Please teach me something


Instruct me on the use of external DAC's . I understand what they are and what they do but I don't understand how to use them with a stand alone CDP .

Do you connect the ext. DAC to the analog out of a CDP thus doing the digital to analog thing twice ? Or do you connect to a CDP's digital out , if so equiped ? Many are not .

In the case of the former (connected to analog out) , wouldn't the CDP's DAC's alter the final outcome from the ext. DAC thus giving a different sound for each different CDP used with the same ext. DAC ?

Thank You .
saki70
Just to oversimplify, DAC stands for "digital to analog converter". We don't listen to bits and bytes or a series of 0 and 1 (digital). We listen to a continuous waveform (analog).

The information on a cd is digital, and the DAC converts it to analog. As stated above, cd players have built-in DACs. If you go from the cd players digital out to an outboard DAC, you bypass the cd player's DACs and you can alter the sound of the translation from analog to digital. Like other equipment, each DAC has its own sound (although many differences are subtle IMHO).

A computer soundcard is also a DAC, for example, because it converts digital to analog.
Ok , thank you much for the lesson .
That was what I thought but wanted to check to make sure .

You people sure are great !

Happy tunes .