Processor DACs

Steve, a few years ago I used a modded Audio Note 2.1 DAC (about 2K I believe), that was bested by the Xtreme Card in a Theta Casablanca III, so a SSP is capable of beating a 1K DAC (the Theta Xtreme DAC card retails for 5K though). The Xtreme card was subsequently left in the dust by the PS audio Perfectwave, which was then trounced by the MKII upgrade. Inshallah I will have a chance to compare the MKII with your overdrive SE sometime this summer.

Kal, the only processors with room correction that I am aware of that has digital outputs would be the Tact TCS MKII, and the Datasat RS20i (currently in Beta version). Theta CBIII HD has digital output (with digi out card) but no room correction yet (Dirac has been announced, but Theta being Theta is and when this will ship is everyone's guess)

Cdj123, the problem with this architecture is that because of HDMI licensing restictions, the digital output has to be downsampled to 48/16 on high rez HDMI sources.

Well, you could add Meridian to the list as they permit such low res digital output, as well.

Another more realistic option I totally forgot about it this. If you can live without sub(s) in stereo mode, you can still have full blown room correction, an external DAC and integration with an SSP with its own room correction.

You would do this by running the room correction for 2 channel on your music server PC. Dirac now sells their software to run on a PC (I believe around $700), and there is also acourate, which is even cheaper. This is full blown 2 channel room correction with phase / time alignment. So you would run the music server (which also runs the correction) into the DAC over USB. If you buy the wyred4sound DAC2, you would run the SSP through the HT bypass on the wyred4sound. In 2 channel mode you use the wyred4sound volume control.

This would be a relatively cost effective integrated 5.1 and 2.0 system. With room correction in both modes.

Steve N - so in a room with terrible acoustics, do you think it would be worth sacrificing the room correction for better DACs for 2 channel music? I know I could just try it, but every time I buy new equipment or make changes to the living room rig, my wife starts asking a lot of questions ; )

Mateored, for two channel there are many more options that will give you both room correction and outboard dac. I mentioned running room correction on a pc. You can use PEQ in amarra on a Mac (something Steve is a strong advocate of). You can also use a dedicated box such as tact, lyndorf or trinnov.