will a better source make a difference with powered speakers?

[oriventura]

I'm listening to music via PC with a decent soundcard (audient id4) and Audioengine A5+, and in the living room with Audioengine HD6 connected to my A&K JR. I know the JR is an entry level player, I was wondering if it's worth upgrading to another source? Something like Fiio M11 Pro or any other thing you can think of?

I'm also open to a not so portable source if you have any ideas.

 

[Deolum]

As far as i know most active speakers today have an inbuilt dac. If they have one they will most likely also have an A/D which means even if you feed them an analog signal they will convert it into a digital signal before converting it again in an analog signal. If that's the case then i doubt that you'll hear improvement by changing the source.

 

[Slaveofthewave]

How is the source connected to the speakers? If its a digital cable it shouldt matter since the da converter is in the speakers. If you use a regular speaker cable, jack or xlr cable or other analog cable then it can definitely make a dfference

 

[oriventura]

As far as i know most active speakers today have an inbuilt dac. If they have one they will most likely also have an A/D which means even if you feed them an analog signal they will convert it into a digital signal before converting it again in an analog signal. If that's the case then i doubt that you'll hear improvement by changing the source.

Thanks for your answer! So basically for powered speakers it does not matter what source you use? from the cheapest mp3 player to the most expensive analog player?

 

[oriventura]

How is the source connected to the speakers? If its a digital cable it shouldt matter since the da converter is in the speakers. If you use a regular speaker cable, jack or xlr cable or other analog cable then it can definitely make a dfference

well that depends on the source of course, basically on my pc setup I use RCA that is connected to the soundcard, and for the AK player it's a 3.5mm to RCA cable, which I guess is digital?

 

[mk00]

As @Deolum and @Slaveofthewave suggested you should definitely hear a very (+) difference if you can bypass the speaker's dac.

 

[Slaveofthewave]

True! Thats a 3rd option I didnt think of

 

[Roseval]

3.5mm to RCA cable, which I guess is digital?

That is the headphone out.
This is of course as analog a you can get.

The A5+ Classic has no DAC at all.

If you want to improve better audition a couple of speakers.
Listen to a couple of active speakers by brands like Adam, Genelec, KRK, etc.

 

[oriventura]

That is the headphone out.
This is of course as analog a you can get.

The A5+ Classic has no DAC at all.

If you want to improve better audition a couple of speakers.
Listen to a couple of active speakers by brands like Adam, Genelec, KRK, etc.

Thanks, but I'm thinking mostly about the HD6 which does have. I'm not into changing speakers now as I like these. Just wondering if I have any reason to update the source (read: looking for a reason to buy a better portable player, and wondering if it'll be of any benefit of using it at home with the hd6. Because if not I'm not sure I can justify buying such a thing just for travels/walking etc as the AK JR is also a really fine one)

 

[surfgeorge]

As far as i know most active speakers today have an inbuilt dac. If they have one they will most likely also have an A/D which means even if you feed them an analog signal they will convert it into a digital signal before converting it again in an analog signal. If that's the case then i doubt that you'll hear improvement by changing the source.

@Deolum
Why would anyone take an analog input signal, run it though an A/D converter, then back through D/A?
This adds costs (for the A/D) to the product and will deteriorate the signal quality. I can't see any reason for doing that.

@oriventura
Agree with the advice given to avoid the internal DAC of the speaker, the AK JR will certainly be better.
With regards of getting improvements with a better source/DAP it really depends on the quality of the speaker and its built in amplifier.
But I also agree with the advise given that the speaker is maybe the the limiting factor rather than the AK JR.

At the same time, if you are listening to the DAP also with IEMs, then an upgrade might make sense for that use case and you may get a small improvement with the speakers as well. What headphones or IEMs are you using?

 

[Deolum]

@Deolum
Why would anyone take an analog input signal, run it though an A/D converter, then back through D/A?
This adds costs (for the A/D) to the product and will deteriorate the signal quality. I can't see any reason for doing that.

@oriventura
Agree with the advice given to avoid the internal DAC of the speaker, the AK JR will certainly be better.
With regards of getting improvements with a better source/DAP it really depends on the quality of the speaker and its built in amplifier.
But I also agree with the advise given that the speaker is maybe the the limiting factor rather than the AK JR.

At the same time, if you are listening to the DAP also with IEMs, then an upgrade might make sense for that use case and you may get a small improvement with the speakers as well. What headphones or IEMs are you using?

It's because many of the modern active speakers have only digital internal processing capabilities of the signal. With the lack of an analogue switch there's only a DSP inside which can process digital PCM but not analogue material. Thus every incoming analogue signal has to be converted into a digital signal before it can be converted into analmyogue at the very end after the DSP.

I guess this makes sense because most of the modern active speakers are clearly prioritising digital over analogue input thus adding two different data processing ways in the speakers doesn't make sense. The older the speakers the more likely it is to not have this digital internal processing.

I'm not a speaker expert myself but this is what i found out when i wondered why adding a tube buffer into the chain doesn't change anything in my speakers sound.

Usually you have to search a bit before you make clear whether your active speakers are digital or analogue inside.

 

[oriventura]

@Deolum
Why would anyone take an analog input signal, run it though an A/D converter, then back through D/A?
This adds costs (for the A/D) to the product and will deteriorate the signal quality. I can't see any reason for doing that.

@oriventura
Agree with the advice given to avoid the internal DAC of the speaker, the AK JR will certainly be better.
With regards of getting improvements with a better source/DAP it really depends on the quality of the speaker and its built in amplifier.
But I also agree with the advise given that the speaker is maybe the the limiting factor rather than the AK JR.

At the same time, if you are listening to the DAP also with IEMs, then an upgrade might make sense for that use case and you may get a small improvement with the speakers as well. What headphones or IEMs are you using?

Hi, I'm using Vsonic GR07 37 Anniversary mostly. Also have a regular gr07 and a lower quality but still nice Soundmagic e50.
However, besides that I don't think there's a way to avoid the internal dac of the HD6, I find it really hard to believe the JR being a simple player will be better than the amp and dac (AK4396) found in the Audioengine HD6 which might not be high end speakers but overall they're pretty quality couple from what I know.

 

[SilverEars]

I'm listening to music via PC with a decent soundcard (audient id4) and Audioengine A5+, and in the living room with Audioengine HD6 connected to my A&K JR. I know the JR is an entry level player, I was wondering if it's worth upgrading to another source? Something like Fiio M11 Pro or any other thing you can think of?

I'm also open to a not so portable source if you have any ideas.

IME, portable players were not good sounding sources for powered speaker or any speakers setup. DAPs work well for iems, but not all that great beyond that.

I use JBL LSR 305 powered speakers, and for some odd reason Mojo puts out the best response. I have no idea why. I tried other DACs as well, and particularly ones that didn't have a preamp, wasn't ideal when I had to use Schiit Sys or something like that. I didn't like what passive pre-amps did to the sound.

My assumption is that there is some random-ness to all this (until somebody can correlate and explain systematically). You try and figure out what sounds best.

 

[oriventura]

IME, portable players were not good sounding sources for powered speaker or any speakers setup. DAPs work well for iems, but not all that great beyond that.

I use JBL LSR 305 powered speakers, and for some odd reason Mojo puts out the best response. I have no idea why. I tried other DACs as well, and particularly ones that didn't have a preamp, wasn't ideal when I had to use Schiit Sys or something like that. I didn't like what passive pre-amps did to the sound.

My assumption is that there is some random-ness to all this (until somebody can correlate and explain systematically). You try and figure out what sounds best.

Sorry but I'm a complete new in audio - So what do you prefer to connect to powered speaker such as audioengine? the HD6 have their own dac inside, so is there any reason to buy something as a Mojo if I want to continue using them? The a5 which I use on a pc have no dac but they use my soundcard dac i guess.

 

[SilverEars]

Sorry but I'm a complete new in audio - So what do you prefer to connect to powered speaker such as audioengine? the HD6 have their own dac inside, so is there any reason to buy something as a Mojo if I want to continue using them? The a5 which I use on a pc have no dac but they use my soundcard dac i guess.

I know internal sound cards output higher noise floor, but this all depends on if you can decern the noise out the speakers. If you put your ears near the speakers, there' s a noise floor the speakers outputs as well. For budget reasons, I would think using a soundcard output would be sufficient. If you can get a hold of a Mojo, I'd give it a whirl. Only if you can borrow or return without taking any loss. Just to see if you experience anything different can be noticed. For my JBL it worked well.

I wouldn't expect the DAPs going go give you significant improvement over your sound card output.