PLAYING FLAC FILES

[purplewalrus]

I've recently purchased a Panasonic BDP220 Blue Ray Player, part of the attraction being the machine's ability to play Flac files via the USB input. I've downloaded music files from Hyperion and Linn and the sound quality is excellent.

A minor problem with one of the Linn downloads, The Wants album by the Phantom Band, which Linn are checking out for me. The Panasonic has a 32 bit 192Khz DAC according to their website and will process Flac files upto the 24bit 192 Khz level. As the Blue Ray player is pretty inexpensive I'm really impressed with the sound quality, the 24bit 96Khz downloads from Hyperion sound very clean and clear.

I wonder therefore how much I would have to spend on a stand alone DAC to improve on the BPD220's sound quality and whether I would actually hear much difference.

The Panasonic plays through a ROKSAN Kandy L3 amp and Spendor A5 speakers.

 

[shooter]

Okay 🙂

 

[michael hoy]

Have you turned the sound up

 

[purplewalrus]

Whoops! don't know where the text went! What I meant to say was:

I've recently purchased a Panasonic BDP220 Blue Ray Player, part of the attraction being the machine's ability to play Flac files via the USB input. I've downloaded music files from Hyperion and Linn and the sound quality is excellent. A minor problem with one of the Linn downloads, The Wants album by the Phantom Band, which Linn are checking out for me. The Panasonic has a 32 bit 192Khz DAC according to their website and will process Flac files upto the 24bit 192 Khz level. As the Blue Ray player is pretty inexpensive I'm really impressed with the sound quality, the 24bit 96Khz downloads from Hyperion sound very clean and clear.

I wonder therefore how much I would have to spend on a stand alone DAC to improve on the BPD220's sound quality and whether I would actually hear much difference.

 

[purplewalrus]

Should have said, the Panasonic plays through a ROKSAN Kandy L3 amp and Spendor A5 speakers.

 

[purplewalrus]

Should have said, the Panasonic plays through a ROKSAN Kandy L3 amp and Spendor A5 speakers.

 

[purplewalrus]

Should have said, the Panasonic plays through a ROKSAN Kandy L3 amp and Spendor A5 speakers.

 

[pkerai]

Im sure thats wrong.
If it had 32 bit DAC onboard, why would anyone speand lots of money on a standalone DAC.
It probably accepts files upto 32 bit before downsampling to something lower.

Im interested in this as well.

 

[purplewalrus]

Yes, it does seem to be too good to be true however, the Panasonic web page that details the spec states

"Audio D/A Converter 192khz/32bit" and the player's handbook says that the USB port supports Flac files with a sampling rate up to 192khz/24bit. I did wonder whether there would be some down sampling at this price level but this is new territory to me, hence the question. That said, if I'm going to be an occassional user of Flac downloads (remaining loyal to vinyl and CDs) then the player does a very good job!

 

[Anonymous]

I'm having the same dilema at the moment i know my sound can be improved by a stand alone dac as my nas drive stored flacs are being decoded by a Yamaha av amp then fed into an Arcam a18 when auditioning this amp with the Arcam cd17 there was a lot more depth ,presence and imaging i can only put this down to the dacs in the Yamaha being tuned to movies and not music.All the reviews ive read of the Arcam rdac (which is what i'm considering) is that it can out perform a £500 cd player and certainly all computer based music.....i just need to find out if it is compatable with my Synology nas drive!

Hope this helps some...

 

[purplewalrus]

Cheers Oozle,

I've certainly now got something to think about and more required before I can decide whether the expense of a stand alone DAC is going to result in a worthwhile improvement - still, I like a challenge and I'm learning as I go along 🙂