cws5
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2005
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So I've recently acquire an MHDT Labs Constantine DAC, which sounds amazing when connected via coaxial to the digital output of my Denon DCD-1560 (and then to my ASL MG Head OTL). But there's a serious problem: it sounds very poor when connected to my powerbook, whether via USB or Airport Express and Toslink. Highs are substantially recessed, low end is muddy, and the soundstage has really suffered.
I had been ripping my CD collection to my laptop using itunes in anticipation of receiving the DAC, and on the day I received it, I listened to one apple lossless, error-corrected file after another, as my heart sank lower and lower. It was the tragic converse of the gratifying experience of newly-acquired equipment rendering familiar CDs wonderfully fresh-sounding. I wondered if the DAC was damaged, so I connected it to my Denon as described above and discovered that the DAC is fine (and magnificent).
My question is 'What might be going on that would explain this discrepancy?'
My only guess is that, since the DAC is fine (unless all inputs but the coaxial are somehow damaged, which is unlikely), and since the outputs of the Airport Express and the Denon are transparent, then the information from my computer is different from the information from my CD transport. And I can, in turn, think of only two explanations for that, namely, (1) my laptop's DVD/CD-Rom is a poor transport compared to my Denon, so the ripped info for CD X is inferior to my Denon's digital out when playing CD X, or (2) the Denon's digital out is somehow really different than my laptop's out, in general. The Denon does boast 20 bit processing, but as I understand things, that has to do explicitly with its DAC, which is being bypassed via the coaxial digital out.
And last, if the explanation is the laptop's poor transport, then how might I rip CDs to my computer's hard drive from the Denon's digital out?
Please help me solve this mystery.
I had been ripping my CD collection to my laptop using itunes in anticipation of receiving the DAC, and on the day I received it, I listened to one apple lossless, error-corrected file after another, as my heart sank lower and lower. It was the tragic converse of the gratifying experience of newly-acquired equipment rendering familiar CDs wonderfully fresh-sounding. I wondered if the DAC was damaged, so I connected it to my Denon as described above and discovered that the DAC is fine (and magnificent).
My question is 'What might be going on that would explain this discrepancy?'
My only guess is that, since the DAC is fine (unless all inputs but the coaxial are somehow damaged, which is unlikely), and since the outputs of the Airport Express and the Denon are transparent, then the information from my computer is different from the information from my CD transport. And I can, in turn, think of only two explanations for that, namely, (1) my laptop's DVD/CD-Rom is a poor transport compared to my Denon, so the ripped info for CD X is inferior to my Denon's digital out when playing CD X, or (2) the Denon's digital out is somehow really different than my laptop's out, in general. The Denon does boast 20 bit processing, but as I understand things, that has to do explicitly with its DAC, which is being bypassed via the coaxial digital out.
And last, if the explanation is the laptop's poor transport, then how might I rip CDs to my computer's hard drive from the Denon's digital out?
Please help me solve this mystery.
