ooooh, _shiny_

Earl Dunbar I chuckled too and then my next thought was : Dang Paul, get a hold on that ADD, Lol

Yeah, @3:40, that's just what I was thinking!... Paul, you're kinda like the dog in that animated movie "UP" that is in the middle of talking and then he gets distracted by "Squirrel!", LOL!... Anyway, I do the same thing sometimes, so no biggie... I think it's because both of our brains are always trying to take in and process and learn about or discover as much new (to us) potential *awesomeness* as possible, so we pay attention to everything around us that we find cool or interesting... This can be a good and "bad" quality though, depending on the situation, haha!

Agreed!!!

microteche yah, that thing!

I second that. Or 3rd? Whatever order I'm in

Please do show us your home tbeatre system as you mention it often. I have a 5.1 system which is great for movies but lacking for music 2 channel or surround music. I had cheaper 2 channel hi fi that gave better stereo sound..way better.

All you need is a 15 dollar prozor dac Walmart sells them. Don't waste you on a expensive dac they sound the same as the cheap one they use the same chip set.

This is why I asked the question as NAD seem to do this well with HDMI even on their new integrated 368 and 388 you can get HDMI modules for them.

I'm using the exact same setup with the NAD M51 and love the fact that it has HDMI inputs and a pass through output to my TV. My system has never sounded better.

I have the M51 too, it is a great DAC. However, it is not taking the 1 bit DSD signal that Paul was talking about. I believe it is passing through a build-in de-embedder and then pass the stereo signal in 24/192 PCM to the DAC, although some say DSD64 is no better than 24/192 PCM. As noted in another Paul’s video, the analog output stage also plays a big part in SQ as well.

Hehe! Thanks for answering so honestly, I'll speak no more of it then. :)

What are some example of those? Thx so much!

@@m.morininvestor9920 Intel NUC as example. HTPC is actualy any small size computer with great media and network capability.

@XYGR Gammel Group "Video over HDMI and the sound comes from an external DAC"...is that even legal?

@XYGR Gammel Group lol, I didn't know it was possible. How do you split them and then goes into an AVR?.

@XYGR Gammel Group Yeah, I would rather have an external DAC instead of my PC's internal one. But wait, in your specific case, does it go from your external DAC to the AVR in your home theater?. Does your DAC support 5/7/9 channels?.

I could be wrong, but I would think it would affect the pin alignment. Vertically would have to stay perfect with no stress or the contact pins would slip and cause problems. It would be stronger if they made a vertical "locking" hdmi. Ideally that would be perfect, but they make more money when things break.

You may not want to hear this, but it's actually wrong thinking about cable types. The type of cable you should be looking for is the smallest, skinniest cable you can find, not the largest and bulkiest. I recommend an HDMI mini cable with the smallest ends you can find. If you find one with all metal ends instead of plastic, that's even better.

Hi Dorne, I'm likely missing something but ... isn't it a bit in the name / function of the product? The Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) takes a digital input (beit PCM or DSD). You already have a quality analog signal from your Nuwave to go direct to your pre/amp. The analog out of your Oppo will have already done it's conversion on it's onboard ESS DAC.

Other DAC's much smaller than the Dirtectstream such as the Benchmark DACs offer analog in. Why use a preamp when you could have a high quality DAC with analog inputs, it would eliminate an additional piece of equipment and additional interconnects. Thanks for the responses.

SMOG which is why I found his video to be informative. Prior to this video I was confused as to why one brand would mention the dac and the other wouldn't.

The sony UHD player has no analog outputs just HDMI.

Bero1707 if you want that get a Sony STR-DH130 .

HDMI

Stevo McSteve You do what works for you lol. My setup is my computer to my receiver through HDMI for 5.1 surround sound when playing games or watching movies or music. (5.1 music is interesting...) I personally prefer music in 2.1, but multi channel stereo is cool every now and then. Can also use EqualizerAPO to do a bit of tweaking to the sound in place of a DSP.

What you're doing wrong from a High-Fidelity standpoint is basically everything. From the equipment you're using to how you have it set up to what you're listening to; everything is wrong. But, so what? As Josh said, you do what makes you happy, and don't worry about the rest. That'll be one less headache for you! : ) However, if you're REALLY curious, or you want to make an improvement somewhere at sometime to see if you like it, check out The Complete Guide to High-end Audio by Robert Harley. It isn't the be-all, end-all ultimate source of information, and some of it isn't good information anymore, but it's not a bad place to start. : )

The tv acts as the hub, nothing wrong with that.. There are only numbers transmitted.. no problem..

This guy, lol

Harbeth. Don't know which type though.

Harbeth P3-ESR

You don't understand how shielding works do you.

Doh! Thanks for the correction. I forget more than I know.

All. Good. Once again. Yr. Videos. Are. Always informative. Sorry. For the grammatical errors. You know how. These phone keyboards are.

HDMI can use HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) to encrypt the signal. HDCP testing is now part of the requirements for HDMI compliance.

Paul was specifically referring to SACD DSD 1-bit output, which is a format that is protected by the Sony copyrights. SPDIF is a standard for transmitting multi-bit PCM which is an open standard. There are a couple of manufacturers like PSA and dCS that have contracts with Sony that allow them to output the SACD DSD stream over a cable (i2S via HDMI in PSA's case and dCS uses dual AES XLR cables) but as Paul explained, these are closed systems that only work with the manufacturer's own DACs. Other than hacking an Oppo (which has been done), I don't know of any other way to get DSD output from an SACD player/transport.

Not that simple, actually. IME most non-SACD content from devices with HDMI outputs is scrambled by HDCP. That includes every copyrighted Blu-ray disc, including those bearing high-rez stereo audio. There are numerous hacks to defeat HDCP, but none are legal.

Think of it this way. When your transport (BR/DVD/CD/whatever player) does a digital output via optical (or coax), the player does the conversion from the encoded format (Dolby Digital/Ex/Master/Atmos/etc or DTS/Neo/True/etc) to PCM format and sends that over the optical (or coax) cable to the AVR where it converts to analog via whatever DAC(s) it has. When the output is over HDMI, (*most* of the time) the player is outputting the encoded format (Dolby Digital/Ex/Master/etc, DTS/Neo/TrueAudio/etc/ or what-have-you) over HDMI where your AVR does the decoding and translation to PCM which is then routed to the DAC(s) and converted to analog. The difference you're hearing is most likely in the decoding step from whatever meduim you're listening to down to PCM. While both the player and your AVR may use the same decoding chips, the filters and signalling may be different thus coloring the audio differently.

I think you're confused. HDCP is the content protection mechanism, not HDMI which is a standard not exclusively controlled by SONY. HDMI is backward compatible with sRGB and DVI so it doesn't have any mandatory encryption / content blocking features.