Newbie: What is a DacMagic and how is it used? (Idiots guide please)

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I see a thread on the DacMagic, but it is for experts or at very least the 'initiated' This device appears to be some kind of miracle cure for any digital woes. I have even read the reviews and the manufacturers web site, and am frankly not much wiser.

I use a multi-room Sonos and wonder whether and how I could benefit from a DacMagic device. How is it connected? And where?

Do I need one for every zone? Will it work on a Sonos with built in amplifier?

Thanks in anticipation and in the hope of joining the 'enlightened'

Justin
 
A

Anonymous

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As far as I'm aware and I'm a new SONOS user myself, the powered ZP120 zone player has no digital output so no it can't be used with a DAC.

The "unpowered" ZP 90 has a digital output so it can utilise and external DAC and the questions becomes is the DAC Magic better than the ZP 90's on board DAC. Again as a new user streaming lossless files and using the analog output of my ZP90 into a pretty modest (and quite old) HiFi (NAD amp Mission 752 speakers) I'm more than happy with the sound quality.

In the near future I'll be upgrading certainly the amp and perhaps the speakers so I'd be interested in hearing myself what the views of SONOS users are re: external DAC's.

I guess the choice of whether or not you use an external DAC with your ZP90's come down to your expectations, what you're feeding the signal into and the depth of your pockets.

Anecdotally on the SONOS forums opinion seems to be divided some claiming that feeding the right components ZP90 plus high quality external DAC equals reference quality (whatever that is).

Still would be interested in hearing from anyone that has tried an external DAC.
 

professorhat

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Just to explain a little, DAC stands for Digital to Analogue Converter and is a device basically which converts the digital signal stored on a computer (or other digital source) to an analogue signal which is required by an amplifier in order to drive the speakers. So every musical digital device will have a DAC present somewhere.

An external DAC like the DacMagic has the potential therefore to give you a better sound compared with the DAC built into your digital device. This can be especially true for the likes of a computer based system which generally are not designed with music in mind as their primary use and thus have pretty cheap, low quality DACs built into them (though not always true of course!).

I can't help you where this all fits in with the Sonos I'm afraid as I'm not really that knowledgable on these systems, but thought this might help on what the DacMagic does at least. As indicated though, to use an external DAC like the DacMagic with the Sonos, it would need to have some kind of digital output for the music, such as optical, coaxial or USB. This then allows the DacMagic to convert this into an analogue signal which it can then output directly into your amplifier.
 

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