How to integrate a DAC into your Home Theater for the Best Analog Sound

hello YouTube this is Magnolia Mo and you are watching my channel in today's video I'm going to talk to you about integrating music into your theater system right and there's multiple ways of doing that but the idea behind this is simple you have spent tons of money in in in your system creating a space that's for dedicated to movies you got a great processor great amplifiers uh you know great speakers and you have great rumors Acoustics you're watching movies now you can add music to that experience because you already have a great setup and if you have great speakers that are good for movies you know no doubt they're going to be good for music as well I don't believe in in that um at you know that that notion that that you have that you have speakers that are for movies and and and and therefore uh you know they're great for movies but they may not be good for for for music you know what I say to that is maybe it's not a great speaker you know in and of itself a great speaker will do music and movies equally great so uh why not why not you know any great music into your system as well and I'm sure most of of the folks out there have done this this is this video is just intended for for the audience you know who uh you know who's who's more interested in in actually bringing in music into their system and and I just wanted to cover that in this video right so um sure you can have a CD player connected to your processor your receiver and so on and so forth and just play music off the CDs you could have an sacd player DVD audio player like that's why the old posts are great because it was you know uh one system to do to do it all you could even stream music or play digital files of the oppos as well and I truly missed that about about those Opus there's nothing out there that that can actually match that right so so what do you do you know you if you want the same sort of sound or if you want good music or if you want to listen to the music the right way in High Fidelity right how do you go about uh setting up your system uh just so that you are listening to bit perfect audio right by that what I mean is as I mentioned you can list if you're listening to a CD off of the off of a CD player the CD depends on on how it was recorded was it you know analog uh you know analog do digital or was it was it All the Way digital at the end of the day you are at the mercy of the the Dax that are built into your processor right so so you know in in in simple terms um if you if you just play a CD you know off of your CD player using an optical uh connection or a digital coax connection or even HDMI uh you are you're not gonna get the the analog sound right so how do you get closest to that analog sound right like the way the sound was intended to be um folks play you know used to get sacds or dvd audios right because they had higher resolution High sample rates and I'm gonna cover uh just like what do I mean by sample rates in just a second but but but again that involved getting up changing the disks and and so on and so forth so so so now you know with the all the technology that we have you can rip sa CDs you know onto your uh onto your PC your laptop or or or an external drive uh you can rip DVD audio so you can actually create a whole whole music library for yourself and let's say you didn't want to do all of that then you can subscribe to a music service you know like title kubo's Apple music and and get high resolution audio that way right so high the purpose of high resolution audio is is is basically that like to get you closest to that analog sound um you know that that we're all searching for right but how do you actually get that sound is really at play here right so so what folks will will talk about as well why you get a deck or my receiver has really good Dax right or and things like that but I will tell you from experience and outboard digital to analog converter is the best way to go right and um and there are many decks available in the market you can get USB Dax uh like uh the audioquest dragonfly which I have or you can get a standalone deck um and there are many many great ones out there right so before I get into the different kind of decks I want to kind to get into do the sampling rates and and you know the comparisons with CD and and sacds and so on and so forth right so so so so let's talk about sacds right so sacd uh super audio CD uh in a nutshell right is it has a high sampling rate it has a sampling rate of 2.8224 megahertz for one bit compared to uh the the 40 44.1 kilohertz for 16 bits of audio on a CD so right there you know it's a compressed file it may have started with an analog uh recording like original recording rate but then in the process of converting it into digital and getting it onto the the CD you know you've lost uh that high resolution right so that's why you know super audio CDs when you develop that DVD audio I believe that was Toshiba um you know that came out and the whole you know all the premise behind that was to get uh to a point where you can get uh to the the to the closest you know analog sounding sound uh you know per se uh and and that's where you have the sacds now even with with sacds you have multiple you know uh sampling rate so it uh you can have DSD which is 2.8 megahertz you can have double DSD uh which is 100 which is 5.6 megahertz then you have um quad DSD so you can go you know really crazy with all those sample rates but but the reason why you have those High sampling rates is because the close the higher the sampler sampling rate the closer you are going to get to that analog sound so now uh so that that in a nutshell right is is uh just high level you know sampling rates and and what those sampling rates are getting you to is bit perfect audio as well right so uh um the the ultimate goal then becomes okay so now you have your you've ripped all your CSA CDs even your CDs you rip them into digital files how do you play them in bit perfect audio right so so where because you're when I say bit perfect meaning you're not losing bits in in the process of of transferring that data you know from your PC to to your receiver if you forego the deck right or directly to your receipt uh so so that's why that's where you know we we come into uh with uh with Dax essentially right so a digital to analog converter um and and again I'm gonna go to Crutchfield here just because you have all this is the internet right you can get all your questions answered right on the internet right um so so it's a DAC as a digital to analog converter right do you need a DAC uh you don't need a DAC you can just go as I mentioned you can go directly into your receiver your receiver has the DAC the chances are it's not going to be um you know because the receiver also is or processor has other duties as well right it's uh its main goal isn't music it's main goal is music movies you know all of the above right so a DAC uh you know lets you focus on the audio piece you know and and and it will handle your uh you know your your music files in a bit perfect form great and and will a DAC improve the sound right obviously they do even like a small like a USB deck like an audioquest uh dragonfly for instance right um that that improves the sound quality tremendously as well um so so and then the Dax can be used you know to to pair your headphones as well like you can connect your headphones into a DAC and listen to awesome music that way as well so now having said that um as I mentioned there are 79 Dax and there are um Dax that are uh uh that there are Decks that are are four thousand dollars they're Decks that are ten thousand dollars I mean you can go uh on and on as far as Dax are concerned right but uh you know picking the right deck is gonna be it's it's gonna depend on how much money you want to spend and uh uh and and what's your appetite right for Destruction essentially over here like how much you know where how far do you want to go with it um I find uh just for me like Dax that are in in that 400 to 500 600 range those I find them to be ample these days that and I'm gonna show you why right I mean you have the dragonflies in here which are good but they have some limitations um and the one that I use I have the pre-box uh uh S2 from project and this has uh the saber Dax right the ESS 9038 for playing higher for playing high resolution music files right up to 768 kilohertz 32 bits this is for PCM DSD will go up to 512 sampling um and and then obviously uh you know you can it'll play your flat files you play any any other formats that you have mqa is is the is the biggest thing that I I got this for was for the master quality authenticated files that you get on kubos and on on title um so I have this deck the the downside is it doesn't have any balanced outputs so I am very interested in trying out this Cambridge audio one which is 4.99 and this particular deck you know you can see it can do mqa up to 176.4 the drawback there is is that uh you know you can get mqa files at least on title that to 368 kilohertz kilohertz and and this this will not you know play them at their full resolution the the project does do that it'll go up to 368 uh kilohertz for uh for your um mqa files so that's the only place where I see there is a um uh a con on this one uh for the the Cambridge audio but then it can do you know your dsds all the way up to 512 it can do PCM sample rates up to seven six seven hundred sixty eight kilohertz and then the best part about this one this particular deck is that it has balanced outputs I can easily connect this into my 8805a I do have balance inputs uh sort of sort of misusing those uh on it right now with my current deck but when you have a deck okay so you gotta listen to me carefully right so when you when you have a deck um the the best way to connect a deck is through the USB input right so you are going to take the USB out from your PC or your laptop and you're gonna go directly uh via the USB in into the deck because that is going to allow the transfer of mqa files DSD files in their native format uh in in and without any you know conversions be being done on the PC side right so it's just going to transfer it's going to actually bitstream um the DSD files uh over to your deck and then the DAC can then do the digital to analog conversion and send them over to to your processor right just for output uh so so you you need a DAC and as I mentioned um the the Cambridge audio one seems to be a good one at least the one that I want to try but you guys you know you should you should go ahead and and and do your own research and figure out you know which ones would would uh you know would meet your needs and then go from there uh then uh once you have the deck it's as I mentioned it's pretty simple you're gonna go you know from you're gonna take the USB out from your PC laptop into the into the deck and then uh either the balanced uh audio the balance output or the unbalanced uh if you don't have balanced inputs in your receiver then you're just going to go into the RCA jacks as I mentioned the the other the simplest way is to just connect you know your PC or your laptop directly to to your receiver via HDMI but you are not gonna get um pure you know high resolution you you might even get High sampling rates through HDMI but it's not it's not going to be pure analog type audio right you do need a DAC for that and then once you have the DAC um what what's the now how are you gonna actually you have the receiver you have the DAC now you need a mechanism to play your files so this is where this is also critical right you can't just um go to iTunes and and start playing your your music because you have to to play the the music files that you have stored on your PC on your or on your laptop or on a on an external drive uh you know in in their native format right meaning if it is a if it is a high resolution file that's at 96 kilohertz or 192 kilohertz or even a DS let's just just keep it simple if it's a high resolution Flac file right if you're just gonna play it off of iTunes for instance iTunes uh if you have a Mac then the Mac will adjust the the sampling rate based off of what the the track has right otherwise I believe in Windows it just defaults to to whatever you pick in your in your sound settings right whether it's 100 92 96 kilohertz or whatever you're picking in your in your in your sound setup on Windows it's it's actually converting uh up converting your 44 kilohertz CD sample rates to 96 or 88.2 or 192. it's not playing them you know in that bit perfect format right that is why you need to get a DAC and then have the DAC take control of your PC uh uh uh and and output or can or do the conversions uh using the the native uh frequency uh sampling rate that's on that track all right so so you have a DAC you have a receiver and then you need a the next thing you need is a software that will play the the music in that high resolution format without doing any conversions and con you know without converting music so I use title title um you know has lots of uh I mean it's got a huge library but it's a paid uh service so you know if you don't want to use title that's fine but but what you get with title for instance and you have um I can pull up I can go into one of my like the hairs uh one of my uh one of the playlists that I like um you know on on title so this one right here it has has different tracks but they're all they all have different uh you know frequency or sampling rates um you know some some of these uh Master uh I'm sorry mqa files they they have 192 kilohertz frequent uh sampling rate some have 96 sampling rate others have 44.1 sampling rate but the idea is is it is you you get to play these in in that native you know file format without applying any conversion and and up you know up conversion or down conversion and and you're not lose losing bits it's all bit perfect and it's going to get you to the closest you know closest to the analog uh waveform uh title is one um and and then you know it's setting up within title is very simple uh you know you basically go into uh your sound output settings and as you can see I have my pre-box selected here and um and then within the pre-box uh when you know you have to enable usage exclusive mode which uh you know which basically means that that title has exclusive use of the of the audio device right so it's taking control of that DAC and and it's it's sending the data based on the Dax uh specifications right so if the DAC is mqa capable it's going to send the mqf file uh you know in its native format and then the DAC is going to do the unfolding of the mqa file um and then you know obviously that's why I select pass through mqa because my DAC can handle mqa but that's that's a simple setup step right here that's all you'd have to do in your in you know from a from an output setting um you know I could you know I do have a a DAC an EVGA DAC from a new audio uh it's uh that's in that that is installed in my PC uh I I do like it but I you know for it's the sound of the the project is a lot sweeter to me uh than this the than the EVGA so I don't use that and and as I mentioned you know I do have the Marantz option in here that's set up that's hooked up uh you know the drawback there is uh you know if obviously morants cannot uh accept nqa files so the title software right this is what I was talking about earlier uh because the morants cannot accept the mqa file the title software will um do the unfolding and let's say if the track is is 192 kilohertz uh it is going to the title software is going to limit that to 96 kilohertz that's it just just a single fold not the double for on a single unfold not the double unfold that mqa goes through to get to 192 or or the triple or the quadruple unfolds uh you know to get to the the specified frequency um sampling rate I'm sorry of of the track so so connect it you can connect it to the HDMI but you're you're limited to that 96 kilohertz or 88.2 kilohertz uh frequency on the mqa files uh the other um thing you can do uh you know from a software perspective uh is get Jay River um I have an older version of J River um which it's fine I don't need any new versions but but as I mentioned I I have DSD you know I ripped my sacds right uh onto my PC so for instance Thriller I have the dsd64 uh you know tracks you know right here where I can now just play it you know off of uh J River into my deck and and and the setup again from J River perspective is also pretty simple uh you actually go into your your your your playback options and you select I selected the pre-box with the asio driver you have the option to select in here all the different output devices you know it's still Marantz is on here you know I have my EVGA DAC in here I used to have a zoner sonar Essence stsdx dag which I still have it's a PCI Express Card sound card that uh that was in my PC I took it out and I replaced it with the EVGA I the the designer Essence didn't do DSD you had to convert it to PCM and that's why but even though it was sweet sounding though I just I wanted the ability to be able to play DSD files you know using the the sound the sound card which the EVGA does it just doesn't do mqa so so I have no use that's why I got the project but anyway so so within within um J River you would select your your your output device and then within the device setting uh you know you can specify uh actually not here yeah you can you can do the DSD bitstream in uh in or what I do is I go into the I I straight just do bit streaming of DSD that's it so that just sends a DSD stream straight to my DAC uh directly so this is where you enable that uh you can also as I mentioned you can go into the output formats and you can limit or change how you wanna um output certain sampling rates I do no change and I just go straight to the DAC let the DAC do its thing um so that's uh that's high level how how you set up the the the deck or uh the output device in in these two softwares the other software I use uh it's the the Fubar um Fubar is a free software uh you can you can pretty much you know you can you can go on online and download Fubar uh you can install it into your PC uh again you can specify where your libraries are in there uh the the only drawback with Fubar Fubar will will do DSD it can also do Native DSD but you need a a a DSD DAC especially especially the SD DAC like an extra sound or there uh and there is also uh there are other Dax but but the project doesn't do that uh where you have special drivers where it will let Fubar bit stream the audio into that deck I don't have that capability so I don't use Fubar for DSD purposes but I do use Fubar for multi-channel So within Fubar you can convert DSD sscds you know that are that are multi-channel scds you can convert the DSD signal to PCM 176.4 kilohertz uh and and then and then and then that the the foo bar then we'll send it directly you know via HDMI if it's gonna it's gonna output the sound into my receiver to and therefore I will have the ability to play uh multi-channel music um off of my PC so so those are the the three different uh you know the softwares right I guess Fubar which is a free one J river is paid but you pay once and you don't necessarily need to keep updating it unless you want the new features title is a paid Service uh which you know is a streamer which is you know I think it's more convenient um where you pay a monthly charge for it right um so so just just to quickly recap right how do you get how do you get to integrate music into to your great theater system or into your great uh you know system that you've built right for movies you can and you just want to enhance them you know that system and bring in music how do you do that you know you need a PC laptop uh you can play music directly off of that into your into your receiver processor using HDMI but you're gonna lose bits and you're gonna lose uh sampling uh frequency sampling rates um you know if you want to avoid that then get a DAC you can get any types of you know any number of dacs that are that are out there that that that suit your needs or that appeal to you and once you get that connected and hooked up uh you just set up the the audio output on the Dax and and you're ready to go essentially and and you you will you you know mark my words right with the higher the sampling rate and if you have a very if you have a good DAC right a decent deck uh like the ones that we just talked about you will hear a difference the sound will be more analog right it won't there won't be that digital uh harshness that you hear from some of the the files um that gets streamed directly to your receiver for instance so to help you I hope you like this video um and if you like to see more of these you know these types of videos please leave me a comment uh and just leave me a comment in general as to what your thoughts are about the about this topic um and and if you you know if there's if there if there are things that I mentioned uh where you have questions please feel free to ask I do do not uh um you know I do I don't let any questions go go unanswered so I try to answer as quickly as I can um be sure to like this video share this video and be sure to subscribe to my channel alright thank you so much

Channel: MagnoliaMo

Views: 8,161

Keywords:

Id: ORhLNLaUi3o

Length: 26min 38sec (1598 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2022