High-end CDP/DAC into Pre-pro

I just did something similar to this when my oppo BDP 83 recently showed up… just to see for myself. The results were surprising.

I went out of the Oppo two digital ways… using CD’s only, BTW… HDMI into my rec/proc Onkyo 805, and out via a Stereovox xv2 into a Bel Canto DAC3 and out of that into the same Onkyo unit using MIT S2 ICs into an analog connection.

Downstream everything remained the same.

I set each path for the exact same non additive audio processing, no bass enhancement, etc.

The diffs between the two methods were so insignificant as to force me to simply use the HDMI input to the Onkyo. I noted only very slight diffs in the presentation and tonal attributes. Very slight… though perceivable.

However, the bottle neck here is the proc itself. Regardless the path of interfacing a signal to it.

My DAC is over twice the price of the Onkyo, add in the cabling and a $25 HDMI cable competed so well against nearly $3500 more electronica I was amused and concerned.

Switching to an enormously more musical and expensive preamp only, everything changed for the better.

Some of the new procs out there are quite good sonic preamps and they compete well into higher priced stereo preamps. I’ve seen more than one article saying this and found for myself how true it is these days… if one is to be honest about the appraisal.

Personally, I’d just get a pretty good CDP or a multi format player perhaps, first and see for myself… then consider any further moves on their own merits. Hold off on going completely crazy just yet. You may actually like the proc’s way of producing music!

Hthf,
I meant no disrespect, and I think Blindjim dicovered what I am talking about. What you are describing is DAC>ADC>DAC which will give you accumulated distortions. Imagine starting with faxed image, make a photocopy, then fax it and compare it to the original (not the original fax, but the original image). In this case, no matter how good your cd player is, the processor is does two conversions. If you use a digital in, you skip the first two conversions and end up with QUALITY 5 or maybe 6 if the ADC is culprit. Put yet another way: if your scale was 1-10, 9=90%. 90%of 50% = 45%- OK, so my math was off before. Bottom line is that the more you put in the chain, the worse it will get. You might be surprised at how good the digital in is on your processor in conjunction with your room correction. Nowadays I run as much digital to my stand alone dac as I can decode.

Thanks guys!
That's pretty much what I figured: I'm at the mercy of the pre-pro's DAC one way or the other. As it turns out, I'm using a Bryston SP2, so I'm in pretty good shape to begin with.