markeyd

I am considering purchasing the oppo bpd 103. I am wondering how the sound (for stereo music) will compare to my current setup if I hook the coax into my musical fidelity vps mk ii. Currently I go from a win xp htpc running j river, and a m-audio revolution 5.1 sound card to the dac. How will the coax out on the m-audio compare with the coax out on the oppo going into the same dac? Any thoughts? Should I expect the same sound, or better/worse from the oppo?

Matt, Correct me if I am wrong, maybe you know, but I was under the assumption that I do not need asio to get bitperfect output. I use foobar, and select my soundcard from the "output device" dropdown in settings, and turn off any DSP processing, max out the volume, etc. Then in windows I choose my soundcard as the default device, max the volume setting, etc. Am I fooling myself into thinking this keeps the OS or any other software from messing with my output? Do I need ASIO after all?

Does your amp have a high quality digital input? If so, you wouldn't need the external dac at all. I kind of have upgrade-itis right now and was considering a DAC, but some of the good people on this forum have convinced me to save my money for now. If I were you I would bring my DVD player to the store and ask to hook it up to their amp, etc. Compare the sound from it to a good cd player on equipment comparable to yours and see if you hear a difference a/b-ing it. Maybe that DENON puts out sound comparable to the cd player you are considering.

"replace the old Yamaha with a new 7.1 Yamaha, which will allow you to use 5.1 channels in one room and send the other two . . . " That is "Sweet." 3-4 zones from one amp. 24/192 DACs - the newer Yamaha's are really nice. My Niles speaker selector switch has a "protection" button. Is that what you were referring to? It still might be cheaper to get a second used amp and hook it up to the zone 2 out on my current Yamaha to provide extra power for the other zones, but I guess the trade-off would be the upgraded DAC and other modern amenities.

Are the majority of people who buy DAC's on this site doing so because the external DACs are better than the ones in their receivers, or is it because their amps do not have DACs built in? I know some like the ability to use the USB on their PC/MAC also.

Also, one reason why I was considering the additional amp is so that I can use the A/B speaker selection switch on the Yamaha to power two separate pairs of speakers. The power amp would power the speakers in the main living room, then the yamaha would power the porch speakers (outdoor Niles speakers) and a pair of in ceiling speakers in the back room of the house. I have a speaker selection switch that can handle up to 6 pairs of speakers but do not think that the amp can handle all that (two more pairs + the main room). The house is already wired with speaker cable.

That makes a lot of sense. The Yamaha is 9 years old but was close to their top of the line at the time. (Has DTS decoding built in and can accept an external decoder for future formats). It has digital inputs, and I am using the coax now. Not sure if it is better than the DAC on the PC card, but for CD bitrates it is fine and sounds better than the DAC in the squeezebox for sure. (I am using the analog outs on the card for computer speakers - the pc is in a separate room). I guess if I want to listen to DVD-A I would need an external DAC as I don't think the Yamaha's DAC can handle it, but this is not an issue now. I used to have a pair of bose speakers which I bought when I bought the amp. I sold them, bought the PSBs, had money left over, and the PSB's sounded a million times better to me. I know they dont compare to speakers selling for thousands of dollars, but they are a great value. The 5T's I have are their "budget" floor standing speakers. They make higher end stuff too. Thank you for your input.

I have a modest stereo system compared with the expensive equipment many of you probably have. I think it is a step up from what you can get at a big mall store, but I realize it is not super high end. My amp is a Yamaha RX-V995 with a lot of features I like: tone bypass, Surround Sound, supposed 100w x 5 true power, and a sound that has always pleased me. My speakers are PSB 5T's and I have an NAD C541 HDCD player to give you an idea of where I am at. I now use my PC's aound card (M-Audio Revolution 7.1) for most of my playback. I am selling my squeezebox 3 because I like the sound from the PC a lot better. I am planning on upgrading components as time goes by and finances permit. I will not be spending thousands of dollars on any one given component. I am considering adding an external DAC, maybe the V-DAC, or an NAD power amp. The power amp would drive my front stereo speakers and be connected to the Yamaha integrated amp so the Yamaha would act as a pre-amp. (all the music i listen to is in stereo, never surround even when available - surround is only for movies for me). I am curious what others with more experience buying and testing different equipment think. What would you upgrade first, . . . would you even bother upgrading one or the other, or go in a different direction? The music is played in a medium (to small) sized living room if that makes any difference. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT HURTING MY FEELINGS. If you think my choice of equipment stinks, and you can justify your comments with fact or well thought out opinion then great . . . that is what I am curious to hear about.

For what it's worth, I do not have a super high end system: a yamaha rx-v995 amp and I used to have a squeezebox. I thought the sound from the squeezebox was fine. I tossed it for a PC with an M-Audio revoution 7.1 card, and it sounds a lot nicer than the SB did. I bought the sound card used on e-bay for 35 bucks. They dont make it anymore, but it used to be about $200 I think new. It's no Lynx, but a really nice card if you can find one. Otherwise M-Audio makes another product for $199 MSRP.

one last thing: I just had a similar problem as you. Specifically, I can't play apple lossless files from my digital out on my windows machine using any player except foobar. The players I am having a problem with use Quicktime to play the files. QT wont output to the SPDIF. Not sure if this is your situation. I'll stick with foobar. Also, try deleting the sound card from hardware manager before installing the new drivers. good luck.

Also, make sure to unplug your desktop speakers from the soundcard when trying to get the digital output to work. I just noticed that I could play any file from foobar through the digi out on my card, but when I used media monkey, flacs would play out of the digital out, but not apple lossless files. (I am on win xp sp3). I am looking into that now. Not sure if it applies to you.

a RAR file is a compressed package much like a ZIP file. You should be able to open it with Winzip or whatever program you use to open zipped files with. If you have nothing installed (and you probably don't) to do this you can use the trial version of winzip, or download another program which does the same thing: many are free. Once you install the software to open the RAR file, double click on the RAR file. A window will open listing all the files in the RAR. There should be a button in the interface of the program which says "extract." Click that. Choose a directory to extract to (a folder named temp in my documents is fine). Navigate to the extracted folder (My Documents/temp, for example), and click the .exe file for installing the drivers. Read the directions first though, bec. my instructions are general guidelines. When you are done installing the drivers you can delete that temp folder and the RAR. You dont need them anymore. restart the computer just in case. Did you see a setting in the control panel for turning on the SPDIF output? Did you install drivers from a disk when you installed the card or did you let windows simply recognize the card and install driver's of it's choosing? If the latter is the case then you definitely need to install the downloaded drivers (make sure they are for your operating system) and then you will probably see an option for turning on SPDIF output. let me know.

I assume that you installed the most recent drivers for that card appropriate for your operating system. If not, get those drivers from the manufacturers website.

If I understand what you are saying, the little desktop speakers are hooked up to your new card and work fine, but nothing is coming out of the toslink on that same card? If that is the case go to the settings application for that card and see if there is a setting to turn on the digital output. It may not output to the toslink by default, and you may not be able to output on the toslink and analog out (to desktop speakers) at the same time. I am not sure as I am not familiar with that card. To find the settings I am talking about check the control panel. There might be a specific icon for your sound card, or something under the "Sounds . . ." icon. There might even be an icon next to the clock in the bottom right corner of your screen that you can right click, or double click. Let us know . . . Good luck.

I read the first 8 pages of this thread:<br /> <br /> http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/musical-fidelity-v-dac-owners-391721/<br /> <br /> and many seem to prefer the v-dac in their side to side comparisons. If you have purchased one or the other I would like to hear what you think. If you are considering something else in this price range please advise . . . <br /> <br /> Some complained about the "PRAT" which is a new term for me, but a couple seem to indicate it gets a little better after breaking in. Still, they prefer the v-dac. Then again they might be maniacs I can't help thinking of Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School when he insists on buying new books because "maniacs" might have highlighted the used books. Anyway . . .