Dac

[Callan]

Hi

 

[jjbomber]

Hi

'Lo

 

[musical0111]

Hi

'Lo

hi di hi.

 

[Callan]

Can you answer this. I was told that a optical and coaxial cable wont send hi res audio. If so then why does my integrate amp (onkyo a9050) have a dac built in. Just that i got a blu ray (panasonic bdt130) that does just about every format and other stuff. To play hi res music. I dont care about the picture just sound for music. This is how it will be set up. Blu ray to tv via hdmi. Then tv to amps dac via optical. Or blu ray to amps dac via optical. There two way i thought would work to get hi res sound threw my amp and speakers. ?

 

[jjbomber]

Can you answer this. I was told that a optical and coaxial cable wont send hi res audio. If so then why does my integrate amp (onkyo a9050) have a dac built in. Just that i got a blu ray (panasonic bdt130) that does just about every format and other stuff. To play hi res music. I dont care about the picture just sound for music. This is how it will be set up. Blu ray to tv via hdmi. Then tv to amps dac via optical. Or blu ray to amps dac via optical. There two way i thought would work to get hi res sound threw my amp and speakers. ?

From the top:

The Onkyo has a DAC to convert digital signals from an Optical cable. To get hi-res audio, you need an amp that can recieve audio from a HDMI source. Some people can tell the difference between hi-res and ordinary, some can't. Just enjoy the music and don't worry about the technical stuff.

I would go HDMI to TV and optical from the Blu-Ray to the amp. There isn't any point sending the signal vbia the extra journey. It won't add anything and could detract from the sound.

Finally, it should be easy enough for you to experiment. Ultimately the one you enjoy the most is the best.

 

[unsleepable]

I have a similar setup with Apple TV to TV with HDMI cable; and to Q Acoustics BT 3, which have an internal DAC, with optical cable. And yes, it works fine to play music also. As much as I know, the TV does not care about downsampling the 48KHz audio of the Apple TV—it seems to simply bypass anything it receives.

This setup does not allow for high-resolution audio, though, since the Apple TV only takes fixed 48KHz 16-bit audio—standard for DVD. And I don't know what the TV would do with audio of higher resolution, if it would also just bypass it or what.

 

[ID.]

It isn't that optical and coax cables can't send hi-rez, they can, but not all equipment is made to be able to send hi-res through such outputs, or there are limits to how high the resolution is.

A DAC isn't just for converting hi resolution digital into an analogue signal, they are used to convert any digital source signal into analogue so it can be amplified and sent to the speakers. That includes low-resolution, compressed files, CD quality files and high resolution files (depending on the DAC, but most DACs these days seem to handle higher resolutions. Just how high they go depends on the DAC). The amp has an oboard DAC to allow greater flexibility in the sources you attach, whether that is a TV, computer, or whatever.

As far as I can see from the manual, you should be able to output up to 24 bit 96kHz via optical, although it isn't 100% clear/explicit about what you can and can't output via optical.

See pages 12, 31 and 32 for settings.

http://www.superfi.co.uk/images/manualbrochure/PANASONIC-DMPBDT-MANUAL.PDF

 

[bigboss]

Hi res audio is fine. What optical and coaxial cable cannot carry is HD audio from a blu-ray disc. HD audio (Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD-MA, LPCM, LPCM 2.0 stereo) requires up to 27.7 Mbps of bandwidth which is only possible via HDMI. Coaxial is limited to 1.5 Mbps.

 

[ID.]

Hi res audio is fine. What optical and coaxial cable cannot carry is HD audio from a blu-ray disc. HD audio (Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD-MA, LPCM, LPCM 2.0 stereo) requires up to 27.7 Mbps of bandwidth which is only possible via HDMI. Coaxial is limited to 1.5 Mbps.

Thanks bigboss. My complete lack of experience wit home cinema/blu-ray players showing here.

I assume that this means you should still be able to use the streaming functions and USB memory playback to play hi res files, but I may be talking out of my backside again.

 

[bigboss]

Depends on what you mean by hi res files. For music playback, hi res files like FLAC etc. can be carried via coaxial. What the OP loses out on, is lossless LPCM 2.0 stereo in movies which is closest to studio master. The HD audio codecs won't be decoded anyway as it's a stereo amplifier.

To get LPCM 2.0 via stereo amplifier, the OP needs a blu ray player with analogue outs (stereo analogue outs like Panasonic 320 or multichannel analogue outs in Panasonic BDT500) so that the player can decode audio and send it to the amplifier for amplification. The Panasonic BDT130 cannot do that, so is irrelevant.

 

[andyjm]

Can you answer this. I was told that a optical and coaxial cable wont send hi res audio?

Yes they can.

Both Coax and Optical are more than capable of carrying S/PDIF at 24/96 and above. It is however possible that your setup won't allow this to take place because of software or hardware limitations. Not the fault of the optical or coax.

 

[andyjm]

Hi res audio is fine. What optical and coaxial cable cannot carry is HD audio from a blu-ray disc. HD audio (Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD-MA, LPCM, LPCM 2.0 stereo) requires up to 27.7 Mbps of bandwidth which is only possible via HDMI. Coaxial is limited to 1.5 Mbps.

Nope.

HDMI spec allows for 8 channels of uncompressed audio at 24 bits / 192KHz sample rate. That gets you to about 37Mbp/s. The various encoding formats will have lower data rates because of their encoding / compression techniques.

S/PDIF doesn't really have a pre defined bit rate - the original spec refers to 20/24 bits at 48KHz, but as the clock is embedded in the data, as long as both ends of the link are willing to tango then 24/192 is possible. Standard CD redbook (16/44.1) is 1.4Mb/s, 24/192 is 9.2Mb/s. So a well designed coax S/PDIF implementation will get you to at least 9.2Mb/s.