I am using a low-end HD DVD player to play music CD's. The player's spec sheet says its internal DAC's are 24/192. I figured that'd be better than what my 'pre-amp' (Yamaha DSP-A1 a/v receiver) is likely to have, being 7 or 8 years old. (I emailed Yamaha to ask them for information about the DSP-A1's DACs's. I know from the manual that it is a '24 bit' resolution converter, but it doesn't say what the sampling frequency is. They never responded.) So, guessing that the DVD's newer, better spec'd DAC's were probably going to sound superior, for a long time I just used the player's analog outs.
Moreover, I reasoned, with a 24/192 internal DAC, why in the world would I want to add an external DAC (MSB's link DAC III is sort of in my price range), that has "lesser" specs (the link DAC is a 24/96 converter)? So, I forgot about the whole thing, thinking it could make my system sound worse, not better.
One day on a whim, however, I decided to hook up the DVD player's optical out, and use the (older) pre-amp's DACs instead. Lo and behold, it sounds *much* better this way, even though the specs tell me it should really be the other way around. Seems counterinuitive. So, maybe adding that link DAC might actually help, even though that'd be sort of counterintuitive too.
Can somebody tell me what might be going on?
I am using a low-end HD DVD player to play music CD's. The player's spec sheet says its internal DAC's are 24/192. I figured that'd be better than what my 'pre-amp' (Yamaha DSP-A1 a/v receiver) is likely to have, being 7 or 8 years old. (I emailed Yamaha to ask them for information about the DSP-A1's DACs's. I know from the manual that it is a '24 bit' resolution converter, but it doesn't say what the sampling frequency is. They never responded.) So, guessing that the DVD's newer, better spec'd DAC's were probably going to sound superior, for a long time I just used the player's analog outs.
Moreover, I reasoned, with a 24/192 internal DAC, why in the world would I want to add an external DAC (MSB's link DAC III is sort of in my price range), that has "lesser" specs (the link DAC is a 24/96 converter)? So, I forgot about the whole thing, thinking it could make my system sound worse, not better.
One day on a whim, however, I decided to hook up the DVD player's optical out, and use the (older) pre-amp's DACs instead. Lo and behold, it sounds *much* better this way, even though the specs tell me it should really be the other way around. Seems counterinuitive. So, maybe adding that link DAC might actually help, even though that'd be sort of counterintuitive too.
Can somebody tell me what might be going on?