Improving sound quality in Zone 2-Denon 3312?-wired vs wireless? external DAC?

[mcryderman]

Hello, I own a Denon 3312 and I am enjoying it very much. I use Zone 1 primarily as my TV room (5.1) and Zone 2 as my 2 channel audio listening through my Boston Acoustics towers (American made before they went offshore!). I have the Denon networked with Ethernet connected between Denon and Router. It works very well controlling music wirelessly on my Ipad or Iphone using an app called DeRemote. Sometimes I use Airplay compatible music Apps like Songza, Slacker, etc.

My music collection is on my Asus laptop using JRiver as my Music Server. Most of my files on my computer are wave or flac burned from my original CD's (many of which I've sold since). No complaints about audio dropout as it is working great from that respect I would just like to maybe improve the sound quality a bit. I don't know if JRiver is doing anything with the sound as I don't control my music from JRiver and I use the DLNA and select music from my Ipad or phone.

 

My laptop is not connected directly to my Denon or router so the files are being transmitted wirelessly off the laptop to the Denon. I am assuming they are going through the soundcard on the Asus and must be compressed to send to the Denon Wirelessly? and then through the DAC in the Denon and then sound is output analogue? I have the Denon set to Restorer High Quality.

 

My questions are as follows:

 

Would having my laptop connected via Ethernet cable to the router make any difference in sound quality vs. wirelessly?

 

If I had an external DAC (USB) of reasonable quality attached to my Laptop and Denon is there an option to bypass the Internal DAC of the Denon when playing in Zone 2? If I connected RCA from the DAC to the Denon what would happen to this analogue signal? Would it bypass the Denon DAC as the signal is already analogue or is this not how it works?

 

Would any of this make a difference in audio quality from my current setup? Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated. I read about jitter, noise etc from laptop soundcards and how good some of these external DACs are but how much would I have to spend to notice a sound difference from the one in the Denon 3312? I am willing to spend some money on equipment I just don't want it to be a waste of money. External DAC? Good soundcard in Laptop? Music Server with storage?

 

Thanks for your help in advance,

 

Sorry if any of my questions or statements don't make perfect sense.

 

Mark

[realhifi]

Hello, I own a Denon 3312 and I am enjoying it very much. I use Zone 1 primarily as my TV room (5.1) and Zone 2 as my 2 channel audio listening through my Boston Acoustics towers (American made before they went offshore!). I have the Denon networked with Ethernet connected between Denon and Router. It works very well controlling music wirelessly on my Ipad or Iphone using an app called DeRemote. Sometimes I use Airplay compatible music Apps like Songza, Slacker, etc.

My music collection is on my Asus laptop using JRiver as my Music Server. Most of my files on my computer are wave or flac burned from my original CD's (many of which I've sold since). No complaints about audio dropout as it is working great from that respect I would just like to maybe improve the sound quality a bit. I don't know if JRiver is doing anything with the sound as I don't control my music from JRiver and I use the DLNA and select music from my Ipad or phone.

 

My laptop is not connected directly to my Denon or router so the files are being transmitted wirelessly off the laptop to the Denon. I am assuming they are going through the soundcard on the Asus and must be compressed to send to the Denon Wirelessly? and then through the DAC in the Denon and then sound is output analogue? I have the Denon set to Restorer High Quality.

 

My questions are as follows:

 

Would having my laptop connected via Ethernet cable to the router make any difference in sound quality vs. wirelessly?

 

If I had an external DAC (USB) of reasonable quality attached to my Laptop and Denon is there an option to bypass the Internal DAC of the Denon when playing in Zone 2? If I connected RCA from the DAC to the Denon what would happen to this analogue signal? Would it bypass the Denon DAC as the signal is already analogue or is this not how it works?

 

Would any of this make a difference in audio quality from my current setup? Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated. I read about jitter, noise etc from laptop soundcards and how good some of these external DACs are but how much would I have to spend to notice a sound difference from the one in the Denon 3312? I am willing to spend some money on equipment I just don't want it to be a waste of money. External DAC? Good soundcard in Laptop? Music Server with storage?

 

Thanks for your help in advance,

 

Sorry if any of my questions or statements don't make perfect sense.

 

Mark

 

A few too many questions but let's tackle the main ones.

 

If you went with a separate Dac for your laptop you would be bypassing the Dac in the Denon and you cold conceivably get better sound than using DLNA streaming from your laptop either Ethernet wired or wireless. If you used analog rca input into Denon the Denon would not resample into digital. It would have to be a better Dac than what is in the Denon of course.

 

If you stay with current setup you certainly can try wiring your laptop to the network to see if this gives you better sound. That would be my first move although if you have good wireless signal I doubt it would change things much.

 

If you are keeping the Denon for awhile and mainly using it for your surround sound then I would be reluctant to spend any cash on this venture as I believe you are utilizing that setup pretty much at it's potential.

[jglacken]

I have an older Denon 2105 used in a similar way (not my main rig) and added an outboard DAC (inexpensive Matrix) to zone two to play audio in other parts of the home through ceiling speakers (true audio) and found a large improvement in sound. More detail and fuller sound. I am assuming you have analogue inputs for zone 2 on your Denon.

[Cebolla]

I don't know if JRiver is doing anything with the sound as I don't control my music from JRiver and I use the DLNA and select music from my Ipad or phone.

You actually DO have control as to what the JRiver is doing in the way you set up its media server. Since your Denon natively supports the WAV & FLAC files, it's unlikely the JRiver media server is doing anything to the file data before streaming it to your Denon, since part of the normal DLNA streaming process is to interrogate the devices involved as to what file formats they support. However, that's assuming the the JRiver media server has been set up to behave as a standard DLNA server, so its best to double check if you're not sure.

 

 

My laptop is not connected directly to my Denon or router so the files are being transmitted wirelessly off the laptop to the Denon. I am assuming they are going through the soundcard on the Asus and must be compressed to send to the Denon Wirelessly?

No, the DLNA streaming process does not involve the computer's sound card. It is more akin to doing a file copy across the network. So the digital data being received by the Denon should be exactly the same as what was sent by the computer.

 

 

Would having my laptop connected via Ethernet cable to the router make any difference in sound quality vs. wirelessly?

Streaming wirelessly compared to using a wired connection can be a slower process & sometimes unpredictably so, just like copying files across a wireless network can be. If the streaming rate is slower than the required rate then it will manifest itself as random stutters or dropouts in the music being played, rather than a loss in sound quality as such, and is arguably more annoying. The higher the resolution of the audio data, the faster the required streaming rate and the more likely a slower connection will cause problems.