my house one day. Someday I will research/buy a decent amp, but for now the target is headphones.

Power supply is a Thermaltake Silent PurePower TT-420AD(dual fan). I have a vantec aeroflo on the cpu. Regarding the pc, it's moderately noisy, as I'm probably running too many fans. I have 2 80mm exhaust fans and one 120mm intake fan in addition to the power supply, cpu, and video card fans.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[zatara]

HeadRoom has some new dacs usb/spdif coming out on this coming Monday
you should check them out. I am sure there will eventually be comparisons
with the apogee, dac-1, scott nixon, etc...

 

[dwc]

Thanks for the tip on the upcoming dacs, I'll look for them.

I think i have gotten a little closer to the answer to my original question. The data signal from the cdrom gets converted to spdif at some point by the pc, and the quality of this key conversion is dependent on the sound chipset/card. Apparently if you don't use "kernel streaming" or "asio", then the digital sound also passes through the k-mixer (in windows). I also assume some manipulation is done on the data as it passes through Foobar, but I really don't know. Other than that I don't think the pc manipulates the stream.

As as hinted above, the qualilty of the whole delivery is dependent on the power supply in the PC.

thanks for the replies.

 

[ya8282]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dwc Thanks for the tip on the upcoming dacs, I'll look for them. As as hinted above, the qualilty of the whole delivery is dependent on the power supply in the PC.

But the negative effects of the PC's power supply can be mitigated by a good outlet and decent audio components.