Processor DACs

without the benefit of heaving heard either the wyred4sound or the integra, it is very likely the stand alone dac will blow the processor out of the water on the basis sonics of the DAC alone. However, keep in mind that you will of course no longer have access to room correction and bass management in 2 channel mode. This may be a dealbreaker for some, and a total non-issue for others.

You can have both (I.e. top notch outboard Dac and room correction) if you put a dedicated room correction / xover box with digital in and outputs in the chain, which is what I do (trinnov pro). It gets a little complex and pricey, but results are well worth the effort if you get over these two constraints.

Kal, there is no A/D/A conversion when I play stereo mode in 2.2 setup. I run digital straight into the Trinnov, and digital out to an outboard DAC for mains, and trinnov analog out for the subs.

To integrate this with MCH you can use the Trinnov analog inputs and do A/D/A on the analog ooutputs of your processor (which is what I do).

Alternatively, if you have a processor with its own room correction, you could use this intead of the Trinnov for MCH sources. The problem is you would need an input switch for your mains and subs - one input comes from the processor in MCH mode, and the other from the Trinnov (or the outboard DAC if that is what you use) when you play in stereo mode.

Lot's of boxes, cables and expensive - much easier to do 2 channel and MCH room correction in a single processor.

Steve, a few years ago I used a modded Audio Note 2.1 DAC (about 2K I believe), that was bested by the Xtreme Card in a Theta Casablanca III, so a SSP is capable of beating a 1K DAC (the Theta Xtreme DAC card retails for 5K though). The Xtreme card was subsequently left in the dust by the PS audio Perfectwave, which was then trounced by the MKII upgrade. Inshallah I will have a chance to compare the MKII with your overdrive SE sometime this summer.

Kal, the only processors with room correction that I am aware of that has digital outputs would be the Tact TCS MKII, and the Datasat RS20i (currently in Beta version). Theta CBIII HD has digital output (with digi out card) but no room correction yet (Dirac has been announced, but Theta being Theta is and when this will ship is everyone's guess)

Cdj123, the problem with this architecture is that because of HDMI licensing restictions, the digital output has to be downsampled to 48/16 on high rez HDMI sources.

Another more realistic option I totally forgot about it this. If you can live without sub(s) in stereo mode, you can still have full blown room correction, an external DAC and integration with an SSP with its own room correction.

You would do this by running the room correction for 2 channel on your music server PC. Dirac now sells their software to run on a PC (I believe around $700), and there is also acourate, which is even cheaper. This is full blown 2 channel room correction with phase / time alignment. So you would run the music server (which also runs the correction) into the DAC over USB. If you buy the wyred4sound DAC2, you would run the SSP through the HT bypass on the wyred4sound. In 2 channel mode you use the wyred4sound volume control.

This would be a relatively cost effective integrated 5.1 and 2.0 system. With room correction in both modes.

Mateored, for two channel there are many more options that will give you both room correction and outboard dac. I mentioned running room correction on a pc. You can use PEQ in amarra on a Mac (something Steve is a strong advocate of). You can also use a dedicated box such as tact, lyndorf or trinnov.

Cdj123, I have no personal experience running Room Correction on a PC. You can however get 30 day trial of acourate and maybe Dirac offers the same. Only financial commitment is you need a good microphone to do the calibration.

If you are referring to the PC based version, it appears to still be there.

http://shop.dirac.se/products/97-dirac-live-room-correction-suite-full-pre-release-version.aspx