> What are the disadvantages?Well the main one is that an external DAC requires > a PPL to lock it's own clock to the incoming DATA signal. Even if you feed the transport clock over to the DAC, you still have the effect of the interconnect and distance to deal with.
In the 'good old days' of turntables, Linn used to advocate their belt drive LP12 against the Japanese manufacturers' Direct Drive, crystal locked, decks by saying something along the lines that the cystal locked ones didn't have the same speed stability because they require a degree of 'hunting' to make them work. A phase locked clock is effectively doing the same (although the amounts are very tiny). > Well not having a Wifi component sitting beside the DAC would be an > advantage. I'm not sure how far away you can get your deck from the SB, but I suspect that RF is present thoughout your house anyway. Besides, you can always use a wireless SB ;-) > Dedicated DACs have very specific analog and digital paths. Particularly > the power supply and division of components will be deliberately > discrete.No reason why you can't do that with a SB - I have and it works > really well. AFAICS, there are only two advantages in a external DAC 1) If you have multiple digital sources and you use the DAC after digitally switching or processing those sources. 2) To allow for changes of DAC for different audio 'tastes'. -- Patrick Dixon www.at-view.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Patrick Dixon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=90 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17948 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
