[dkpaul]

Sometimes I use Corda Move as a DAC+amp for music stored in my PC. I know it's not the best DAC, but I have no choice.

When I connect the DAC to my PC... is the digital feed coming from the sound card? In other words, does the decoder really matter when it comes to sound quality?

 

[fwojciec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkpaul /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sometimes I use Corda Move as a DAC+amp for music stored in my PC. I know it's not the best DAC, but I have no choice. When I connect the DAC to my PC... is the digital feed coming from the sound card? In other words, does the decoder really matter when it comes to sound quality?

Corda Move, from what I can tell, uses a USB connection, which means it bypasses whatever sound card you have on your computer completely.

 

[dkpaul]

that was one of my guesses... then do you know where the decoding is done?

 

[HFat]

What decoding? You mean MP3 -> PCM or something like that? It's your CPU which does that by following the instructions in your software. It works the same way with a "soundcard" and a "DAC".

 

[Zorander]

Digital Audio file (MP3, WAV, LOSSLESS, etc) decoding at CPU level
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V
Digital Audio signal output through USB/PCI/Firewire (whatever your selected Audio Device uses)
|
V
Digital-to-Analog conversion within Audio Device
|
V
Analog signal

 

[jilgiljongiljing]

Based on the flowchart above, your move does step 3 (D-A conversion), and amplifies the signal using the headphone amp stage and sends it to your headphones.

hence the quality of these two steps play a significant role in determining how good your music sounds.

 

[dkpaul]

I see. Thank you folks. Another happy head-fier.