KBerube80
100+ Head-Fier
Question: Am I able to connect my E17 to my Cambridge Audio Azur 840C CDP via SPDIF, bypass the E17's DAC, and just utilize the amp section?
Question: Am I able to connect my E17 to my Cambridge Audio Azur 840C CDP via SPDIF, bypass the E17's DAC, and just utilize the amp section?
Hmm. I've read about dts encoding issues that's why i wanted to ask, my main goal is using optical/coax for the sound, fiio seems perfect for this matter.
If i plug my headphone through E17 and toslink to my tv ( which has an internal media player for movies) will i have dts encoding issues, or will i have toslink quality sound ( whether dts or pcm actually, since i'm using a headphone and it's not surround, i don't think there'll be a difference. )
Thanks for the help.
Arrgghh!
I still have Windows XP! Yes, it's true!
Looks like I can't change to 96 kHz with Windows XP?
Signed,
Mr. "not very good with computers"
Windows XP handles audio differently in that it by default will send audio bit for bit, i.e. no sample rate conversion. This actually provides the best sounding audio as your 96/24 audio files will play at that rate/bit depth and your 44.1/16 audio will play at its rate/bit depth. Some programs (like Foobar2000) allow you to lock the output to a higher sample rate/bit depth (i.e. upsampling), but this can cause all sorts of issues. On a system with well written drivers, upsampling won't hurt the audio, but leaving XP configured to automatically adjust playback rate/bit depth is preferred. XP natively only handles up to 96/24 so anything above that will either be downsampled or not play at all, depending on the player software you use. See this article on the Benchmark wiki about XP's handling of sample rate and bit depth:
http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_XP_Audio_Playback_-_Setup_Guide
If you have some audio at various bit rates, try playing them back in a player like VLC and you'll see the sample rate/bit depth automatically change on your E17 to match the format of the audio file you are playing. If you don't have any 96/24 audio, go to HDTracks.com and sign up to download a hires music sampler. Here's the link:
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=landing
Hope that helps! And my hopefully my comment about sarcasm wasn't taken too seriously... it's often difficult to understand what people write and what they actually mean. Enjoy!!
Dale
Hm... considering my home setup, whether for TV or computer, is rather modest, I don't have first hand experience to share with you in regards to that. I was simply commenting on a usability/versatility/convenience point of view. Also never looking into that much technical details regarding different codecs and such.
My only optical source is a PS3. I just turn the audio system to Stereo (not that I had ANY 2.1 or more complex systems to begin with, so it was simple). If you meant whether Alpen does a good job at decoding SPDIF signal, I have no prior base for comparison but it hasn't proved me any trouble or artifacts thus far. So... if I am understanding right, I guess my answer would be no DTS encoding issues as far as PS3 is concerned, used in Stereo audio output.
With the new improvements to the e07k is the e17 still the better option??
With the new improvements to the e07k is the e17 still the better option??
Thanks a lot @kalbee, @agentxxl. Let's just simplify this issue a bit. What happens when you plug your E17 to your computer SPDIF, and try to watch a dts/dolby encoded film ? Is the movie performance satisfactory ?