Will a DAC make much difference?

[markhooper32]

Hi all , am currently using a sony bdp-370 blu ray player with an onkyo nr609 receiver. Will I find much improvement using a seperate DAC when listening to cd's? I've been thinking about doing this for a while now,the player is connected directly via hdmi cable. - Thanks in advance

 

[Chewy]

If the new DAC is of a higher quality than the DAC in either your BDP-370 or the 609 (which may mean afairly substantial investment), then in theory yes, but any increase in sound quality may be limited by the Onkyo's amplification ability or indeed your speakers.

A wiser investment may be using your budget to upgrade the reciever and/or speakers - this may give you bigger gains in sound quality.

 

[markhooper32]

I see thank-you for your reply! So how do I find out if the DAC in the blu ray player is better or not than the one in the onkyo because if my thinking is correct and the blu ray player was connected via phono leads then the onkyos DAC wouldnt be used?

 

[Chewy]

Correct. The only way to test is to listen to both configurations, and compare the differences, and yes, if you connect the blu-ray to the amp with phono cables, you will use the players DAC, with HDMI or digital connections you 'should' be using the amps DAC.

Testing is the only way to see if a new external DAC might improve things too - get a home demo and hook it up to find out if you can hear an improvement.

 

[markhooper32]

Thanks chewy