2. digital
  3. 1067918462

Its all in the DAC?

Hello All,
I currently own a Pioneer Elite DV45a. The DAC in the Pioneer sounds grainy in my system. When I use it as transport only to my B&K ref 50, the sound quality and stage opens up and sounds much better. I use my system for both 2 channel and HT. I am considering a reference quality CD palyer; but it seems to me that the quality of the sound is really in the DAC and not the transport. As long as the DAC can discern between 1 and 0 from the transport and the clocks are in sync between the transport and the DAC, which should be the case for most modern CD players, I should be able to get reference quality sound by just adding a high quality DAC to my system. If there is any jitter in the system at all, the DAC should have enough de-jitter buffer space to take care of it. Do you agree?
tfee

Showing 2 responses by murphthelab

murphthelab
21 posts
 
As a former industry expert on jitter in high-speed digital telecommunication systems, I always get sucked into these type of questions.... ;-)

It's key to understand that jitter on the 1/0 signal from the transport does not end when it hits the DAC, despite buffering. The clock that times the bits OUT from the DAC is derived from the input clock. The DAC represents a filter. Filtering jitter is not easy and it is never perfect. Jitter = distortion on the analog signal (discernable or not).
murphthelab
21 posts
 
Seandtaylor99 is right on the mark. In category 2, the Genesis Digital Lens is an example procuct (which I use). In this specific example, the box has some intelligence and measures the average difference between the transport clock and the Genesis clock (temperature controlled crystal). This way it can set the necessary buffering level without undo buffer delay.
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