Easiest DAC solution

[gregvet]

Since getting my apple TV, I rarely seem to listen to CDs or my iPod anymore. The only problem is that this comes through my AV amp, SONY DG820, and I am sure that this does not give great music replay. What I would ideally like is a combined stereo DAC and amp to drive the front speakers from the pre outs on the AV amp, taking either the optical output of the apple TV or using my apple express as the primary music source. Would this work, and if so what would be the cheapest/best solution. Dont need the best 'HiFi' solution straight away, I love upgrading my system bit by bit anyway so need to leave room for improvement!

 

Cheers everyone 

 

[John Duncan]

gregvet:
Since getting my apple TV, I rarely seem to listen to CDs or my iPod anymore. The only problem is that this comes through my AV amp, SONY DG820, and I am sure that this does not give great music replay. What I would ideally like is a combined stereo DAC and amp to drive the front speakers from the pre outs on the AV amp, taking either the optical output of the apple TV or using my apple express as the primary music source. Would this work, and if so what would be the cheapest/best solution. Dont need the best 'HiFi' solution straight away, I love upgrading my system bit by bit anyway so need to leave room for improvement!

ÿ

Cheers everyoneÿ

Bump to remind myself to answer tomorrow...

 

[John Duncan]

Well if you have preouts on your AV amp then feasibly you could continue to use its internal DAC, feed the front pair out to a stereo amp (as discussed umpteen times elsewhere), and then use the stereo amp for music duties. Disadvantages of this route are that you need to have both amps on to listen to music, and routing through the AV amp would not give you the best quality signal, though as you say you could subsequently upgrade to a dedicated DAC for music replay so that you could cut out the Sony altogether - you might find that using the Apple TV or Airport Express direct to the stereo amp are about as good if not better than routing it through all the processing in the AV amp - experimentation is the key.

As far as I know there aren't many stereo amps with a built in DAC, apart from things like the new Cyrus range and a two grand Naim Supernait, but I could be wrong.