This is an area I have had no interest in the past but I would now like a DAC that can output to both an amp and a headphone amp. Any ideas?
dannycanham said:This is an area I have had no interest in the past but I would now like a DAC that can output to both an amp and a headphone amp. Any ideas?
Crocodile said:The Caiman+ is the one that substitutes USB for a second toslink.
dannycanham said:This is an area I have had no interest in the past but I would now like a DAC that can output to both an amp and a headphone amp. Any ideas?
Simple cost I would imagine. Certainly at the Beresford price level I doubt it's something many would want/need, so not a lot of point increasing the cost to provide something that doesn't really add value for most users.dannycanham said:Does anyone have any ideas why all the dacs mentioned output in parallel and don't have a selector? That appears to be the common way of doing things. I'm guessing there is a design reason.
Crocodile said:Simple cost I would imagine. Certainly at the Beresford price level I doubt it's something many would want/need, so not a lot of point increasing the cost to provide something that doesn't really add value for most users.dannycanham said:Does anyone have any ideas why all the dacs mentioned output in parallel and don't have a selector? That appears to be the common way of doing things. I'm guessing there is a design reason.
Must be plenty of 2-way phono switches around to do what you want? OK it's another box but not a very big one!
dannycanham said:Does anyone have any ideas why all the dacs mentioned output in parallel and don't have a selector? That appears to be the common way of doing things. I'm guessing there is a design reason.
oldric_naubhoff said:I don't really see a reason why they should have an output selector since regardles of the output used the outputted signal will always be the same. another story is with inputs, obviously. you need a selector because you don't want signals from different sources being mixed together (unless you work in a recording studio ).
you can look at a DAC as if it was a preamp. you have input selector in a preamp (because you want signal only from one source being amplified and directed into power amp) but there's no output selector if a preamp has more than just one output (which is not uncommon).
besides, if you connect the DAC into your amp and phone amp I can't see how those devices would interfere so I don't see a reason for any output selector.
dannycanham said:You cannot look at a dac as a pre amp. A pre amp is designed for amplification into a speaker system whereas a dac should be designed to go into both a speaker and a headphone system. A speaker system is often design to run off multiple power amplifiers simultaniously. Some dac systems should be designed to run off a speaker and headphone system selectably.
dannycanham said:The common advice online for adding a headphone amp into a speaker system is to add the headphone amp onto the tape loop of the speakers amplifier. Out of; increasing the number of possibly signal interfering components being passed through by 1 or having the main speaker system disconnected completely by a switch leaving the headphone setup as close as possible to a dedicated headphone system, or choosing a headphone amp with a line out again increasing the number of potentialy signal interfering components by one. I would have thought the hi fi purist would have wanted the middle option. I've googled this a little, there are threads entitled "how do you connect your headphone out" which contains several variants and "I hope my next amp has a good quality tape out" with people horrified by the quality drop when their headphone amp is connect via their current tape out, these threads shouldn't exist.
dannycanham said:If you look at most AV source players. The option of a two channel out for a stereo and a seperate multi channel out for AV and the option to select between the two exists. I'm not 100% but I think all of a used to own DVD player, blu ray player, PS3 and Xbox 360 had this.
dannycanham said:the jitter buzzword
dannycanham said:It should be "my headphone amp is connected to the dedicated headphone amp out on my source" and that is it.
oldric_naubhoff said:dannycanham said:You cannot look at a dac as a pre amp. A pre amp is designed for amplification into a speaker system whereas a dac should be designed to go into both a speaker and a headphone system. A speaker system is often design to run off multiple power amplifiers simultaniously. Some dac systems should be designed to run off a speaker and headphone system selectably.
I think you misunderstood me. I was using comparison of DACs to preamps as a hyperbole, as both devices use multiple inputs and output the signal to other devices. I certainly wasn't saying that a DAC is a preamp. however, if you take things so literally, I hope it will not be so much of a surprise to you when I say that a DAC is infact very much like a preamp.
oldric_naubhoff said:however, it was difficult for me to understand what you meant in most of the quoted paragraph. can you elaborate?
oldric_naubhoff said:however, it was difficult for me to understand what you meant in most of the quoted paragraph. can you elaborate?
oldric_naubhoff said:dannycanham said:If you look at most AV source players. The option of a two channel out for a stereo and a seperate multi channel out for AV and the option to select between the two exists. I'm not 100% but I think all of a used to own DVD player, blu ray player, PS3 and Xbox 360 had this.
I hope you're not refering to sound output mode that you configure in player's menu. this is completly different matter as it's done on digital level through player's software and digital chips. in other words; in one case the digital stream is outputed in multichannel form, converted into multichannel analog signal, amplified in analog stage and outputted as multichannel line level signal through multichannel analog outs. in another case the multichannel digital stream can be downsampled to 2 channel stereo, then converted to stereo analog signal, then amplified in analog output stage and outputted through analog stereo outs. you get either multichannel or stereo. you don't get two modes being outputted simultaneously through analog outs so you can switch between them at a touch of a button. at least I have never heard of any multichannel player where you can switch between multichannel mode and stereo mode by chosing which analog outs are being used. and obviously that's what you're looking for. so in this light the AV world players would not be a good example to back up your view, of necessity for sources to having selectable outputs.
oldric_naubhoff said:dannycanham said:the jitter buzzword
I think there are a lot of knowledgeble people out there who would disagree with this statement. I too think that jitter is not a mere buzzword.
oldric_naubhoff said:surely, if a manufacturer suggests such a solution and doesn't see a reason for implementing any output selectors this must mean something, doesn't it?
oldric_naubhoff said:dannycanham said:This is an area I have had no interest in the past but I would now like a DAC that can output to both an amp and a headphone amp. Any ideas?
if you have XLR ins on your amp you could use XLR outs from the DAC into your amp and RCA outs from the DAc into phone amp. provided you buy a DAC with both XLR and RCA outs. Cambridge Audio's DAC Magic or Nu Force's DAC-9 being two examples of having double analog outs. just my thought...
BTW, how do you rate your HA-160? I'm considering buying Burson Audio's DAC when it's out (HA! I've just noticed it's finally out! ray: ) . so far heard only good things about Burson Audio, but was wondering what is your oppinion?
another option for resolving your problem would be switching HA-160 to HA-160D if you're OK with limited diigital input selection to just two (USB and coax).
EDIT: just spotted that the new Burson Audio DAC-160 has double RCA type outputs. this might be a DAC for you.