external DAC / receiver DAC interaction

[zrlw32]

I am just getting started in the realm of music servers. I would like to piece into this to ensure I understand what I am doing before spending a lot of money on equipment that might not be needed. My current equipment includes the following:

 

Yamaha RXA-2000 receiver that I use as both an AV receiver for movies and a prepamp for music

 

B&K Reference 2220 2 channel 220w ampliphier connected as a per-out from the peramp section of the Yamaha

 

Sony 400 disk CD changer

 

B&W 804 tower speakers

 

dvd, plasma monitor, center channel, rear channel speakers, round everything out but are not relevant to this discussion

 

I want to move away from the cd changer and install a music server. However, I am confused on what value an external DAC will add. My receiver only allows input through HDMI (A/V), digital coax, optical, and rca. It has a pretty decent DAC on board. It is a Burr-Brown 192khz/24-bit DAC for each channel. My question is reagrding how the signal get processed. If I install an external DAC won't my receiver just process the incoming signal again through the internal DAC? If so, what have I gained by getting an external DAC?

 

Thanks for your help

Randy

 

[bikemig]

You already have a pretty good dac onboard; try it out and see what you think. If you add an external dac, you could set up the AV receiver to do an analog bypass so it does not process the signal. I do that with my Squeezebox Touch and it works very well. If you want to tweak the digital signal, the musical fidelity v-link is an inexpensive add on that should improve the quality by reducing jitter, http://www.amazon.com/Musical-Fidelity-V-LINK-SPDIF-Converter/dp/B004PH03GU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311016321&sr=8-1.

 

[Bear]

I am using a similar setup with my NAD 775 HD. The NAD is known for their sound quality, but when I went with an external DAC (Bel Canto 1.5 presently - MSB Nelson before) there was a noticeable improvement in the overall presentation and sound. I have the 775 set to analog bypass as suggested above, which shuts down all processors in the receiver and lets it act as a true pre-amp, with great results. I am also using an external amp for the two main front channels which has further improved things (Bel Canto 300s). There are many ways to go assuming your receiver has true analog bypass. In the end all that matters is what sounds good to you and what you can happily live with. If you can try a high quality DAC out I would start there to see if it is worth it to you. You may notice a big difference just by eliminating that Sony disc changer and going to a computer based system. I have been able to far exceed the quality of the sound (to me) over my CD transport even using the same DAC at the same sample rate. I use Pure Music with iTunes. The other advantage of an external DAC is you can use USB or, on some higher end DAC's, firewire direct. There are numerous discussions on this subject here. I am using USB direct to the DAC with great results using WyWires USB cable ( see my review on this forum). With the BC DAC it is plug and play.

 

[zrlw32]

Bear,

 

Thaks for the comment. How would you suggest I go about determining if my Yamaha has analog bypass? I am not familiar with that concept and it does not show up in the manual.

 

[Audio_ELF]

The Analogue Bypass mode is usually referred to as Pure Audio or Pure Direct mode...

 

Your alternative method would be a DAC such as Wyred4Sound DAC2 which has a volume control and a bypass mode (or if no bypass mode a passive switch) and connect it direct to your power amp.

 

Eloise