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Airport Express DAC vs. IOTAVX SA3

jhb74

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Sep 15, 2021
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Hello ASR,

I’ve been reading the site for awhile now. Lots of information to absorb!

I’m posting my question at the bottom if you want to skip the trivial details.

I’ve been into home theater for awhile now – and have always used that setup for music listening. But recently I’ve been staying with my GF quite a bit and she has room for something I have always wanted to do – a dedicated music system/room. She also inherited a large collection of her father’s records and wanted to be able to play them. I have always been interested in vinyl and so I took the step of putting together a complete music system – vinyl, streaming, and CD.

Currently, the system is built from:

IOTAVX SA3 – purchased after reading the ASR review
S.M.S.L Sanskrit 10th MKII – after ASR review
ELAC Debut Reference DBR 62 – after ASR review
Art DJ Pre II Turntable Phono Preamp - after ASR review
Rel T/7x sub
Audiolab 6000n – clunky as hell but only thing I can find that seems to stream Amazon Music HD correctly
Yamaha CD changer – Nostalgia purposes – she has had it for 22 years.
U-Turn Audio Orbit Plus
An Apple Airport Express

So the Airport Express was originally pulled when I got the Audiolab 6000n but I have recently put it back in due to how unbelievably clunky the interface is to the Audiolab. It likes to “stick” in critical listening mode and will not let you reconnect due to a critical listening session already established and not allowing a second one in – I have to reboot everything to get it to work. Fine for me, not for the GF. I want her to be able to click and play.

So I put the Airplay back in. Ideally I would dump that to the DAC, but now that involves her changing the DAC around to play something. So I’m going to bypass that since we airplay Amazon HD and my understanding is that the airplay conversion down to 16/44 isn’t the best so I feel like the signal has probably already been butchered.

In a simple config – I can either use the Airport Express internal DAC and bring it to the SA3 with RCA’s, or I can use the SA3’s Coaxial (using a fiber optic to coax converter).

Both of these solutions allow for a 1 button push on the IOTAVX’s remote to bring Airplay online.

From the IOTAVX review, and this link:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...test-version-of-the-airport-express-dac.4851/

I come to the conclusion that the internal Airport DAC is better than the IOTAVX DAC. Is this correct? Would it be best in this case to use the Airport's analog RCA out?

Thanks for any input offered – very appreciated!
 

Downtown

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Jan 28, 2022
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The Airport Express A1392 has a very good DAC. It's a japanese Asiahi Kasei AK4430 192kHz 24-Bit Stereo DAC.
Altough the DAC alone, says nothing about the sound quality, the semiconductor architecture around it makes the real difference in the "end-sound".
But I can say from experience, I can recommend using the analog out, because it sounds better than a lot of (around $100,-) stand-alone DAC's in the market. And use the 7.6.9 firmware for Airplay 1 !!
But as allways, don't use the specs or other information you read on the web as a reference, but use your ears !!
 
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