Setting up a multichannel DAC with miniDSP UDIO-8 device

[jrobbins50]

@Kal Rubinson, as you are the subject matter expert on this, hoping you will weigh in. 

 

I’m going to give it a go to hook three Musical Fidelity V-90 DACs together with a miniDSP UDIO-8 to make a multichannel DAC that I hope will sound better than my miniDSP U-DAC8 or running HDMI into my Marantz AV-7702 prepro.  

 

My question is about the DB-25 breakout cable with the UDIO-8. I’m assuming that the four marked in the manual for inputs (purple, blue, green and orange) are not used at all. The other four for output are yellow for 1/2, red for 3/4, grey for 5/6 and brown for 7/8. How do I know which is for front left/right, surround left/right and center/subwoofer?  Is there a standard or is it trial and error?

 

I take it that with this setup, I should use Roon to do the sound correction before the USB output from the server reaches the UDIO-8 and as the analog multichannel inputs on the Marantz don’t run Audyssey?  I trust you expect I should get a better sound this way even though my multichannel analog inputs are not as nice as your AV8802a’s. JCR

[jrobbins50]

@Kal Rubinson, just reporting that three Musical Fidelity V90 DACs stacking with the UDIO-8 are sounding really good into the Marantz. I have worked with Thierry of Home Audio Fidelity to create customized filters for Roon’s convolution engine for bass management and sound correction.  The trick was Thierry creating filters just for the bass crossovers and then my measuring the effect in my system using REW sweeps playing out through Roon into the V90 stack, measuring each speaker in the array with the two subs. Thierry then combined the bass crossover filters with the sound correction filters and all of that is being done in Roon. My multichannel system has never sounded better. That UDIO-8 is a slick product. JCR