trott3r wrote: > Hello, > > At 11:10 15/07/2012, you wrote: > > > > >- The analog outs of the SBT are actually very good and very close to > >what the MDAC on Toslink can deliver. There is a difference on some > >tracks, but in my limited testing, it's not that easy to say which is > >which, and which is better. > > Interesting to read that your m-dac is close to the SBT. >
Martin, I did some more listening today, and can now hear a clear difference between the analog outs and the digital outs (toslink or USB/EDO) + MDAC. I'm not sure what happened in my previous testing (same system, etc.), but I can identify reliably which outputs are used, and the external DAC gives better results. The SBT analog outputs have a slight metallic sound. the external DAC's rendition is more nuanced/less aggressive and is overall more pleasant/musical/natural. The difference is easy to spot on voices (even streamed talk radio!). Increasing volume above my normal listening level accentuates the difference This doesn't make the SBT standalone a bad solution, and I could live happily with it, had I not heard heard the improvement the MDAC gives. For what it's worth I used two SBTs in this testing (a 24 hours old one with no mods for analog and optical out, a separate one with USB/EDO), the MDAC runs firmware 0.99 + OTXD filter (default setting, + 7db attenuation) and is connected via balanced interconnects to an Audio Research LS15 + Rotel RB1080 + Totem Mani-2s. I can't yet say which of the USB or toslink connection to my DAC is better (one thing at a time), or which MDAC settings works best. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eiffel's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=46208 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=95790 _______________________________________________ Touch mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/touch
