zooropa320 Wrote: > I just scanned this post and I don't think I see any mention of people > using an external DAC. I'm using the coax out from my SB3 to the > Benchmark DAC1. I have ripped to FLAC from a DTS cd but when I play it > all I hear is white noise and the DAC1 shows an error. Do I have to > bypass the DAC1 to play these files? As I type this I realize its easy > enough to test myself but I'm still interested in how others are playing > their files because I would like to use the DAC1 all the time. Your DAC, 'the DAC1' (http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac1/), can take a digital stereo PCM audio stream, and convert it into two analogue signals to be sent on to your left and right speaker (either directly, or through another amplifier perhaps).
A DTS CD will describe 6 channels of sound (left, right, centre, surround-left, surround-right, and a separate low frequency channel), so at the very least you'd need a receiver which had the relevant analogue outputs. Further, the receiver would need to know what a DTS signal looks like so it can decode it -- we're not decoding the DTS stream on the SB or in SlimServer, but are in fact passing the DTS data straight over the digital cable. It's very similar to the way multi-channel audio works in a home cinema setup: one would run a digital cable from the DVD player to the DTS-capable receiver, and the receiver would decode the DTS stream in order to emit 6 channels of sound. (The same principle applies to Dolby Digital.) It might be the case that your DTS CD only describes 2 channels of sound (lossily compressed but at a higher resolution, I guess; I don't know if such discs exist), but you'd still need a receiver capable of decoding a DTS signal. The reason you've not seen mention of an external DAC is, I think, because I've assumed it to be implicit: the SB2's digital out must be used, so the receiver must be converting from digital to analogue. When ordinary stereo PCM audio is under discussion, of course there's a choice between using the SB2's internal DAC, and using a digital output to feed an external DAC. Since the SB2 doesn't have the required 6 analogue outputs to produce multi-channel sound, we _must_ use an external DTS- or DD-capable receiver. So in fact we're all using an external DAC -- but one which knows about the multi-channel formats and which can emit multi-channel audio. Your DAC doesn't have that capability. (Not that I doubt the excellence of the DAC's stereo performance, BTW -- it just doesn't have multi-channel features that I can see.) If you have a separate receiver which does support multi-channel sound (maybe you have one hooked up to a DVD player?), and which knows about DTS, you can use that here. It might be possible to hook up the SB2's _other_ digital output to that receiver directly, and switch the receiver to the relevant input when playing back DTS data. (Disclaimer: I don't know if there are any electrical reasons not to do this! Perhaps somebody with more knowledge of the subject could say whether it would be completely safe; I have a vague worry about hooking various things up in a circle, but suspect that having one link be optical makes it okay.) Does that help at all? -- smst ------------------------------------------------------------------------ smst's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=752 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=19260 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
