FLAC and DACs

[silentdreamz]

Hello

I wonder if you can help (me being a complete novice!) - although this is probably an age old question and been asked a million times (so I do apologise!).

I tend to listen to FLAC files on my old Dell Latitude laptop (this is about 8 years old!) - I have a mixture of 16/44.1 CD ripped and 24/96 high res files (I also have an old NAD CD player).

What would be the optimum solution to get the best listening experience and maximum qualtiy out of these files?

I'm toying with the idea of buying a YAMAHA RXV475 AV receiver (I believe you can plug a USB stick into these and it plays 24/192) or would it be better to get an external DAC like the DacMagic Plus (upsampling to 24-bit/384kHz) which I can hook into my CD/Laptop.

I'm just interested to know what would sound better before I part with my money and your expereince/knowledge would be invaluable.

Which DACs should I go for - does the AV receiver reproduce excellent stereo sound etc..?

Many thanks

Emma.

 

[Andrew Everard]

If your computer is going to be close enough to your new receiver for you to connect the two via a DAC, you could consider a device such as the M2Tech HiFace, which connects to a USB socket on the computer and provides a standard electrical/coaxial digital output on a phono socket, which you could then connect to one of the digital inputs on the Yamaha receiver.

 

[silentdreamz]

That's an option I'd not considered!

So you think the DACs (192 kHz/24-bit Burr Brown DACs) in the YAMAHA RXV475, would do an equally good job as buying an external dedicated DAC?

this is my confusion and when it comes to upsampling I'm completely lost

Emma.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Not having tried the Yamaha, couldn't really comment, beyond the fact Yamaha generally makes pretty good-sounding, musical receivers. But I'm pretty sure the HiFace would give you the most 'bang for the buck' in terms of cost/performance.

 

[AnotherJoe]

The amp is capable of playing 24/192 FLAC files over network - so just point the amp at the files on your laptop and play them via DLNA.

 

[silentdreamz]

many thanks for all the advice.

....and what would the options be if I just wanted to play FLAC files 16/44.1 & 24/192 from a USB stick?

I've seen that the PIONEER BDPLX55 Blu-Ray Player supports many formats including USB - what are the DACs like in this if I just wanted to feed it to a intergated amplifier?

Would I achieve anything from using the digital out and feeding this to an external DAC and then to the amp?

thanks again

Emma.