dazzler9000 wrote:
I don't know much about DAC's so I was asking an innocent question -
Would the DAC on a £900 AV amp be better than a £165 SB DAC? I get the
opinion that you would definitely favour the SB?
I don't know about £900 AV receivers, the one in my theater was more
like $400.
But you aren't asking an apples to apples comparison.
The Receiver has power amps, switching gear, probably an FM tuner, and
all sorts of other stuff. So the DAC part of it is probably no more than
a $20 part. A major part of the sound is the quality of the software.
I personally have never played my SqueezeBoxes thru my AV receiver.
My casual SqueezeBox drives some powered AR Partner speakers from a
decade or more ago. My serious SqueezeBox goes into a Benchmark DAC-1
and then using balanced cables, into a Classe amplifier. My SqueezeBoxes
are fairly old, I would expect the new ones to sound better than my old
one, and maybe if I had new ones, I wouldn't need my DAC-1. But what I
have works great, so I'm happy.
For me, it is about the music, not the gear.
The good news about DACs is that you can nearly always add one later if
you decide you are not thrilled with the sound you are getting.
As a bit of guidance, I would not expect a £100 DAC to sound better
than the £165 SB DAC, all else being equal. Once you get up to
£500 or $1000, I would expect that the external DAC would have a
potential to sound better. But it might not.
The reality is that speakers and room acoustics are far more important
once you get 'reasonable' from your system.
--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html
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