AV receiver means three things:

1) It's an integrated amp
2) With a tuner
3) That has theatre sound decoding

Those AV amps without tuners are called AV amplifiers.

DACs are usually built into digital audio and video players, so that they can convert the digital signal from the discs into analogue (hence: Digital-to-Analogue Converter). AV Receivers/Amps OTOH have a built-in DAC that converts and separates the audio channels necessary for surround theatre.

If you want to use the DAC that's built into a receiver, you'll need an optical cable, and a disc player with the same type of output. You wouldn't be able to access the receiver's DAC if you used RCA cables. If you have a high end disc player paired to a so-so receiver, you'll be better off using analogue RCAs, cos chances are the DAC in the player is better than the one in the receiver.

OTOH if you had a high-end receiver and a so-so player but with optical out, then use the DAC of the receiver which will give you better sound quality. However, IINM if you want dts decoding for theatre surround you will need to use the optical cable.

IMHO a separate DAC is usually one of the last things to consider even in a moderately high end system; you'll be better off dealing with the acoustical bottlenecks elsewhere like the player, amp, speakers, cables and room acoustics. Only after you've done all that and spent a considerable amount of time listening to the system and tweaking it to the max, will you be able to discern subtle changes to the system, i.e., external DAC, separate transport, pre-power amp, tube amps, power supply etc.

If you plan to get a DAC for your PC, I'd say not needed, just get a reasonable sound card will do, cos the Aego M isn't that great for serious listening to begin with (I'm using them for my pc). Let's not forget also that the DVD writer/combo or whatever, is not meant for serious music so why waste good money on bad equipment? And we don't even need to talk about compressed music cos that's even worse

This post has been edited by gregy: Mar 24 2008, 10:15 PM

[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.