Digital Output - Transport role play

[soulofmusic]

Hello Experts,
What I want to understand is whether source has any role to play if you are taking a digital output?

Say I use digital output of a cheap and expensive CDP and feed it to the same DAC, will there be any difference?

To me any digital source should be able to read digital media and give out the same square wave, irrespective how good its circuit or power source is. Noise will usually come during D to A conversion and hence when both CDPs are connected to same DAC, there shouldn't be any difference.

Pls. educate me.

I am trying to figure out if WDTV with optical out has effect on sound quality.

 

[BLASTO]

Hello Experts,
What I want to understand is whether source has any role to play if you are taking a digital output?

Say I use digital output of a cheap and expensive CDP and feed it to the same DAC, will there be any difference?

To me any digital source should be able to read digital media and give out the same square wave, irrespective how good its circuit or power source is. Noise will usually come during D to A conversion and hence when both CDPs are connected to same DAC, there shouldn't be any difference.

Pls. educate me.

I am trying to figure out if WDTV with optical out has effect on sound quality.

If you have a laptop, get a USB A->B cable and install foobar and try out.
That will give near max performance for the M1 DAC. (Dont use VLC/Windows media player).

WDTV so far has been dissapointing for stereo.

 

[haisaikat]

On simlar lines I output to AVR from HTPC via HDMI so in that case what value add foobar will make over XBMC apart from upsampling?

 

[BLASTO]

On simlar lines I output to AVR from HTPC via HDMI so in that case what value add foobar will make over XBMC apart from upsampling?

Never tried XBMC.
I was suggesting foobar to non music optimised players. The difference was very noticiable even for digital output and I wonder why.

Easy to try foobar and uninstall if you dont like though.

 

[soulofmusic]

I am still looking for an answer... to me CDs were created to store signal in digital format which eliminates signal loss and disturbances.... having said that the only disturbance or noise that can come out from any digital media player should be during D to A conversion... is that true? if it is, then taking a digital out (before D to A conversion) should give you noise/disturbance free feed.

Is that rite?

 

[reignofchaos]

The square wave that is output is still generated by analog components and no it does not look like a perfect square wave for cheapo devices.

Think about this over simplified system of sending pcm data is that there are two voltage levels - say anything higher than 1V is 1 and anything below is zero.

Now say there's power supply noise due to component tolerances and because of which, the voltage output for a 1 changes for an instant to 0.8v instead of 1V and as a result even though the transmitter sent a 1, the receiver receives a 0.

Also say the clocks of the receiver and the transmitter don't match accurately - in that case, bits can flip. Similarly bits can also flip due to reflection of the signal from the receiver which changes voltage levels.

Of course in actual transmission it is not so simple but the idea still is that bit errors and bit flips can happen like above and this is the reason that no two transports are the same.

 

[soulofmusic]

would bits fliping cause distortion/noise? I thought it would cause complete change of output - high note sounding as low note - dont know how that would sound!

Distortion/Noise, that I am referring to, is noise that comes out at high volume (harshness/unclear sound at high volume). it can be chipping but that happens in analog signal. so the digital player (till digital output) wouldnt have any hand in that distortion.

 

[square_wave]

Simple answer.

If we are talking about mechanical transports, then there is a difference in sound across all transports if you are taking digital out. Have compared many. Baisc dvd players / cd players cd pro2m based transports teac vrds 47 labs pi tracer...they all sound different in a very resolving sound system.

 

[arj]

this could be a very loaded question or a very simple one..it depends on the resolution of the DAC you are using .
Which is the DAC ?

 

[soulofmusic]

i m using M1DAC.

 

[soulofmusic]

And my question is for digital players (laptop/media player).

 

[square_wave]

And my question is for digital players (laptop/media player).

If you are using the configuration in such a way so that the laptop / media player is slaved to the DAC, then the difference can be very minimal. A common method is the use of asynchronous dacs.
In digital mastering studios, they extensively make use of expensive master clocks to make sure the work stations digital output timing is slaved to the outboard equipment. Assync dacs are a cheaper but effective way to achieve this.

 

[BLASTO]

If you are using the configuration in such a way so that the laptop / media player is slaved to the DAC, then the difference can be very minimal. A common method is the use of asynchronous dacs.
In digital mastering studios, they extensively make use of expensive master clocks to make sure the work stations digital output timing is slaved to the outboard equipment. Assync dacs are a cheaper but effective way to achieve this.

As I understand, async is only for USB?
What about the optical and coaxial?

Today I did a A-B-C of digital out of WDTV, LG DVD player & Musichall PC.
The first two fell on their face while the digital input from the CDP was full and emotional. Same coaxial/optical cable used for all where available.

Why? Why? Why? It is becoming all the more confusing. How do the transports transfer any character in the sound? shouldn't it be just bits read from the CD??

Also, will all CD transport be better than the CDP's digital out?