What am I missing?
May 13, 2012 at 11:16 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 12

oopsydaisy

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I wasn't sure where to post this, here's my issue. I currently have a mac mini, D100 DAC, V200 amp, LCD-2s, and Audioengine A5s. This all works great for me right now. I'm going to be taking delivery of a new turntable soon, and I know that if/when I get a preamp, I will hook that up to my V200 and get great sound to my LCD-2s. My confusion is over what happens to my A5s. Most preamps have 1 RCA out, so it seems I'd have to choose between connecting my turntable to my D100>>A5s or V200>>LCD-2s. Is there a preamp that would allow me to hook up to both the amp and DAC, or is there some other way I should be going about this? Thanks in advance
 
May 21, 2012 at 1:13 PM Post #2 of 12
Wow, 21 views, 8 days and no posts. Well, I decided to take a chance with the RSB6 from Decware. I'll basically be using it in reverse, but according to Steve, it should work fine for my situation. I'll post results when I get everything set up.
 
May 21, 2012 at 8:11 PM Post #3 of 12
What I'm curious about here is: the Yulong has no analog inputs; how do you intend to connect a turntable to it? I don't see how a mechanical switch will help you here either.

What would make sense is this:

TT -> ADC -> Yulong (and keep everything else as it is in your sig).

BAH!
The AE5s aren't conventional active monitors - they include a volume control! (That's what I get for not looking them up and assuming!). No need for the VPC. Just feed the TT via ADC into the Yulong and then switch there.
 
May 21, 2012 at 10:47 PM Post #4 of 12
So here's how I envision the setup. The RSB6 will allow me to switch between the 2 configs without disconnecting cables. The DAC will not be involved at all. VPC? Is that referring to the RSB6? Is it possible/advisable to connect the phono stage to a DAC? 
 
TT>>phono stage>>RSB6>>A5s or TT>>phono stage>>RSB6>>V200>>LCD-2s
 
May 21, 2012 at 11:59 PM Post #5 of 12
Quote:
I wasn't sure where to post this, here's my issue. I currently have a mac mini, D100 DAC, V200 amp, LCD-2s, and Audioengine A5s. This all works great for me right now. I'm going to be taking delivery of a new turntable soon, and I know that if/when I get a preamp, I will hook that up to my V200 and get great sound to my LCD-2s. My confusion is over what happens to my A5s. Most preamps have 1 RCA out, so it seems I'd have to choose between connecting my turntable to my D100>>A5s or V200>>LCD-2s. Is there a preamp that would allow me to hook up to both the amp and DAC, or is there some other way I should be going about this? Thanks in advance

 
This line is confusing. You can't connect the output of the turntable's pre-amp to the Yulong D100. The Yulong only accepts digital inputs while a pre-amplifier has analog outputs.
 
Are you connecting the D100 and the V200 with XLR cables?
 
How does the Violectric V200 knows if the RCA is an output or an input?
 
What I'd try is use a Y RCA splitter between the V200's RCA, the A5's input and the Pre-amp's output. This might be dangerous tough. It depends on how smart the V200 is about it's RCA connector. The Pre-amplifier might not enjoy having a signal coming at it's output. It also suppose that the V200 will pass trough the Balanced audio in to the RCAs (which I suppose it does, from your signature). The idea is that when you want to listen from your computer, the audio passes trough the V200 to the A5 and the Headphones. When you turn on the Pre-amp, the V200 turns it's RCA to inputs, so that the audio from the TT goes to the A5 and the headphones.
 
Code:
 [Yulong D100] >>============(Balanced XLR)===========>> [Violectric V200] >>==>> [Headphones] ==00 [ ] // [Turn Table] >>=(RCA)=>> [Pre-Amp] >>=(RCA )= (Splitter)= \\ ==>> [Audioengine A5]
 
Nothing to unplug, no extra buttons to press, and everything just works... or at least I hope so. You won't know without trying though.
 
May 22, 2012 at 12:46 AM Post #6 of 12
So here's how I envision the setup. The RSB6 will allow me to switch between the 2 configs without disconnecting cables. The DAC will not be involved at all. VPC? Is that referring to the RSB6? Is it possible/advisable to connect the phono stage to a DAC? 

TT>>phono stage>>RSB6>>A5s or TT>>phono stage>>RSB6>>V200>>LCD-2s


So then what switches between the RSB6's output and the Yulong? :wink:

You're able to connect the phono stage (or any other line output device) to the Yulong (or any other DAC) by way of an ADC (Analog -> Digital); they're not terribly expensive but some people probably don't like the idea of extra "steps" in the chain. This is actually how modern SSPs get analog inputs (they just have all of that hidden away inside one cabinet).

The problem you have with using the switch there, is that you now have the Phono available to either device, but the Yulong is not. Sure, you can connect the XLR out to the V200, but what about the A5s which don't take XLR (and you don't have XLR splitters involved anyways)?

Like I said, easiest solution would be to dump the mechanical switch, and feed the phono preamp into an ADC and feed that into the Yulong as if it were another digital source.

So basically this:
http://www.amazon.com/Menotek-Analog-Audio-Digital-Converter/dp/B0045UWXB0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337661593&sr=8-2
And then feed it this:
http://www.amazon.com/TC-750-BLACK-Audiophile-Phono-Preamplifier/dp/B000A36LQ4/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1337661638&sr=1-5

And then whatever turntable you want (or get a table with a built in preamp).

Otherwise, if you want to make this mechanical switch work, you need Y splitters or stacking cables. It'll look something like this:

Phono Preamp | Yulong RCA -> RSB6 -> Y splitter -> A5 & V200

And no more XLR.
 
May 22, 2012 at 7:22 AM Post #7 of 12
OK, some clarification. Here's a rundown of what I want to have going on with my current gear. I plan to upgrade/change 2 components somewhere down the line, so I'll explain the hookup for those as well. First, I would like to avoid an ADC because of the reason you mentioned. For digital files, my sig will not change. For the TT, it will go like this.
 
TT>>RCA>>RSB6>>RCA-1/8>>A5 and TT>>RCA>>RSB6>>RCA-RCA>>V200>>LCD-2
 
The DAC will not be on so the V200 will only have one active input, the RCA. The A5s have 2 inputs via 1/8. Again, the DAC won't be on, so no confusion for the speakers. Now, going forward, I plan to upgrade my DAC to a V800 and my speakers to Airmotiv 5s or something else that is bi-amped. The V800 has variable output, so I will be using it to control the volume of the Airmotivs(or whatever) with digital and I plan to go RCA-RCA and RCA-XLR into the speakers from the DAC and the RSB6. Again, when the TT is my source, the DAC will not be involved
 
May 22, 2012 at 4:55 PM Post #8 of 12
OK, some clarification. Here's a rundown of what I want to have going on with my current gear. I plan to upgrade/change 2 components somewhere down the line, so I'll explain the hookup for those as well. First, I would like to avoid an ADC because of the reason you mentioned. For digital files, my sig will not change. For the TT, it will go like this.

TT>>RCA>>RSB6>>RCA-1/8>>A5 and TT>>RCA>>RSB6>>RCA-RCA>>V200>>LCD-2

The DAC will not be on so the V200 will only have one active input, the RCA. The A5s have 2 inputs via 1/8. Again, the DAC won't be on, so no confusion for the speakers. Now, going forward, I plan to upgrade my DAC to a V800 and my speakers to Airmotiv 5s or something else that is bi-amped. The V800 has variable output, so I will be using it to control the volume of the Airmotivs(or whatever) with digital and I plan to go RCA-RCA and RCA-XLR into the speakers from the DAC and the RSB6. Again, when the TT is my source, the DAC will not be involved


Sounds like a nightmare to be quite honest. Have you considered dumping this splitter/y adapter mess and just getting a conventional pre-amplifier with a fixed secondary output?

In other words, what you're proposing for now will work fine as a temporary hookup. And since the V200 will auto-switch, it won't be a real pain to use. But the "new system" sounds like a kludge before it's even built.

Consider this instead:

Sources -> Preamp -> Speakers

And just tap the headphone amp from the Preamp's loop outputs (Which are line level wrt the sources - some preamps will even pass this signal with the preamp itself off (if they're fully mechanical inside)).

Take something like this cat:
http://www.parasound.com/halo/p3.php

Feed the turntable into it's preamp, the Yulong (or whatever) into a line input, and then XLR or RCA out to the speaker system. Then use one of the "loop outputs" to the V200 (or whatever); it's RCA only, but all XLR preamps are not cheap IME. You could also do this with a stereo IA/receiver if you aren't married to active speakers (it'd work just as well). If you want all XLR, the Boulder 810 is an example, but it probably blows your budget up. On a less expensive front, the Emotiva USP-1 could actually accomplish this for you (and costs less than the P3 too).
 
May 22, 2012 at 5:29 PM Post #9 of 12
I'm not going to be using any splitters in my setup. If I could have found a phono/preamp that had 2 outputs for $500 or less, I wouldn't need the RSB6, but that doesn't seem to exist. The new system(I assume you mean the one where the A5s and Yulong are upgraded) will not be much different than the current one, except I'll be going RCA-XLR from the RSB6 to each speaker and RCA-RCA from the V800 to each speaker. It's not really that complicated, I think, but I guess I'll find out in about 2-3 weeks when my TT arrives. My phono stage arrives tomorrow. I received the RSB6 today. I really do appreciate all the input and I'll post my failure/success as soon as everything is hooked up. BTW, I received a few choice LPs to test the rig today:)
 
May 22, 2012 at 6:01 PM Post #11 of 12
Quote:
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