• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

How to mix AVR + External DAC + 2ch amp?

starfly

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
Messages
353
Likes
288
Alright,

So given the mediocre state of AVRs across the board, as Amir has demonstrated with his measurements, what solutions are there to keep your AVR (I have a Yamaha A2070) but add a good external DAC/Streamer + a good 2 channel amp for music listening? For movies I'm not as concerned about the highest fidelity, but for music, which is what I mainly use my system for anyway, I do want better.

Ideally this would allow for switching between the AVR and the DAC + AMP setup without having to switch around cables each time. Is there an easy way to do this? I suppose the easiest way is to attach the DAC as external input the AVR, and then use the AVRs pre-out to the AMP, but it seems that with at least some of the AVRs there isn't just a straight pass-through option, and some form of processing (i.e. ADC > DAC conversion) is happening. So what other solutions are out there?

As for Streamer DACs (so a DAC that can connect to my local NAS library for FLAC, or to online streaming such as Spotify/Tidal/Deezer/Qobuz), are there any affordable ones that are good? Are there any with room correction? (will probably add to cost, I know, but I do need to EQ the low-end in my room or it's very bloated).
 

zenmastering

Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2018
Messages
41
Likes
51
One 'easy' way would be to use the 'preamp-out' on your Yamaha and feed an external, line-level switch box. The output of that box would be to a separate power amplifier feeding your front speakers. the second input of the switchbox would be fed from your separate DAC/Streamer. A DAC such as the RME ADI-2 DAC would be ideal due to it's high-quality built-in EQ. It also has a headphone amp with it's own EQ.

Here's an appropriate switchbox, reviewed right here on ASR:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...und-3-in-1-out-xlr-audio-switch-review.11062/

This is the XLR model. They also make unbalanced, RCA connector models.

And here's a different switchbox that may also work:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...passive-audio-switch-amplifier-speaker.12521/

Cheers,

Graemme
 

rccarguy

Senior Member
Joined
May 9, 2020
Messages
373
Likes
133
Avr pre out into HT bypass or spare input
Cd player dac into another spare input.

I have a av pre amp, and stereo pre amp, and a stereo DAC in one system it works well.
 

Bachemar

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Sep 30, 2019
Messages
50
Likes
85
Many ways to do it, alll of them have trade offs, and there are gremlins in the details. Things get more complex if you want bass management in 2 channel mode. If your subwoofer has multiple inputs (LFE + L/R RCA inputs) it can work

Probably the easiest way is to just get a line level switch to feed the amp and switch between the Dac and AVR. The Schiit Sys can act as one, and Amir has reviewed it to be transparent.

If you don’t want an external switch, you then need to start developing a sense of input and output voltages, so your AVR, Dac/streamer and amp are all somewhat matched. For example, If your Dac/streamer is meant to connect to an amp directly (probably a 1V output, RCA) it may not work work well to feed it as an input to an AVR (CD and other sources are usually 2V nominal). The AVR would attenuate that signal, to produce 0.5V at the output, so you are forced to turn up the volume, increasing distortion and noise.

A dedicated HT mode, or “Fixed Level” output on the Dac preserves the input signal making it easier to integrate.

The MiniDSP SHD, was reviewed well by Amir, has Dirac room calibration, bass management, Roon endpoint. I don’t believe they’ve added an HT bypass mode yet, but easily addressed with the Schiit Sys
 
OP
S

starfly

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
Messages
353
Likes
288
Many ways to do it, alll of them have trade offs, and there are gremlins in the details. Things get more complex if you want bass management in 2 channel mode. If your subwoofer has multiple inputs (LFE + L/R RCA inputs) it can work

Probably the easiest way is to just get a line level switch to feed the amp and switch between the Dac and AVR. The Schiit Sys can act as one, and Amir has reviewed it to be transparent.

If you don’t want an external switch, you then need to start developing a sense of input and output voltages, so your AVR, Dac/streamer and amp are all somewhat matched. For example, If your Dac/streamer is meant to connect to an amp directly (probably a 1V output, RCA) it may not work work well to feed it as an input to an AVR (CD and other sources are usually 2V nominal). The AVR would attenuate that signal, to produce 0.5V at the output, so you are forced to turn up the volume, increasing distortion and noise.

A dedicated HT mode, or “Fixed Level” output on the Dac preserves the input signal making it easier to integrate.

The MiniDSP SHD, was reviewed well by Amir, has Dirac room calibration, bass management, Roon endpoint. I don’t believe they’ve added an HT bypass mode yet, but easily addressed with the Schiit Sys

Hey, that MiniDSP SHD looks great, though it's a bit expensive. I'm not using a sub currently (my wife would never allow that in the living room). Just have a pure 2ch setup with Revel F206 speakers. But, they still need bass management, as my in-room response is really bloated at the low-end. I took measurements with a UMIK-1 using REW and saw a huge hump below 100hz. Luckily, Yamaha's YPAO did a pretty good job of eliminating that and flattening out bass response (verified by measuring in REW after I ran YPAO). So Dirac will probably do a better job (but doubt it'll be night and day compared to the YPAO result).
 

adlervft

Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
22
Likes
25
Location
Luxembourg
I'm trying to have a dual solution for stereo and multi-channel and I'm thinking about this solution:

Buy a modern receiver with at least pre-out for the front channels. Buy an integrated amp (or a combo pre+power) and connect the pre-out of the receiver to an input of the amp. Connect the front speakers, subwoofer and the DAC directly in the integrated amp. For the volume matching, you can find an amp with either direct power-in connection, like the Marantz 8006 or with fixed volume settings, like the Rotel A12/A14. Just for movies, I don't mind the poor performance of the receiver, and for stereo, I can have a pretty decent system.
 

richard12511

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
4,335
Likes
6,700
Alright,

So given the mediocre state of AVRs across the board, as Amir has demonstrated with his measurements, what solutions are there to keep your AVR (I have a Yamaha A2070) but add a good external DAC/Streamer + a good 2 channel amp for music listening? For movies I'm not as concerned about the highest fidelity, but for music, which is what I mainly use my system for anyway, I do want better.

Ideally this would allow for switching between the AVR and the DAC + AMP setup without having to switch around cables each time. Is there an easy way to do this? I suppose the easiest way is to attach the DAC as external input the AVR, and then use the AVRs pre-out to the AMP, but it seems that with at least some of the AVRs there isn't just a straight pass-through option, and some form of processing (i.e. ADC > DAC conversion) is happening. So what other solutions are out there?

As for Streamer DACs (so a DAC that can connect to my local NAS library for FLAC, or to online streaming such as Spotify/Tidal/Deezer/Qobuz), are there any affordable ones that are good? Are there any with room correction? (will probably add to cost, I know, but I do need to EQ the low-end in my room or it's very bloated).

Most AVRs are not mediocre, they're great, actually, unless you are a machine. As long as you are human, most AVRs have perfect sound, and any external DAC you buy won't sound any better at all(for movies or music). Unless you AVR is incompatible with something, or you just like the look of an external dac, or you just feel like burning some cash :p

If you are missing features, need additional spls, or need some other functionality, that's one thing, but your post made it sound like you're looking for higher fidelity sound, which you're not gonna get. Audibly perfect(which your AVR is) is audibly perfect. Can't get more perfecter than perfect.
 
Last edited:
OP
S

starfly

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
Messages
353
Likes
288
Most AVRs are not mediocre, they're great, actually, unless you are a machine. As long as you are human, most AVRs have perfect sound, and any external DAC you buy won't sound any better at all(for movies or music). Unless you AVR is incompatible with something, or you just like the look of an external dac, or you just feel like burning some cash :p

If you are missing features, need additional spls, or need some other functionality, that's one thing, but your post made it sound like you're looking for higher fidelity sound, which you're not gonna get. Audibly perfect(which your AVR is) is audibly perfect. Can't get more perfecter than perfect.

I need to be able to hear the angels whispering, my Yamaha doesn't give me that man. :p
 

rccarguy

Senior Member
Joined
May 9, 2020
Messages
373
Likes
133
Well my £4500 av pre amp is battered by my stereo pre amp and dac..avr generally have poor 2ch sound
 

Bachemar

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Sep 30, 2019
Messages
50
Likes
85
Hey, that MiniDSP SHD looks great, though it's a bit expensive. I'm not using a sub currently (my wife would never allow that in the living room). Just have a pure 2ch setup with Revel F206 speakers. But, they still need bass management, as my in-room response is really bloated at the low-end. I took measurements with a UMIK-1 using REW and saw a huge hump below 100hz. Luckily, Yamaha's YPAO did a pretty good job of eliminating that and flattening out bass response (verified by measuring in REW after I ran YPAO). So Dirac will probably do a better job (but doubt it'll be night and day compared to the YPAO result).

I struggled with this as well. I wanted a better Dac/streaming solution (Roon/Tidal), but my room also sounds terrible without room correction. Most of the solutions with room correction are either
1. Better AVR - maybe with Preouts (Denon 3600H, Nad, Anthem, Arcam)
2. Involve an extra ADA conversion - MiniDSP DDRC 2x4HD, cheaper but negates the external Dac.
3. All in one Dac/DSP/Streamer - MiniDSP SHD, Nad C658, and a couple of others
 

polmuaddib

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 1, 2020
Messages
479
Likes
852
I have two systems integrated. My source (95%) is pc . From pc, via HDMI to AVP, for movies and multichannel music. But for music, I use USB to DAC to stereo preamp which has HT bypass because it shares L&R speakers and poweramp with AVP. But HT bypass is crucial and i am not using preout from AVP, because then it is ruined. I used zone 2 from AVP in the beginning, but it is hard, because i have to use AVP's internal player and it is not working for all sources.
I endure a lot of trouble, because i love MCH music and movies, otherwise i would be happy with a good integrated stereo amp or whatever.... but hopefully, thanks to this site, things will change. For now, i believe this is the only way.
 

Wikedlok

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2021
Messages
16
Likes
4
Location
Zagreb, Croatia
Hi all,
looking for help with avr and DAC integration, as there's multitude of answers (not only here) and combinations, could you guys with more experience help a guy out?

My present setup: Marantz SR6014 preout -> Emotiva a300 ( just an amp, no other controls )for mains: Klipsch rp600m, other channels, amps and sub not important for this case.

Got a Topping E30 dac, which I'd like to integrate with the 6014 for stereo listening. DAC would be connected to CD player, PC and phone.
What is the best way to preserve the E30 sound with no additional processing from 6014: CD input or 7.1 multi channel in ( how does volume control work and do I get video to my tv if I use streaming service on phone?)? Or a RCA Y splitter on Emotiva inputs / RCA switch - but not likely I would pay over half of E30's price for this.
If I missed some info that is crucial for this, please let me know.
Thanks in advance

PS: I use pure direct for stereo
 
Last edited:

Sal1950

Grand Contributor
The Chicago Crusher
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
14,070
Likes
16,601
Location
Central Fl
Don't read the reviews and your AVR will sound just perfect. ;)
 

Wikedlok

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2021
Messages
16
Likes
4
Location
Zagreb, Croatia
Don't read the reviews and your AVR will sound just perfect. ;)
at the moment, it will be used for a separate stereo system, but I think I will arrange everything into one, so looking for the best way to do it. Not likely I will have a HT and stereo setups next to each other
 

TomekNet

Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2020
Messages
88
Likes
96
Location
Warsaw, Poland
Been in the same boat couple of months ago. I've been considering different layouts but most involved possible problems with subs switching and leveling/correction. Also, there are no good quality and yet not expensive remote controlled audio switchers on the market.

Eventually I've decided to use a well performing AVR as a pre-pro (I've chosen Denon x3700h based on ASR reviews) for both music listening in speaker 2.2 layout and home theatre in 7.2.4 layout. I'm using NAD C298 for fronts, Purifi mono amp for central speaker and [waiting for delivery of] Hypex Ncore amps for all other speakers. This setup seems optimal for me and is easy to configure using Audyssey XT32 and MultiEQ app.

In the future I might upgrade Denon AVR to a sound processor, perhaps with Dirac Live. Currently, market offerings are too expensive yet still perform not any better then x3700.
 
Last edited:
OP
S

starfly

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
Messages
353
Likes
288
Probably if you want good quality audio switchers with all the features you want, you'd need to build it yourself. It's probably the route I'll go once I get to that point, though I haven't researched yet how exactly to build a completely transparent audio switcher.

But likely the audio circuit would need to be as simple as possible to not cause too much signal loss. And I'd add at least a couple 12V in/out triggers, so whichever source I turn on (AVR or dedicated 2ch) would automatically determine the correct audio routing. I doubt it would be too complicated, but would require some research and planning on my part. And I'd only do this for pre-amp signals, so this will work best when using the same external amplifier for all speakers.
 

TomekNet

Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2020
Messages
88
Likes
96
Location
Warsaw, Poland
And btw, this is how I wired trigger cables:
  • Denon x3700 12V trigger out --> NAD c298 trigger in, trigger out --> SVS sub trigger in (other sub is on auto-sense)
  • Smart plug --> Emotiva ET3 == (2 trigger cables) ==> Audiophonics mono amp, Multichannel amp
When Harmony turns on Denon in music activity, only fronts amp and subwoofers are powered on with it.
In Netflix/TV activities, Harmony powers on smart plug that powers on additional power amps.
I might build a DIY relay box as well, but it's just easier for me to use plug&play components.
 

Steve Dallas

Major Contributor
Joined
May 28, 2020
Messages
1,201
Likes
2,784
Location
A Whole Other Country
Something like this is one solution:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0796KGVXT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Another option is to use an integrated amp with a home theater bypass feature and input switching. I use a Peachtree Nova300 for this. For video sources, the Peachtree drives the front pair from the HTB input, which is fed by the preouts from the AVR. For stereo audio sources, the Peachtree's DAC is fed by my laptop running Dirac via USB2 over ASIO. One could also use something like the miniDSP SHD as the source and DAC if desired and still have DRC in a dedicated device.

The Peachtree will be reviewed here soon. As it is Icepower and has received mixed objective reviews, I do not expect it to be anywhere near SOTA, but it sounds completely transparent to my ears, and certainly good enough. (Having said that, the Denon 4700 AVR by itself does too.)
 
Top Bottom