mp3 bit stream to DAC?
The SP/DIF port on the Archros player is not an output but an input. |
Hovendic, I looked around for an answer to your question, but I could not find anything specific as to what requirements a DAC needs to play an MP3. MP3 players have decoders built in them, but outboard decoders or DACs seem to be lacking. Perhaps MP3 decoding is built into more modern DAC chip sets? Your Yamaha must have this capability. If a component says, "It can play MP3" that is a bit ambigious as this can mean before or after it has been decoded to analog. What DAC did you buy? Was there any improvement? |
GCE. The bitstream created by an mp3 is format identical (although not content identical) to a CD transport; the player has a digital algorithm in it to convert mp3s to a PCM stream that is probably 16 bit 44.1 kHz, maybe 16 bit 48 kHz (used by a lot of computers). The Ack DAC might not like 48 kHz sample rates, so that might be it. Most DACs are more tolerant. The content difference is that your mp3 is going to sound compressed, even though the stream is no different technically. It still has to create the same sample rate and reconstruct the bits, its just that it has less information to do it with and will therefore interpolate a lot more. Try running wav files off your Archos. Those will probably sound a lot better. |
Steuspeed - I forget the name, but there WAS a difference, in that they did play through the spdif/digital out into the new DAC Edesilva - thanks for the input, I think you're post is exactly right. It is a PCM stream in 16 bit, 44.1 KHz, identical to any other "transport", but compressed as you say. They play "allright" to my ear but will download some wav files of some of the same songs and try to listen to a difference. As a side note, the archos is great, but I think I am going to also get an xbox that has a digital (optical) out, store and plays my mp3's that way as well (I think I have to install some software on it first to do so though). Still looking into it on the internet. |
Are you thinking new XBox? The 360 will act as a media server and even allow access to music files on other networked computers on your LAN, as long as they are running Windows OS (actually, might have to be running Windows Media Center Edition... can't recollect). Supposed to actually be a decent UI. The wav files will sound a lot better. |
