Munroe;681776 Wrote: > Regarding DACs for the Squeezebox Touch, I am a new owner of one and > trying to decide on whether a DAC is the way to go, as I am primarily > running the analog out to my CA 650A to Focal 716V speakers. Do most > people use the SBT stock and then send that signal to the DAC or is it > tweaked via HW and SW first? > > Does it make any difference one way or the other? I love the unit > personally, found it a little muddy "out of the box" compared to that > of my Cambridge 640C V2 when playing a CD of the same lossless music, > but I applied the suggested toolkit 3.0 tweaks and find it comes far > more in line with what I am accustomed to, perhaps more so, which is a > plus. Unfortunately, after the tweaks, I lose some of the features > that is nice to have, like the display screen. > > My thinking is that using a quality DAC, like the Moon 100D, will clean > up the signal before it gets to the speakers regardless if any tweaks > are applied, if it's bit perfect digital out. > > I am no expert on DACs, or Squeezeboxes for that matter, but a nudge in > the right direction or clarifying where I am mistaken is appreciated, as > I have 0 experience with external DACs, and the Touch, so I am trying to > make an informed decision as to not potentially waste my money on > redundancy.
If you decide to go with an outboard DAC, you'd be opening another can of worms. There is an amazing variety of DACs on the market right now, with new models being added at a furious pace. The competition is stiff. Very hard to decide which one to get. Does it matter? I'd say it truly matters ONLY if you're seriously into listening to music. If you're a casual listener, I'd say don't bother -- your vanilla Touch is perfectly fine with its analog outs. But boy, once you start using an outboard DAC, a whole new vista opens up. I've recently auditioned Naim's DAC ($4,000), and was seriously impressed. It just sounds different than any other DAC I've heard. Some may like it, some less so. Of course, there will always be naysayers who like to wind people up and just be contrarians for contrarian sake. These are the people who most likely still live in their parents' basement, bitter at life for being losers, and then they frequent various discussion forums and enjoy spoiling everyone's fun by being constantly super negative. Some of them go even so far to claim that nothing makes any difference, and that everything is a placebo. Some are so idiotic that they even claim that the volume control is also a placebo, and that increasing the volume makes the music sound louder only in your head. In other words, you hypnotize yourself into believing that the music sounds louder when you crank up the volume, while in reality it's not really louder at all. It takes all sorts, I suppose... -- magiccarpetride ------------------------------------------------------------------------ magiccarpetride's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37863 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=92801 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
