Yeah I am considering Altec Lansing MX5021. But some ppl said that Edifier S530D is much better for movies. Even better than Aego M. But I will still go listen for myself to make up my mind. I heard that your DIY cables are very good. Will cables make a significant different if it is replaced with the stock cables?

But I think now is quite hard to get audigy2 ZS right? How much is the card?

This post has been edited by naleh33: Mar 24 2008, 11:46 PM

hi to all DAC sifu here..
plan to get an Aego M on my next upgrade.
i'm currently using Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 HiFi..
my question is: does the worth to add another DAC [let's say ZERO DAC]??

from (1) Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 HiFi -> Aego M
to (2) Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 HiFi -> Zero DAC -> Aego M

or should i consider to sell the audiotrak and use the onboard optical connection instead?
(3) OnBoard -> Zero DAC -> Aego M

any difference between (2) and (3)??

can you eleborate more on the bold section? for all i know, the newer MX5021 satellite has a design that is different from the older ones. Do you mean this?

Before this, I did speak with mADmAN regarding the optical and coaxial connection to the ZERO dac, he tried connecting with onboard optical and Maya 44's coaxial, with his revealing Beyer DT990, the result comes out he cant detect any significant difference, or dare to say no different at all.

Anyway, I do think you should do a head to head comparison between the Prodigy and ZERO, they might be on similar level of sound quality but I always think DAC is a better form for source, cos it provides better modding possibility, room to improve the power supply chain which I rated most important and basic aspect in getting the right sound, and lastly DAC's high integrity would allows you move from PC hifi to Traditional Hifi without any setup hassle

[quote=PcWork,Mar 24 2008, 10:24 PM]
AV amp does not necessary comes with tuner.
AV amp is same with AV amplifiers. amp = amplifiers in short form.

Any amp that comes with a tuner is called a receiver. A one piece audio component with pre/power audio amplification stages is called an integrated amplifier. I was in hi-fi sales 18 yrs ago, so I had to learn the basics



AV amp means it support multi channel, and with selector (thats why they call it receiver some time). so that you can connect different DVD source, of image / audio. and it comes with multichannel surround support.

Here is something I found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV_receiver

"The term receiver originally referred to a component which included a tuner, a pre-amplifier and a power amplifier. These receivers were sometimes called stereos. The modern AV receiver provides for these functions, but extends the amplification to more than two channels....."



and usually they opp for external DAC because of it's cheap price, to use the DAC with cheaper transporter. else CDP with the same DAC built in will cost much much higher.

Agreed somewhat, but what about the signal integrity from a cheapo player? Wouldn't the signal degrade from the point of the source? And what about jitter, wow and flutter? Here's a good post, taken from http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3931

"This may be a little stretch but a transport would be kind of like a turntable without a cartridge. They came in all varieties. Cheap ones had more wow and flutter, ligher weight bases and less precision tone arms. If you put the same high quality cartridge in a cheap one vs a good one you could really tell the difference. You could stretch it a little further and compare the cartridge to the DAC. If the cartridge was a cheap one it probably wouldn't matter what the quality of the turntable but if it was a really good cartridge then quality of the table would make a big difference.
As far as a transport vs a using a CD player data output, they perform the same function. They both read the data off the disc and supply it to the DAC. Each byte is placed in three different places on the disc, is read 3 times then the DAC determines what the byte is. That way if it misses one due to a mis-read then it throws that one out. If it misses two then it makes a guess. Speed is not very important so long as it is fast enough and the average speed is correct so a buffer is not overrun. Jitter is an issue as well but I don't have a good handle on that. I think it has to do with the data timing changing mid byte and not matching what is expected by the DAC but I'm not really sure. If anyone knows let me know.
A transport that does not read well will miss a certain amout of data and will still sound good. The problem is when the DAC starts guessing about more and more bytes it will at some point no longer be accurate even though it is still playing. (a higher amount of bytes are in the "guess" state) So... there is a range of quality which produces a range of accuracy.
madmax"


Here's some more http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?dd...&openflup&5&4#5

Basically, like what you say, GIGO. However, GIGO starts at the very beginning of the audio repro stage, i.e, the reading of the disc So, IMHO, unless you have a pretty decent transport, it's better to get a good CDP like a Marantz or Onkyo at least. All I'm saying is, sometimes it's better to let the sound engineers who design excellent CDPs, do their mix and match for you. Choosing the right DAC is no easy task, each one adds its own flavoring to the end result. Let's say you have bright sounding speakers, coupled to an amp that sounds fast. Would you choose a bright but accurate DAC over a warmer, but less transparent one? The type of music one listens to plays a role too. And I think I was referring to using the DVD writer on a pc as a transport coupled to a DAC like what the TS was intending to use. I feel it is rather imbalanced.



other than that. high end DAC will indeed provide better quality than high end CDP as the DAC has it's own isolated power supply,.rather than sharing power with servo, lens, and other component in the CDP system.
there are some people prefer DAC also because the ease of upgrade. he just have to change the DAC. instead of the whole CDP which including transport and DAC


I don't think I'm wrong in playing down the use of an external DAC for TS. He wasn't referring to using a high end DAC anyway Granted, dedicated transport/DAC combos are great, but these are usually high end components with high end price tags.


and for your info,changes caused by external DAC, separate transport, pre-power amp, tube amps, power supply is not subtle, which in fact they bring MAJOR different. even in my lower mid range system. i upgraded my CDP, and they sound MUCH MUCH different, i upgrade my cable to van den hul, i change my AMP transformer, and power section cap. and it bring super big different. ask those who had listened to my system before and after.
my system had become much quiet than before as compare to the original condition.


Ok, the sum is greater than the parts I agree. But let's say you changed them one at a time, the differences would have been more subtle wouldn't they?


if you were into DAC, i will suggest you to opp for DAC with coaxial input. most of my friends with DAC agreed with me that coaxial input sounds more natural than optical.
on their systems respectively.

The whole world is still debating this one There doesn't seem to be a clear winner, a quick check on audio forums prove that after so many decades of audio technology no one has been able to come up with a definitive answer. Bad coaxials may pick up EMF. Bad opticals may bend easily or their Toslinks are loose etc. But for brevity and simplicity I think perhaps coaxials are easier to get right; an optical solution would require a good optical/digital converter at both ends, so on cheapo systems with bad converters there might be an issue that affects sound quality.