Do I Really Need A Dac?

I'm considering a Dac or Oppo BDP 95 as the next step in upgrades. I'm running with Vistas, Depth i and a Denon 2807, bi amped and a Denon DVD 1730.

Denon said that the Dac in the 2807 was cutting edge 7 years ago and that the newer Dac's spec out better but don't sound better, because the human ear cannot detect differences of this order.

They also pointed out that when outputting an optical signal from the CD player, it is the Dac in the amp that will be doing all the work. So in theory, if I buy an Oppo and hook it up via Toslink to the Denon amp, it will be the Denon amp's Dac doing the work, not the Oppo's. Is the same true for the optical output of my computer, since I've stored my CD collection there? Please enlighten me.

Mark, when using receivers like your Denon, the odds of hearing the receivers DAC and not something further upstream is pretty high. Especially if you have a sub, and the receiver is doing crossover duties, then usually, the path will include the D/A's of the receiver.

Now, these receivers do have a 'Direct' mode that when all the settings are just so, it will behave like an analog pre-amp/amp and you can hear the DAC of an upstream component.

So in your situation, especially for the computer, you *will* be hearing the Denon's DAC all the time.

Personally, I'd look at updating the receiver to one of the newer ones, like the upcoming Denon 4520, which has audyssey MultEQ32, which will improve your in-room sound way more than any Dac ever could hope to do. When we're talking about fixing in-room response errors that measure 10dB or more, as well as fixing imaging problems and other issues addressed by a room corrector, no Dac in the world will be significant.

Hope that helps.

If you're considering the Oppo BDP 95, it has a distinct DAC for analog audio. I doubt any AVR would have a built in DAC that could even come close so I would use the analog outs for CD.

For computer audio, again, I doubt ant any AVR doubt have a decent enough built in DAC to do your Vista's justice. Yes, the AVR will be doing the digital to analog conversion. Optical is just a digital stream. I'm a computer audio junkie and for both my main and dedicated headphone systems, I use an external DAC. If your entire CD library is on your computer, get the Oppo BD93 (for video use only) and a dedicated DAC for music off your computer. You can get a decent DAC for $500 and up. Personally, I'm using a PS Audio DLIII in my main system and a Schiit Bifrost for my headphone system and am quite pleased with both.

FYI, Oppo has announced the forthcoming BDP-105, which will replace the 95. It also includes digital inputs (along with quite a few other improvements), so can function as an outboard DAC as well. Might want to wait another month or two until it's officially released. Can't go wrong with their 30 day return policy.

sleepysurf said:

FYI, Oppo has announced the forthcoming BDP-105, which will replace the 95. It also includes digital inputs (along with quite a few other improvements), so can function as an outboard DAC as well. Might want to wait another month or two until it's officially released. Can't go wrong with their 30 day return policy.

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Well this was one of my thoughts, but if I take a digital optical cable from my CD player and run it into the Oppo, what do I run out of the Oppo? If I send a digital signal to my receiver, it will then run through the Denon DAC. I would have to take an analog output from the Oppo to my AVR to ensure that it is not reprocessed in the AVR. Do I have this straight now?

You got it.. analog out to the AVR. That way you're taking advantage of the DAC in the Oppo (which should be much better) versus the AVR.

mark_inri said:

Well this was one of my thoughts, but if I take a digital optical cable from my CD player and run it into the Oppo, what do I run out of the Oppo? If I send a digital signal to my receiver, it will then run through the Denon DAC. I would have to take an analog output from the Oppo to my AVR to ensure that it is not reprocessed in the AVR. Do I have this straight now?

Click to expand...

I agree with JonFo that upgrading to a newer Denon receiver (with Audyssey MultEQ) might be a better alternative, particularly if your room/speaker interface is not ideal. You'd probably only notice significant improvement with the analog output from an outboard DAC (or the new Oppo) if everything else in your setup (including room, acoustics, and speaker positioning) are already optimized (without needing Audyssey).

Just for clarification, per Denon, the AVR-4520 DAC is a 3x32 bit floating point 192khz with Burr Brown processor. This is quite a leap above the 3313 it looks like, but I'm not sure how it would compare to the Oppo BDP-105 Sabre 32 Reference Audio DAC? I would love to know how it compares though! Anyone have any real quantitative or qualitative comparison?

Any dac put through a receiver will not sound good but you could add a tube buffer between an external dac and the avr to smooth it out? You could buy a nice tube integrated amp and use a hrt music streamer dac for $150 . I did this and it smoked my anthem amp and D2 setup

No ones has asked, so I will....

Do you want a 2 channel sound or a home theatre sound. Because an AVR is not for 2 channel and they are definitely not for 2 channel hifi.

If you are trying to get 2 channel hifi then just upgrade the denon, if you want two channel by an integrated amp to save a little money from separates then look at a dac for your digital needs