douglask

I just read about the new Ayre DX-5 Universal Player in the November Issue of Stereophile magazine. The DX-5 is based upon Oppo's BDP-83 platform and they have liscensced Wavelength's jitter-free asynchronous USB transfer technology. Sounds like it would be a high end Universal Player as well a high end USB based Music Sever.

Paul, What I didn't include (and should have) in the original Thread is that “I am using the AVR as a Pre/Pro only and sending its analog Preamp Out signals to a separate Power Amp!” Your suggestion is viable, but perhaps not optimal? I believe the D/A signal quality out of a good DAC would be superior then the DACs in the AVR. What you suggest would input a very good analog signal in to the AVR, which would then be converted to digital, processed and then converted back in to the analog domain. It would add an A/D conversion and 1 additional D/A conversion in the signal path- while still being constrained by the DACs in the AVR. I would prefer to input a digital signal and have it stay in the digital domain until after equalization processing. Perhaps I should ask this question "Is there a Good way to output a digital signal from my AVR (that has been equalized/processed) that can feed a quality DAC. The output of the DAC would be sent to a separate Power Amp." Now is the time for my "Duh" moment! I just remembered that the AVR has 2 Digital Outpital Outputs. So should I be looking for a "DAC that sounds good when it is being fed a Digital Optical Signal?"

I am unable to include Acoustic Room Treatments in my listening area due to the WAF, however I have a Denon AVR with the Audyssey MultiEQ Room Correction firmware. The improvement in Audio quality with the MultiEQ engaged is quite dramatic. I realize I would be better served (Audio Wise) by addressing Room Acoustics directly, but the down side is this too significant to seriously entertain! I am able to gain some of the performance improvements you talk about at this website, as I "feed" the AVR via a USB port from a stand alone external Harddrive (powered by a wall wort). Previously I had the HD connected to my PC and I downloaded WAV files to it from CDs via Windows Media Player (version 11). The AVR would not recognize these WAV files, until I converted them from WAV to WAV with the program dBPowerAmp Converter (wierd)! For a while, I accessed the HD from the AVR via an ethernet connection- which sounded reasonably good, but I would occasionally drop bits and the transmission would end. When I relocated the HD to the AVR and hardwired it via the USB cable/port I was shocked! I experienced a tremendous improvement in sound. In the long term, I would like to consider replacing the AVR with a Music Server. I assume, I would experience even better sound using a PC based system with a really good audio card. However, I would have to give up the improvements I hear from the Audyssey software. Can you share with me, your thoughts about ways to address this concern? TIA douglask http://www.audyssey.com/technology/index.html