To DAC or not to DAC


I have an Alesis Masterlink 9600 CD recorder (reviewed this month in Stereophile!), and I'm wondering if I should run this componet through my MSB Link DAC 3? I wonder if its redundant and un-nessesary since the Masterlink already has 24 bit/128 oversampling. I wonder if running data through two DAC's will improve playback sound quality, decrease the quality or simply do nothing?

P.S-

The MSB Link DAC does have the upsampling option installed.

mhubbard
You should look into getting an Art DI/O everyone raves about these with some basic mods, you being into recording and such you will like that piece, and its a steal retailing at $500 with some basic mods it will smoke most any DAC this side of 4k. ~Tim
Not to bad-mouth the Dio, but i know of a few people that have had less optimum results than what Tim has stated. Obviously, this has to do with system synergy, personal preference, what mods were done and what parts were used, etc...

As to trying to run the output of this unit into a DAC, you can't run a dac into a dac. You would have to run a digital out into the dac. Otherwise, you would have a signal that had already been converted into analogue via the first dac feeding into the second dac that was looking for a digital signal to lock onto. Needless to say, this would never work correctly. Sean
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Your right Sean I have; I have never had a Dio so I am just going by what others tell me- just wanted to offer it as another possibility. ~Tim
Run it and let your ears decide! It won't cost you anything but time well spent listening to music!