I'm hoping for a little advice.
My living room houses two systems in one cabinet, one for music listening and one for TV.
I had originally wanted to have the TV system be 5.1, but I'm just not motivated enough to put in the work. So now, both are stereo. At this point, the only reason I haven't ditched the home theater receiver is that the analog audio outputs from the TV are horrible. They sound dull yet harsh, and they hummmmmm.
I could put a couple of 1:1 transformers on the TV analog outputs, but that would only solve the hum problem if a ground loop is the cause, and would do nothing to help the poor sound quality from the TV (spitty highs and an electronic 'fizz' over everything).
My TV does have a coaxial S/PDIF output, so I was thinking I could use that to send a stereo analog feed to my music system, and remove the HT receiver and the speakers that are connected to it.
So finally, I come to my questions:
How horrible are those really cheap Chinese S/PDIF DACs you see on eBay?
Is this Muse Audio DAC really miserable, or would it be comparable to the sound from a $150 CD player from ca. 1990? (That might be good enough.)
I've read that the Topping D20 and the Weiliang DAC 9 are good, but those are both in the $125 to $150 range. I'd prefer to spend <$50.
I was thinking the Weiliang DAC 9 in its plain PCB form would be useful, but once you've added the power transformer and put the work into putting it into a case, the cost gets close to $100.
So... What do you think?
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My living room houses two systems in one cabinet, one for music listening and one for TV.
I had originally wanted to have the TV system be 5.1, but I'm just not motivated enough to put in the work. So now, both are stereo. At this point, the only reason I haven't ditched the home theater receiver is that the analog audio outputs from the TV are horrible. They sound dull yet harsh, and they hummmmmm.
I could put a couple of 1:1 transformers on the TV analog outputs, but that would only solve the hum problem if a ground loop is the cause, and would do nothing to help the poor sound quality from the TV (spitty highs and an electronic 'fizz' over everything).
My TV does have a coaxial S/PDIF output, so I was thinking I could use that to send a stereo analog feed to my music system, and remove the HT receiver and the speakers that are connected to it.
So finally, I come to my questions:
How horrible are those really cheap Chinese S/PDIF DACs you see on eBay?
Is this Muse Audio DAC really miserable, or would it be comparable to the sound from a $150 CD player from ca. 1990? (That might be good enough.)
I've read that the Topping D20 and the Weiliang DAC 9 are good, but those are both in the $125 to $150 range. I'd prefer to spend <$50.
I was thinking the Weiliang DAC 9 in its plain PCB form would be useful, but once you've added the power transformer and put the work into putting it into a case, the cost gets close to $100.
So... What do you think?
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Hi Rongon,
If you are going for cheap, I have used the Fiio Taishan. it comes with a small wall wart power supply and USB cable umbilical. It is OK, it's not high-end by any means, but it will get the job done. They are like around $27/piece. They accept SPDIF RCA or TOSLINK inputs and output stereo RCA analog. Simple effective way to use the SPDIF out of your TV.
Cheers!
TRQ
If you are going for cheap, I have used the Fiio Taishan. it comes with a small wall wart power supply and USB cable umbilical. It is OK, it's not high-end by any means, but it will get the job done. They are like around $27/piece. They accept SPDIF RCA or TOSLINK inputs and output stereo RCA analog. Simple effective way to use the SPDIF out of your TV.
Cheers!
TRQ
Hi Rongon,
I use a Pro-Ject DAC Box E Box Design by Pro-Ject Audio Systems
Either input sounds good.
I use a Pro-Ject DAC Box E Box Design by Pro-Ject Audio Systems
Either input sounds good.
There is no guarantee that the SPDIF out isn't derived from the TV's analogue out fed into an ADC. Especially when we're dealing with a TV here, which has lots of analogue inputs.
I had the TV coax S/PDIF out connected to a Behringer SRC-2496. That did not have the hum problem. I don't want to use the SRC-2496 because it has ridiculously bright LEDs and it consumes far too much AC power for everyday use in the living room.
I have had the S/PDIF signal from the TV connected to the digital input of my (old) home theater receiver, and it did send Dolby Digital audio data that was decoded by the receiver. I don't think the signal was originally analog and then encoded to digital, then sent to the receiver over S/PDIF. That would seem to me to be an expensive way to do it, and a bad one as well.
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It looks like the FiiO D03K Taishan is the way to go. Either that, or hide the SRC2496 somewhere where its LEDs don't show. It doesn't sound very good, but what the heck, it's just for TV and the odd DVD or Bluray movie (in stereo).
Thanks for the suggestions.
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Thanks for the suggestions.
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As you consider the highs and lows of DACs, consider that the digital signal is being generated by a component much cheaper than anything so far discussed.
When I was trying to use Toslink from my TV to a Sonos sound bar, I learned that almost all digital signal from the TV going out is only stereo. A few of them will do dolby out, but not many. Using an inexpensive DAC going to your stereo will make a huge difference.
Last thought, is there not a stereo out pair on the back of the TV to go directly to the stereo? I would think this would sound at least as good as the lesser quality DACs, and possible the higher end ones too, depending on what the TV is actually doing with the audio signal.
When I was trying to use Toslink from my TV to a Sonos sound bar, I learned that almost all digital signal from the TV going out is only stereo. A few of them will do dolby out, but not many. Using an inexpensive DAC going to your stereo will make a huge difference.
Last thought, is there not a stereo out pair on the back of the TV to go directly to the stereo? I would think this would sound at least as good as the lesser quality DACs, and possible the higher end ones too, depending on what the TV is actually doing with the audio signal.
This TV's coax out does send either PCM (stereo) out or "Bitstream" (Dolby, DTS, AC3, etc.) out. It's switchable between the two formats in the TV's Sound menu.
That's what I'm hoping.
Yes, there is a pair of RCA jacks for AUDIO OUT, but I'm getting a hummmmmmm from those. Probably a grounding issue of some kind. Could even be a ground loop somewhere. I could go through everything and try to find the magic combination of AC plug polarities to fix the problem, or I could isolate the audio out from the TV to the line inputs on the preamp using a pair of 1:1 audio transformers. Or, I could just remove the grounding issue altogether by adding a DAC (easiest, and cheap enough).
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