still learning wrote:
David B asks:

I am auditioning a used California Audio Labs DAC with my home theatre
receiver (Kenwood 6060). I'm hoping to use this more for two channel
in
the future.
The light on the receiver that signals clipping will come on briefly
(flicker) during playback on some CD's. There is no audible clipping
but when I play these same CD's using the DAC's in the receiver or the
DVD/CD player (Toshiba), I don't get the flickering clip light.
It is my guess that even though there is no audible clipping going on,
this is not a good thing. Any imput from you learned gentlemen would
be
appreciated.
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Conventional wisdom is that outboard DAC's in general are a bad idea
since they can't improve on the perfromance of the one inside your CD
player or DVD player. What they likely CAN do is degrade performance.

My advice is return it and learn more about why they aren't a good
investment.

Where do you get that? An external DAC may or may not improve on a built-in
DAC circuit, but there is no such "conventional wisdom". Many built-in DAC's
are cheap, cheap, cheap. A digital output going to a competently designed
DAC will probably sound noticeably better than many all-in-one units.

Mark Z.