Will DACMagic help me?

[JamesOK]

I have a sky HD box that is plugged in to my amp via a phono cable. I watch a lot of music on TV, MTV, Jools Holland on BBC HD etc and suffer from pretty average to poor sound quality from the Sky Box. Its not the phono interconnect as its the same interconnect type I use to connect my CD player which sounds fantastic.

So my question is this - is the sound from Sky HD box just generally not very good, or would I see a big improvement by setting the optical out of my box to stereo and plugging an optical cable into a DacMagic (or Beresford equivalent which admitedly, at half the price may be the preferred option) then into my amp? When I say big improvement, I mean CD quality sound from my Sky Box, rather than what I am getting now.

Any advice appreciated.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

JamesOK:
I have a sky HD box that is plugged in to my amp via a phono cable. I watch a lot of music on TV, MTV, Jools Holland on BBC HD etc and suffer from pretty average to poor sound quality from the Sky Box. Its not the phono interconnect as its the same interconnect type I use to connect my CD player which sounds fantastic.

So my question is this - is the sound from Sky HD box just generally not very good, or would I see a big improvement by setting the optical out of my box to stereo and plugging an optical cable into a DacMagic (or Beresford equivalent which admitedly, at half the price may be the preferred option) then into my amp? When I say big improvement, I mean CD quality sound from my Sky Box, rather than what I am getting now.

Any advice appreciated.

My DacMagic is connected to my SkyHD box. It does boost the sound from tv but I do it especially for radio through the Sky box - excellent sound. One thing to note, if you watch Jools Holland (or any other show which offers a DD 2.0 or 5.1), you won't get anything through the DM. If you watch Jools on BBC1, no problem (you don't get the great picture but you get the better sound). MTV, radio, concerts in non HD (they will be in DD), will all be great.

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

I connect my SkyHD box via optical to my amp, and yes the sound's pretty good. Nowhere near as good as playing a music DVD in my PS3 and then optically onwards to the DAC though.

 

[JamesOK]

Gerrardasnails:
My DacMagic is connected to my SkyHD box. It does boost the sound from tv but I do it especially for radio through the Sky box - excellent sound.

Good to know - I didnt mention it, but I frequently use Sky for radio also.

Gerrardasnails: One thing to note, if you watch Jools Holland (or any other show which offers a DD 2.0 or 5.1), you won't get anything through the DM. If you watch Jools on BBC1, no problem (you don't get the great picture but you get the better sound). MTV, radio, concerts in non HD (they will be in DD), will all be great.

I wonder if this is remedied by setting the output of the sky box to stereo rather than 5.1?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

JamesOK:
Gerrardasnails:
My DacMagic is connected to my SkyHD box. It does boost the sound from tv but I do it especially for radio through the Sky box - excellent sound.

Good to know - I didnt mention it, but I frequently use Sky for radio also.

Gerrardasnails: One thing to note, if you watch Jools Holland (or any other show which offers a DD 2.0 or 5.1), you won't get anything through the DM. If you watch Jools on BBC1, no problem (you don't get the great picture but you get the better sound). MTV, radio, concerts in non HD (they will be in DD), will all be great.

I wonder if this is remedied by setting the output of the sky box to stereo rather than 5.1?

No, the DacMagic, can't decode Dolby Digital.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Gerrardasnails:JamesOK:
Gerrardasnails:
My DacMagic is connected to my SkyHD box. It does boost the sound from tv but I do it especially for radio through the Sky box - excellent sound.

Good to know - I didnt mention it, but I frequently use Sky for radio also.

Gerrardasnails: One thing to note, if you watch Jools Holland (or any other show which offers a DD 2.0 or 5.1), you won't get anything through the DM. If you watch Jools on BBC1, no problem (you don't get the great picture but you get the better sound). MTV, radio, concerts in non HD (they will be in DD), will all be great.

I wonder if this is remedied by setting the output of the sky box to stereo rather than 5.1?

No, the DacMagic, can't decode Dolby Digital.

Ignore me!! I've just found out that 2.0 is fine. I don't know if you can get Jools in on BBC HD in DD 2.0 - anyone? I don't think so. However, there are a few channels that have a 2.0 audio presentation.

 

[JamesOK]

Gerrardasnails:Gerrardasnails:JamesOK:
Gerrardasnails:
My DacMagic is connected to my SkyHD box. It does boost the sound from tv but I do it especially for radio through the Sky box - excellent sound.

Good to know - I didnt mention it, but I frequently use Sky for radio also.

Gerrardasnails: One thing to note, if you watch Jools Holland (or any other show which offers a DD 2.0 or 5.1), you won't get anything through the DM. If you watch Jools on BBC1, no problem (you don't get the great picture but you get the better sound). MTV, radio, concerts in non HD (they will be in DD), will all be great.

I wonder if this is remedied by setting the output of the sky box to stereo rather than 5.1?

No, the DacMagic, can't decode Dolby Digital.

Ignore me!! I've just found out that 2.0 is fine. I don't know if you can get Jools in on BBC HD in DD 2.0 - anyone? I don't think so. However, there are a few channels that have a 2.0 audio presentation.

OK Cheers. So in the Sky Setup screen where you can set the type of audio outputed by the optical output, the options are "Dolby D" or "Normal", I assumed "Normal" was just stereo, are you saying "Normal" is DD 2.0? Or are you saying, that no matter what you set that setting too - if the program is recorded using 5.1, the output will be 5.1 no matter what you set it too?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

JamesOK:Gerrardasnails:Gerrardasnails:JamesOK:
Gerrardasnails:
My DacMagic is connected to my SkyHD box. It does boost the sound from tv but I do it especially for radio through the Sky box - excellent sound.

Good to know - I didnt mention it, but I frequently use Sky for radio also.

Gerrardasnails: One thing to note, if you watch Jools Holland (or any other show which offers a DD 2.0 or 5.1), you won't get anything through the DM. If you watch Jools on BBC1, no problem (you don't get the great picture but you get the better sound). MTV, radio, concerts in non HD (they will be in DD), will all be great.

I wonder if this is remedied by setting the output of the sky box to stereo rather than 5.1?

No, the DacMagic, can't decode Dolby Digital.

Ignore me!! I've just found out that 2.0 is fine. I don't know if you can get Jools in on BBC HD in DD 2.0 - anyone? I don't think so. However, there are a few channels that have a 2.0 audio presentation.

OK Cheers. So in the Sky Setup screen where you can set the type of audio outputed by the optical output, the options are "Dolby D" or "Normal", I assumed "Normal" was just stereo, are you saying "Normal" is DD 2.0? Or are you saying, that no matter what you set that setting too - if the program is recorded using 5.1, the output will be 5.1 no matter what you set it too?

I don't know to be honest - I will have a play tonight, unless anyone can tell me for sure - Andrew??

EDIT

Just checked, you do need to change to normal in the sound settings and it works.

 

[JamesOK]

Gerrardasnails:JamesOK:Gerrardasnails:Gerrardasnails:JamesOK:
Gerrardasnails:
My DacMagic is connected to my SkyHD box. It does boost the sound from tv but I do it especially for radio through the Sky box - excellent sound.

Good to know - I didnt mention it, but I frequently use Sky for radio also.

Gerrardasnails: One thing to note, if you watch Jools Holland (or any other show which offers a DD 2.0 or 5.1), you won't get anything through the DM. If you watch Jools on BBC1, no problem (you don't get the great picture but you get the better sound). MTV, radio, concerts in non HD (they will be in DD), will all be great.

I wonder if this is remedied by setting the output of the sky box to stereo rather than 5.1?

No, the DacMagic, can't decode Dolby Digital.

Ignore me!! I've just found out that 2.0 is fine. I don't know if you can get Jools in on BBC HD in DD 2.0 - anyone? I don't think so. However, there are a few channels that have a 2.0 audio presentation.

OK Cheers. So in the Sky Setup screen where you can set the type of audio outputed by the optical output, the options are "Dolby D" or "Normal", I assumed "Normal" was just stereo, are you saying "Normal" is DD 2.0? Or are you saying, that no matter what you set that setting too - if the program is recorded using 5.1, the output will be 5.1 no matter what you set it too?

I don't know to be honest - I will have a play tonight, unless anyone can tell me for sure - Andrew??

EDIT

Just checked, you do need to change to normal in the sound settings and it works.

Thanks gerrardasnails!

Does anyone else have an opinion on whether using DAC via optical from my Sky HD box will be better than the current (fairly poor) phono interconnect connection? Just concerned that I buy this thing, then find the sound from Sky is compressed or something anyway, and therefore not too good quality.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

I had a play last night using MTV HD and an Alicia Keys concert as guidance. Now my AV receiver is very good musically but Dolby Digital 2.0 using my receiver against LPCM to DAC and then my amp, no contest. The DAC improves things nicely. A bit of a pain having to change the settings on Sky (it would not work going from DD 2.0) but worth it for a special show like that.

 

[JamesOK]

Gerrardasnails:I had a play last night using MTV HD and an Alicia Keys concert as guidance. Now my AV receiver is very good musically but Dolby Digital 2.0 using my receiver against LPCM to DAC and then my amp, no contest. The DAC improves things nicely. A bit of a pain having to change the settings on Sky (it would not work going from DD 2.0) but worth it for a special show like that.

Cheers, I think I am going to give it a go. Probably the Beresford as I am totally uninterested in playing music from a PC. But if I can get reasonable quality out of my Sky box using this method then great. I've been having a mess about with my system also, and certainly noticed MTV HD is of better quality sound that standard MTV. Wonder if its to do with the amount of bandwidth (or equivalent TV term) its given.