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New Member |
I will start to digitalize my music and I am using a Squeeze box 2 right now, but I am looking into connecting it to a better DAC. The Supernait seems good with its built in DAC, but I wonder how it will stand against e.g. the Benchmark DAC1 which I am also looking into and which, if I understand it correctly, can also be used as a pre amplifier. Does anyone have any experience with the DAC1 and know what the difference is between this and the DAC1 pre? Does the pre version have a better pre amp?
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Trade Member |
Are you merely looking for a DAC, or is a new pre/power also in the cards?
Keep in mind that the maximum sample rate of the SB2 is 48kHz–keeping that in mind, make sure you audition your DAC choices at the lower sample rate. IMHO the best DACs should perform as well at lower sample rates as they do at higher ones; those DACs that use re-sampling (as the DAC1) essentially operate at one sample rate, independent of the sample rate of the source material (great idea if all of your material gets upsampled, not so great if it gets downsampled). That said–the SUPERNAIT will handle 192 kHz / 24-bit SPDIF streams, if you end up with some hi-res downloads. If comparing with the DAC1, make sure you know exactly which version of the DAC1 you have (e.g., USB, PRE, 96k, etc.), as it is now a mature product range–not terribly impressed with older versions, a bit gritty, but newer units seem less so–still not to my taste, YMMV. |
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Senior Member |
I'm sure you would agree that resampling should be avoided if at all possible. Resampling is *very* hard to do without introducing a shedload of unwanted complications.
In fact, I'd suggest that any product that enforces a resampling to its own preferred rate should be considered w*nk. To put it politely... |
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Senior Member |
The DAC1 resamples everything to 110 kHz IIRC, the reasoning being that this is far enough away from any standard sampling rate. Asynchronous sampling is supposed to make the DAC1 independent of transport quality. Why is this wankery, please? |
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New Member |
If I go with the DAC1, I will go with the USB version since I plan to sometimes play music, movies directly from my computer. Thank you so much for your help |
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Senior Member |
Even going from 88k to 44k has to be done with huge care. different software/firmare does it with differing results. Choosing an arbitrary sampling rate, and then chopping *everything* to that seems perverse. We need to be careful about which version of DAC1 is being discussed too. The USB one does this resampling thing. The AES/EBU interfaced one does 24-bit 192k The proof, as always, will be in the listening and measuring. But this 110K resampling approach is highly unusual |
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New Member |
I am merely looking for a DAC and since the DAC1 can also work as a pre amplifier, I am thinking of buying either a NAP 200 or 250. Anyone have any experience with this DAC1 and NAP combo? I am not too familiar with the term sample rate, what exactly do you mean? I have digitalized my cd:s to the loss less FLAC format, would that affect the sound quality with a DAC1 SB2 combo? |
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Senior Member |
... and resamples it to 110 kHz. Do you speak from your own experience, or from what others have told you? Not having a go at you, just trying to understand your POV. |
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Member |
A friend of mine who is an audiophile and runs a small recording/mastering business (unfortunately a rare combination) made a lot of comparisons with sample rate conversion. We upsampled and downsampled selfmade recordings with different hard ware based and software based sample rate converters to asyncronious and syncronious sample rates. To cut a long story short: Syncronious upsampling and downsampling is OK, but asyncronious upsampling and downsampling results in a lot of artefacts and the music simply does not sound natural anymore. To me any asyncronious upsampling DAC or CD player is a NO GO whereas I could live with a syncronious upsampling device but I would always prefer a device that does not change the sample rate and based on that experience I can really understand why Naim stays with 16/44,1 in all of their CD players. It is by far too simple and to my ears even wrong to say that asyncronious upsampling eliminates jitter and is therefore better, since this kind of upsampling comes up with a hole bunch of new problems. This can clearly be heard with voices and natural instruments.
There is nothing wrong with 96kHz or 192kHz sample rates as long as they are recorded with this rate and played back with this rate, but when downsampled to fit CDs redbook standard 44,1 kHz they are by far not optimal. |
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Senior Member |
Every time I have heard sample rate conversion, there are artifacts which are clearly audible. Some solutions, algorithms are better than others. Async resampling has sounded quite nasty to me, every time I have tried. Hence my concern that Benchmark are taking a perfectly nice 192k signal and munging it down to 110khz. The only reason to do this is that their DAC cant do a decent 192k playback, but can cope with 110k speed. Which is a bit of a lame excuse, to be honest. |
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Senior Member |
JohnR -- agree 110%
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