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Changing the game (New Dac/Pre-amp)?

AnestisMania

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(A welcoming skip this if you want)
Hello beautiful people greetings from greece.
I was looking for some dac's lately and i came upon this site and i have to say it's amazing how deep some of those reviews are. I have my eye on the topping d50 for my next upgrade at the beginning i was going for the sound blaster g6 but i think for what I have the topping will be a better choice but I need some help

(The problem?)
So? what's up? I have a new pair of tube amps and i would like to get my gear up to date since my set up consist of

A pc (for my source of music)
A yamaha wxc50 As a pre amp
A creative sound blaster Xi Fi Hd (that feeds the yamaha with signal via optical out)
And a pair of tube amps (that get the signal from the yamaha Pre out)
Oh yeah speakers Kef ls50
Nice.. progress...

I would like to use the topping d50 as a source for the yamaha or as a pre amp for the tube amps (if it's possible) (I don't know...)
also i would like to use a 5m usb cable for the topping d50 since i want it close to the amplifiers

(My questions)
Will the 5m usb cable have any problem? (sound quality/latency/distortion/picked up noise)

Do i need a better pre amp to get the best out of my gear and if yes what options do we have I have some ideas but I'd like to get more (budget 500ish+?)

So fat the topping d50 is a solid choice for a dac but should I just drop everything get the creative g6 connect everything via optical and call it a day? is it worth the upgrade (sound quality wise)

Also do I lose something with the yamaha as a pre amp? I was looking for some tube pre amps and i was like do i really need this? also will I bottleneck the topping d50 if I use the yamaha as a final source?

Well you made it that's all for now thank you a lot for your time reading my problems/ideas and I'm hoping you can help me with your experience
Have a beautiful day


Also ehm I won't reveal the name yet but here some pics for now form my tube amps

More of those later :)
 

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Blumlein 88

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Hard to say your best choice. The D50 is a DAC with volume control and would work as a pre-amp for the tube amps. Early on there wasn't a remote for it so you might investigate that here. I seem to recall there was one of the other Topping remotes that work with it.

If you use the streaming options on your Yamaha you might send that over optical to the D50. Now would this give you a big improvement? That is the part that is hard to say. If the Yamaha meets its listed specs, then I don't know you'd see any real improvement. I also don't think feeding the optical of the D50 and then feeding the analog out of the D50 thru the Yamaha is going to improve anything either. I think you probably are just as well off with how you are doing it now.

As for the USB cable, 5 meters is the official limit. You probably would not have a problem. Some of the inexpensive active USB extenders work well even up to 15 meters or more.

I also don't know if you gain with a tube preamp. I've used several tubed amps and to me they made larger differences while tube pre's made less difference or even no difference vs a clean solid state design.

Oh and welcome to ASR. Looks like you are a new member. Hope this was helpful.
 
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AnestisMania

AnestisMania

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Thank you for your warm welcoming im looking forward helping other people with their problems

also thank you for your time reading and replying to my problem

One more question out of curiosity cause im thinking to use the D50 purely as a dac even if I use usb via my computer and then go to the yamaha with analogue signal we still have a bottleneck at the yamaha with no sound improvements? cause im not too sure the creative sound blaster hd dose justice to my speaker's or pre amp.. as a dac that is...

to my understanding we might have some improvements nothing too grand but still.. no?

thank you again for your time
 

Blumlein 88

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Thank you for your warm welcoming im looking forward helping other people with their problems

also thank you for your time reading and replying to my problem

One more question out of curiosity cause im thinking to use the D50 purely as a dac even if I use usb via my computer and then go to the yamaha with analogue signal we still have a bottleneck at the yamaha with no sound improvements? cause im not too sure the creative sound blaster hd dose justice to my speaker's or pre amp.. as a dac that is...

to my understanding we might have some improvements nothing too grand but still.. no?

thank you again for your time
I had in mind you were talking about a sound card like built into a desktop computer with the SoundBlaster, but I suppose you are using this:
1562986386515.png


I suppose I'd say skip the Soundblaster. I'm wondering why go thru it when you could just feed USB straight to the Yamaha?
 
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AnestisMania

AnestisMania

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yes that's the one..
I can do that?... that's new so just get a usb from my pc to the yamaha and call it a day not worth getting the topping d50

also I didn't know i can hook up the yamaha right away with out a dac interesting
I was under the idea that the usb is for storage device's... im going to research
 
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Blumlein 88

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Well in the list of inputs and outputs they list USB input for the Yamaha. Looking at the owners manual, you are correct it is only for playing from a USB memory stick. I suppose, but don't know you that you could get an external hard drive with USB and play off of it as well. In any case, try putting a few favorite tracks on a memory stick and play thru the Yamaha and see if you hear an improvement vs going through the SoundBlaster.

You also could get one of these USB to SPDIF converters and feed from your computer to this device and then over optical or SPDIF coax to the Yamaha.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-to-SPD...=item1ca53fc284:g:MhMAAOSwhHlasHbI:rk:10:pf:0
 
Last edited:
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AnestisMania

AnestisMania

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Once again thank you is going to take a while to go back home and experiment but as soon as I do ill let you know what happened until then
have a nice day
 
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