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#1
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Using CD player for DAC only
I've got an audio source (Apple Airport Express
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) that has both digital and analogue outputs. The sound quality of the analogue output is not that hot, not bad but you can notice the difference between it and a reasonable CD player. I'd like to use the digital out but unfortulately my amplifier doesn't have a digital input - not many do these days apparently. Stand alone digital to analogue converters (DACs) are very expensive as they are generally really high end bits of kit. What I just thought of doing was getting a cheap second hand CD player and trying to wire the digital output of the airport into the DAC of the CD player, so the source would be external instead of the CD transport. I can cope with basic electronics. The airport output is optical Toslink but you can get optical - coax. converters. Any comments on this plan? Cheers Oliver |
#2
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Oliver Kohll wrote:
I've got an audio source (Apple Airport Express http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) that has both digital and analogue outputs. The sound quality of the analogue output is not that hot, not bad but you can notice the difference between it and a reasonable CD player. I'd like to use the digital out but unfortulately my amplifier doesn't have a digital input - not many do these days apparently. Stand alone digital to analogue converters (DACs) are very expensive as they are generally really high end bits of kit. What I just thought of doing was getting a cheap second hand CD player and trying to wire the digital output of the airport into the DAC of the CD player, so the source would be external instead of the CD transport. I can cope with basic electronics. The airport output is optical Toslink but you can get optical - coax. converters. Any comments on this plan? Doesn't Airport Express transmit audio as lossy compressed data ? Would impose a high load on the network bandwidth if it didn't. That may be the reason for poor quality. Graham |
#3
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Pooh Bear wrote in message news: Doesn't Airport Express transmit audio as lossy compressed data ? Would
impose a high load on the network bandwidth if it didn't. That may be the reason for poor quality. Graham No it transmits a compressed but lossless format 'Apple Lossless' - gets tracks down to about half their original size - a bit of a pity to have bad conversion/amplification on the other end really. |
#4
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Pooh Bear wrote in message news: Doesn't Airport Express transmit audio as lossy compressed data ? Would
impose a high load on the network bandwidth if it didn't. That may be the reason for poor quality. Graham It transmits in a compressed but lossless format 'Apple Lossless'. The source audio files are high quality as well. Oliver |
#6
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"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message On 12 Sep 2004 17:40:58 -0700, (Oliver Kohll) wrote: I've got an audio source (Apple Airport Express http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) that has both digital and analogue outputs. The sound quality of the analogue output is not that hot, not bad but you can notice the difference between it and a reasonable CD player. This is not, in practice, a hi-fi system. I doubt the digital output will sound any different to the analogue. Agreed. It was probably what he hooked the Apple Airport Express digital and analog outputs to that controlled his perceptions. |
#7
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(Oliver Kohll) wrote in message . com...
I've got an audio source (Apple Airport Express http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) that has both digital and analogue outputs. The sound quality of the analogue output is not that hot, not bad but you can notice the difference between it and a reasonable CD player. [..] What I just thought of doing was getting a cheap second hand CD player and trying to wire the digital output of the airport into the DAC of the CD player, so the source would be external instead of the CD transport. I can cope with basic electronics. The airport output is optical Toslink but you can get optical - coax. converters. Any comments on this plan? I have the same challenge at hand. Analog AX output is pretty poor. I guess the question is which bitstream format the CD player converter is using. I would suggest to look into some of the electronics sites and check what actual converters are used in CD playser. Another option would be to use a DAT player. But then these are likely to be as expensive as used DA converters. Alas, aren't there any "non high end" external DACs out there? |
#8
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#9
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"Ingomar Otter" wrote in message
om Alas, aren't there any "non high end" external DACs out there? One example: 1/2 of Midiman's Flying Cow. |
#10
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I've got an audio source (Apple Airport Express
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/) that has both digital and analogue outputs. The sound quality of the analogue output is not that hot, Update: In the meantime I got myself a used Behringer Ultra-Curve DEQ 2496, which (among other things) has an OK (from my point of view) AKM DAC: I hooked this up to the AX through optical cable, set the DEQ to "S/PDIF optical input"... .. Voila! Crystal clear & very crisp sound (*1)! Uuuh dude! :-) (*1) Note to the so called "audiophiles": I use mediocre amps & speakers but the DEQ this is _still_ a hughe improvement compared to the build in DAC of the AX. |
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