[sjwong]

Hi!

I'm new here...been lurking around for a long time now, but haven't taken the time to join. To start off, I would like to say thank you for many hours of good reading.

I've been following the Zhaolu thread very closely, and just wanted to find out if it would work for me. I'll be using it with speakers (which I have) and hope to buy a receiver very soon. However, the receiver I want to buy may not have any digital inputs...I remember reading about someone saying they couldn;t use it this way because the benefots of the DAC would be lost somehow. If it doesn't have digital inputs, is theer any purpose using digital between the DAC and my CD player?

And also, what would be the best way to connect everything together? Is it CD to DAC to receiver or CD to receiver to DAC?

Anyways, I wanted to say thank you...it's been very nice to meet some of the people here, although not personally. I'll have to try to go to some of the meets that are advertised on the board to get to know people better.

Stan

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sjwong Hi! I'm new here...been lurking around for a long time now, but haven't taken the time to join. To start off, I would like to say thank you for many hours of good reading. I've been following the Zhaolu thread very closely, and just wanted to find out if it would work for me. I'll be using it with speakers (which I have) and hope to buy a receiver very soon. However, the receiver I want to buy may not have any digital inputs...I remember reading about someone saying they couldn;t use it this way because the benefots of the DAC would be lost somehow. If it doesn't have digital inputs, is theer any purpose using digital between the DAC and my CD player? And also, what would be the best way to connect everything together? Is it CD to DAC to receiver or CD to receiver to DAC? Anyways, I wanted to say thank you...it's been very nice to meet some of the people here, although not personally. I'll have to try to go to some of the meets that are advertised on the board to get to know people better. Stan

The idea of a DAC is that you use a digital cable to transfer the unmodified digital signal (0's / 1's) over the cable into a DAC, which then decodes it to an analogue signal and sends it back out through an analogue connection (i.e. rca.) You don't want to really have a reciever in the loop if the reciever is digital.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Stan-

The DAC is there to decode digital files. Your CD player already has one inside. It converts the digital stream off the CD into analog signals that go into the amp/receiver you plug it into.

You can also use a DAC connected to you computer to decode digital files on your hard drive. A lot of people are doing this now, myself included.

Now, some people bypass the DAC in their CD player and run the digital output through an external DAC. There are benefits to doing this, but that's another thread altogether.

Don't worry if your receiver doesn't have digital inputs. If it did, that would likely mean that it had an internal DAC.

To get to the point, connect your computer or CD player (one with digital output) to your DAC, and then the DAC to your amp/receiver. That's it. You'll be able to pull digital streams off a CD or hard drive and listen to them.

Personally, I use an Intel Mac Mini connected to a DAC via TOSLINK (optical) and then fed to a headphone amplifier, and then my headphones. It's easier than it sounds, and there's lots of information here on how to get the best sound out of it.

And welcome to Head-Fi!

 

[JaGWiRE]

SJWONG, post the model of your reciever so we can check if it's digital or analogue. You need to be careful, because if you run your signal into a digital reciever for example, you might end up converting analogue to digital or digital to analogue again, which would be bad.

Also, eriks post is completely correct, and probably easier to understand then mine.

 

[hugz]

A DAC is a digital to analogue convertor. What it does is converts digital music (the data on cds) into analogue music (audio signal which can be amplified or played by speakers).

If sound is going via a optical cable of a coax cable then it means the sound is digital. If it's going by RCA or speaker cable then it means the sound is analogue.

Most CD players will have a DAC inside then, so you could connect the CD player straight to the receiver (which will work as an amplifier) by RCA (analogue). In this setup, the CD player takes the digital off the cd, converts it to analogue, sends it to the receiver which amplifies it and sends it to the speakers to be heard.

Alternatively, many receivers also have DACs in them. If you connected your CD player to your receiver via coax or optical (digital) then the receiver woul dbe acting as a DAC. In this situation the CD player takes the digital off the cd, sends the digital sound to the receiver which converts it to analogue, amplifies it and sends it to the speakers to be heard.

The reason that people use stand-alone DACs like the zhaolu is because they are higher quality DACs than the one inside your receiver or your CD player. The quality of the DAC is very important to a sound setup.

To use an external dac, then, you dont want to have your CD player or your receiver to be acting as a DAC. You want your cd player just to be taking the digital sound off the disc, and you want your receiver just to amplify.

Therefore, what you want is to have the cd player connect to the zhaolu via digital, and the zhaolu to connect to the receiver via analogue (rca). As you can see from this, the sound went into the zhaolu as digital and went out as analogue. In this setup the cd player takes the digital sound off the cd, sends it to the zhaolu which converts it to analogue, which sends it to the receiver which amplifies it and sends it to the speakers to be heard

I hope this makes sense to you and you can now see the role that each component plays in the setup.

To answer your original question directly... You dont need to have ditial input on your receiver because the zhaolu will convert the sound to analogue prior to the receiver and send it via analogue.. so the reveiver only needs to be able to accept analogue

 

[sjwong]

Quote:

Therefore, what you want is to have the cd player connect to the zhaolu via digital, and the zhaolu to connect to the receiver via analogue (rca). As you can see from this, the sound went into the zhaolu as digital and went out as analogue. In this setup the cd player takes the digital sound off the cd, sends it to the zhaolu which converts it to analogue, which sends it to the receiver which amplifies it and sends it to the speakers to be heard

That couldn't have been any easier. I will be using a Harman Kardon receiver (I think it is analog) so that makes me want a Zhaolu even more. Now it's just a matter of getting my wife to agree

Thank you very much for everyone's replies. Hugz, you basically made everything I've ever read on other sites understandable, so I really appreciate it.

Maybe this all isn't as hard as I thought when I started with it all...

 

[sjwong]

Quote:

Therefore, what you want is to have the cd player connect to the zhaolu via digital, and the zhaolu to connect to the receiver via analogue (rca). As you can see from this, the sound went into the zhaolu as digital and went out as analogue. In this setup the cd player takes the digital sound off the cd, sends it to the zhaolu which converts it to analogue, which sends it to the receiver which amplifies it and sends it to the speakers to be heard

That couldn't have been any easier. I will be using a Harman Kardon receiver (I think it is analog) so that makes me want a Zhaolu even more. Now it's just a matter of getting my wife to agree

Thank you very much for everyone's replies. Hugz, you basically made everything I've ever read on other sites understandable, so I really appreciate it.

Maybe this isn't as hard as I thought when I started with it all...

 

[sjwong]

Quote:

Therefore, what you want is to have the cd player connect to the zhaolu via digital, and the zhaolu to connect to the receiver via analogue (rca). As you can see from this, the sound went into the zhaolu as digital and went out as analogue. In this setup the cd player takes the digital sound off the cd, sends it to the zhaolu which converts it to analogue, which sends it to the receiver which amplifies it and sends it to the speakers to be heard

That couldn't have been any easier. I will be using a Harman Kardon receiver (I think it is analog) so that makes me want a Zhaolu even more. Now it's just a matter of getting my wife to agree

Thank you very much for everyone's replies. Hugz, you basically made everything I've ever read on other sites understandable, so I really appreciate it.

Maybe this isn't as hard as I thought when I started with it all...

 

[regal]

if you're using the Harmon Kardon's DSP (crossover to connect a sub) you will gain very little by adding an external DAC because the reciever will just be converting the back to digital.

I can only recommend an external DAC for these cases:

1. You have full range speakers with no sub
2. You use headphones
3. You have some sort of line leve lcrossover for the sub.