Dedicated DAC?

[Tristy]

Ive got a Apple Airport Express(firmware 7.6.1) plugged in via Cable Talk optical 3 gold to Sony STR-DH800 amp with B&W 601 S3 speakers with QED Silver Anniversary bi-wire(connected bi-amp) with Apple lossless music on my MacBook Pro.

Would I benefit from using a external DAC like DacMagic etc rather than the DAC in the Sony amp?

Thanks

 

[Overdose]

Probably not, but it wouldn't hurt to try one on demo and see for yourself.

 

[psurquhart]

I am presently demoing a Rega DAC doing exactly the above with a Sony DA5400es. Which is obviously alot better than the DACMagic.

It has made a difference - slightly warmer sound and it does sound good - however, i cant justify paying £500 for the experience.

The Airport Express using Spotify Premium is suprisingly good just running through the Sony AV amp. Spotify's bitrates dont really do the Rega DAC justice as they are not using the highest bitrates to take advantage of the DAC.

If however you decide to go down the flac download or highest bit rate download route then thats when the beauty of a DAC merits its price outlay.

I would generally say that you would be wasting your dosh if you are only going to use it in conjunction with the Airport Express.

Hope this helps.

 

[SteveR750]

I am presently demoing a Rega DAC doing exactly the above with a Sony DA5400es. Which is obviously alot better than the DACMagic.

It has made a difference - slightly warmer sound and it does sound good - however, i cant justify paying £500 for the experience.

The Airport Express using Spotify Premium is suprisingly good just running through the Sony AV amp. Spotify's bitrates dont really do the Rega DAC justice as they are not using the highest bitrates to take advantage of the DAC.

If however you decide to go down the flac download or highest bit rate download route then thats when the beauty of a DAC merits its price outlay.

I would generally say that you would be wasting your dosh if you are only going to use it in conjunction with the Airport Express.

Hope this helps.

Only to you maybe, others might disagree.

Using lossless itunes on a mac would benefit from a decent DAC, it's a better source than you might think so long as itunes is configured properly and is using a decent driver or the optical s/pdif connection.

 

[psurquhart]

I am presently demoing a Rega DAC doing exactly the above with a Sony DA5400es. Which is obviously alot better than the DACMagic.

It has made a difference - slightly warmer sound and it does sound good - however, i cant justify paying £500 for the experience.

The Airport Express using Spotify Premium is suprisingly good just running through the Sony AV amp. Spotify's bitrates dont really do the Rega DAC justice as they are not using the highest bitrates to take advantage of the DAC.

If however you decide to go down the flac download or highest bit rate download route then thats when the beauty of a DAC merits its price outlay.

I would generally say that you would be wasting your dosh if you are only going to use it in conjunction with the Airport Express.

Hope this helps.

Only to you maybe, others might disagree.

Using lossless itunes on a mac would benefit from a decent DAC, it's a better source than you might think so long as itunes is configured properly and is using a decent driver or the optical s/pdif connection.

Ok - I am not technically brilliant - so you may well have a point. I am interested now in how to get the best out of my itune settings etc ..... I too have a Sony Vaio (like you), itunes and the Airport Express - plus the Rega Dac of course for now.

How exactly do i configure it all to get the best please SteveR ? Your advice would be greatly appreciated. I am obviously not getting the best from the Rega Dac - all my tunes are ripped lossless.

 

[SteveR750]

I am presently demoing a Rega DAC doing exactly the above with a Sony DA5400es. Which is obviously alot better than the DACMagic.

It has made a difference - slightly warmer sound and it does sound good - however, i cant justify paying £500 for the experience.

The Airport Express using Spotify Premium is suprisingly good just running through the Sony AV amp. Spotify's bitrates dont really do the Rega DAC justice as they are not using the highest bitrates to take advantage of the DAC.

If however you decide to go down the flac download or highest bit rate download route then thats when the beauty of a DAC merits its price outlay.

I would generally say that you would be wasting your dosh if you are only going to use it in conjunction with the Airport Express.

Hope this helps.

Only to you maybe, others might disagree.

Using lossless itunes on a mac would benefit from a decent DAC, it's a better source than you might think so long as itunes is configured properly and is using a decent driver or the optical s/pdif connection.

Ok - I am not technically brilliant - so you may well have a point. I am interested now in how to get the best out of my itune settings etc ..... I too have a Sony Vaio (like you), itunes and the Airport Express - plus the Rega Dac of course for now.

How exactly do i configure it all to get the best please SteveR ? Your advice would be greatly appreciated. I am obviously not getting the best from the Rega Dac - all my tunes are ripped lossless.

If you are using Windows, then itunes will never be able to work as well as a windows specific programme, since you cannot configure it to bypass all of the windows kernel mixing and resampling, in fact windows media player does a better job sonically. It's not bad, just not comparable to a budget CD player. I use J River's Media Centre ($38 last time I looked) and then subsequent upgrades within the release level are free, new versions are around $26 but there are other similar programmes. With this kind of media player, it is possible to get a bit perfect output from your opitcaal out or USB port. After that cables and DAC start to take effect, but you have that problem anyway whatever you use.

The key things with a media player on a PC are:

Exclusive use of the soundcard / driver

Direct connection to the soundcard (so look for players that will play in WASAPI or ASIO output)

64 bit processing

The rest is all about what file type you rip - FLAC is the most convenient, but make sure you rip losslessly and do the error check to verify the rip (think itunes can do this as well). You'll need to download a file converter if your music is all in apple lossless (ALAC) format if your media player won't recognise them.

I'm pretty confident that in any form of comparison (other than deaf AB of course) you would be quite surprised by how good it can sound. Good enough to hear more acoustic ambience and soundstaging on a hi res track for example. The Rega dac with a correctly set up PC is potentially a very high quality source.

 

[Overdose]

[ I am interested now in how to get the best out of my itune settings etc ..... I too have a Sony Vaio, itunes and the Airport Express - plus the Rega Dac of course for now.

How exactly do i configure it all to get the best please? Your advice would be greatly appreciated, all my tunes are ripped lossless.

Make sure that the iTunes EQ settings are off. Also, I found that iTunes on my Mac mini would overdrive the preamp and cause clipping at high OS and iTunes volume settings, so I set iTunes to just below the mid point and the same with the system, I then increased the base volume of the preamp so that I can crank up the volume in iTunes without clipping occuring.

When ripping, make sure that error correction is selected. You could also try different bitrates. High quality VBR mp3s take up much less space than lossless files and seem to be identical in sound quality. My collection is ripped losslessly to my NAS for archiving, but then compressed to 256 VBR for playback.

As a matter of interest, how do you find the Rega DAC in comprison to the AEX?