[AdamFrandsen]

Hi,

I am looking to buy a pair of Airpulse a100 active speakers for my girlfriend. I want to buy a streamer too, but am a bit confused in terms of what would give the best sound.

The Airpulse a100 has a built in DAC, and in general it operates 100% digitally as I understand it. It has TOSLINK and USB input as well as RCA.

USB/TOSLINK uses the internal DAC

Does the RCA input convert the incoming signal to digital again using the built in ADC or how does it work?

I am wondering if I should just get a streamer without DAC and use the TOSLINK input, or if I should get a streamer with a good DAC and maybe MQA decoding capabilities and use the RCA. If the signal is converted to digital again and then DSP'ed and then back to analog, isn't that too many steps? What gives the best sound quality?

Thanks in adavance,
Adam

 

[Deolum]

Yes the DSP should convert any incoming analogue signal into a digital again. Thus using a good dac before it makes no sense. Feeding it directly digital should give the best result here so streamer -> speakers.

 

[AdamFrandsen]

Yes the DSP should convert any incoming analogue signal into a digital again. Thus using a good dac before it makes no sense. Feeding it directly digital should give the best result here so streamer -> speakers.

Exactly what I thought - thanks a lot for your reply