Sony PS3 Optical Out to a DAC?

Some may disagee with me on this, but it has been my experience that the transport has just as much of an influence on how a two piece digital playback system sounds, as the DAC does. Absolutely you can hook up a PS3 optically to a top drawer DAC, or any DAC with a Toslink input, and get CD playback. I own both a PS3 and a high end DAC(EAD)and have experiemented with this hook up scheme myself. To be completely honest the sound quality with this setup, using a high quality glass Toslink cable was underwhelming at best. Bright ,strident, uninvolving sound, devoid of any real soundstage or refinement. I have never been a big fan of the Toslink interface. I have always found that all else being equal a coaxial input/output is superior. This is just my experience, someone else's will and may differ.

I also have my PS3 hooked up to a DAC. The question in my mind isn't so much whether the sound is good or not from this setup, but whether the sound through the Toslink interface running through my DAC and sound system was better than the sound through the HDMI interface running through my TV speakers. In my case, I preferred the Toslink/DAC route.

The fan noise would stop me, perhaps yours is much quieter.

I felt that the sound from the ps3 RCA outs was about the same as the optical through the dacmagic. Through an eastern electric dac, I noticed a fair amount of improvement.

With the ps3 the biggest improvement for me was when I set the audio to 44.1khz. The default 48khz sounded pretty dead.

Michelle_kim, "With the ps3 the biggest improvement for me was when I set the audio to 44.1khz. The default 48khz sounded pretty dead." Why is that?

I tried to hook up my PS3 to m y Wadia S7i glass cable and all I heard was a loud fluttering noise.

Talk2me - not sure what is causing the 48khz setting to sound so flat, but try it out. It's bad when I play any of my CD rips.

running it in 48khz mode allows you to use the OS while playing music though.

Thanks Michelle.