is optical from a pc limited when sending to dac ?

[TALON1973]

i'm curoius on this as i borrowed a rega dac .... and when i originaly tried playing a hd track it played at 48 khz

had to open up the sound icon and mess about abit to play 96/24 ... but now even playing normal lossless rips it still shows on dac as being 96/24 ... any reason on this ??

 

[nads]

Correct S/PDIF is limited to 24 bit (but normally sends at 20 Bit).

 

[TALON1973]

i should add ,, this is the optical coming from my onboard mobo sound ... not a dedicated soundcard

 

[TALON1973]

well i'm more conecern ed about teh khz than the bit .. i want to make sure i'm playign hd trakcs when ive got them 🙂

 

[nads]

well 48KHz is the "norm" for S/PDIF

sounds like you should unplay with the settings that you adjusted.

 

[TALON1973]

hmm........ well whats teh point of the selling hd music if thats teh case ? optical must be able to go higher surely ?

 

[pwiles1968]

I thought the Rega DAC had a USB input? You want to connect thePC via USB if it is available take the sound card out of the equation.

 

[amcluesent]

>any reason on this<

Yes, the software mixer on PC/Macs will generally resample all incoming streams to a set rate. WHich makes bit-perfect play back on PCs very tricky unless you use players and drivers (i.e ASIO) which bypass the mixer.

 

[Craig M.]

optical is generally fine up to 24/96. as already suggested, explore asio and stuff (i don't use a windows pc), once you have bit-perfect output from the optical you're sorted.

 

[TALON1973]

i was using the rage as a demo unit ... my main dac is a mf v-dac .... its only through usign the reag i noticed files were playing in 44 khz .....

i was uing teh reage with optical ... which id assumed was the best option ... but anyway .. my main concern atm is in the khz issue .. and how i best get sound to my v-dac

 

[Craig M.]

this thread may be helpful?

 

[chunky70]

An optical feed will deliver 24/96 sound. Getting a bit perfect stream from your pc is the critical factor,as otherwise the internal kernal mixer will downsample to 48khz. Look into asio or wasapi capable software and soundcards.

 

[Anonymous]

So may be my question is answered by this thread, which is: Do I need an audio streamer to get good quality music from my PC? I can play lossless WMA files on my PC using Windows 7/Windows Media Player, via an digital coax lead to my Wadia 861/MUSE 300s/EPOS30 hifi which sounds pretty good but was wondering if a cheapish audio streaming device might provide a worthwhile improvement in sound quality. I've read a thread about using foobar with the WASAPI interface to ensure a pure digital stream from the PC, so would a dedicated streaming device provide any further gains?

The other issue to throw in is that I don't have a bluray player, only DVD and the lastest issue of WhatHifi has a bluray/streaming player which looked interesting as it would provide both a bluray and audio streaming player in one box.

 

[The_Lhc]

I've read a thread about using foobar with the WASAPI interface to ensure a pure digital stream from the PC, so would a dedicated streaming device provide any further gains?

The point with the streaming device is that using one will bypass all the audio options on the PC completely, so you no longer need to worry about that, the streaming device will output the audio at whatever bitrate/sample rate the original files have been recorded at (assuming the devices supports the bit and sample rate in question).

 

[CustomCable]

I think your best bet may be to purchase an MF V-Link if you're already running a V-DAC take the USB audio output using wasapi.dll into the V-Link and then either Coax or Optical out to the V-DAC. I'd suggest the USB Forest or Carbon 🙂 The V-Link has been tested to show an incredibly low amount of jitter and runs asynchronous too.

http://www.whathifi.com/news/musical-fidelity-v-link-promises-to-perfect-laptop-music

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks, I hadn't seen the V-link before, looks interesting, wonder what improvement I will get going async USB -> Toslink instead of direct to Toslink. I've just bought a Sony BDP s470 for £110 which will stream my music (although need to convert my lossless WMA files to something Sony will recognise) so I will probably opt for that method.

Went to Custom Cable web site to look up those cables...Audioquest Carbon USB Digital Audio Cable, 1.5m for £135, you're having a larf :-O=

I bought Phono Plug Digital Coaxial SPDIF Audio Cable 7.5m from Kenable, £3.59 lol but streaming from the Sony will bypass this.