Review and Measurements of Okto DAC8 8Ch DAC & Amp

[Kal Rubinson]

To be clear, the restriction applies to any digital connection that is without approved copy protection technology. AES/EBU has no copy protection so restriction must be enforced.

To be very clear, HDMI itself doesn't care about such restriction. It is the included HDCP protocol that is used for HD and higher video formats that does.

Thanks for that clarification.

 

[MWC]

Well I'm glad it clear to someone. Where does this re-transmitting of audio over another digital connection, which triggers the deprecation of the audio, occur in with usual usage?

 

[g29]

See my other posts. This is possible but it depends on the specific hardware devices.

All that is irrelevant.

Sure it is relevant. Both are artificial policy/contractual/license/legal limitations/restrictions, not physical/technology limitations.

 

[amirm]

Well I'm glad it clear to someone. Where does this re-transmitting of audio over another digital connection, which triggers the deprecation of the audio, occur in with usual usage?

In the scenario mentioned: conversion of audio from HDMI to S/PDIF or AES/EBU digital links. Or if the Blu-ray player has S/PDIF output.

 

[Rja4000]

Hi
Question about DAC 8 Pro to @oktoresearch
Is it still possible, as I think you explained before on some other forum, to sum the 8 channels outputs to 2 channels by adding a jumper, and then improve SNR ?

 

[MWC]

@amirm Thank you for your patience explaining this to me.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Sure it is relevant. Both are artificial policy/contractual/license/legal limitations/restrictions, not physical/technology limitations.

Yes, both types of constraints are relevant but I stand by the responses I made to the specific questions to which I responded.

 

[g29]

Hi
Question about DAC 8 Pro to @oktoresearch
Is it still possible, as I think you explained before on some other forum, to sum the 8 channels outputs to 2 channels by adding a jumper, and then improve SNR ?

Here are the jumper instructions for the original board's owner manual. Hoepfully it still applies to the new implementation since the board layout appears to have changed.

Original DAC8 board users manual

Original Board versus new Board.

 

[Rja4000]

Hoepfully it still applies to the new implementation since the board layout appears to have changed.

That's why I ask.
If that is still possible, I'll buy one.

 

[Tks]

The whole copy protection/DRM thing is obnoxious. I gave up on trying to live with it 20 years ago when I played DVDs through my VCR to connect to a TV. Purposefully ruining signals hurts nobody but paying customers. Earlier this week, my wife wanted to play a BluRay on her Macbook. We have a computer BluRay reader. We have a software player capable of reading unencrytped BluRay files (VLC). Does it work? No. Encrypted BluRay. SMH.

So I'm fully in favor of companies "violating the HDCP agreement". That's a valuable feature.

With DMCA, DRM and it's various versions like HDCP chains and such being breached is punishable by quite hefty legal penalties if someone wants you to really be hurting.

Most DRM (even things like Netflix you see using now) aren't actually "to protect the consumers from malicious devices and software" or "to protect our IP". It's a scheme employed to stifle competition between other companies. As has been admitted by recent companies that worked to get internet DRM standard schemes passed through the WC3, leading to the EFF foundation leaving their group.

At this point, anyone believing the contrary is hopeless. DRM has been cracked, and will constantly keep getting cracked. In the gaming sphere industry developers and even the companies that make the DRM have OPENLY said they know their DRM is constantly being cracked (sometimes on launch day of a specific gaming title).

DRM, just like closed source mediums, is making less and less sense, especially with cyber security issues today proliferating at alarming rates, only open source remains the most literal, and logically sound method of remedy against exploits and such. There's a reason why 90%+ of the web is run on Unix/Linux based servers.

 

[Tks]

Woops I forgot to ask. Any new on the DAC8 Stereo?

 

[MWC]

Well let's all bow down to the one true God: Linux

 

[g29]

Well let's all bow down to the one true God: Linux

Apparently Apple did.

 

[rickyhgarcia]

After reading all this HDMI stuff, I have always used the 7.1 analog outputs out of my Oppo Blu-ray player. It sounds better than when HDMI is used. Maybe because the Oppo DAC is better than the Marantz DAC???

 

[Okto Research]

Hi
Question about DAC 8 Pro to @oktoresearch
Is it still possible, as I think you explained before on some other forum, to sum the 8 channels outputs to 2 channels by adding a jumper, and then improve SNR ?

While it is technically possible, there is no need to modify the DAC8 PRO. DAC8 Stereo is going to have 4+4 channels working together from factory (+wider variety of stereo-only inputs).

 

[audimus]

With DMCA, DRM and it's various versions like HDCP chains and such being breached is punishable by quite hefty legal penalties if someone wants you to really be hurting.

Most DRM (even things like Netflix you see using now) aren't actually "to protect the consumers from malicious devices and software" or "to protect our IP". It's a scheme employed to stifle competition between other companies. As has been admitted by recent companies that worked to get internet DRM standard schemes passed through the WC3, leading to the EFF foundation leaving their group.

At this point, anyone believing the contrary is hopeless. DRM has been cracked, and will constantly keep getting cracked. In the gaming sphere industry developers and even the companies that make the DRM have OPENLY said they know their DRM is constantly being cracked (sometimes on launch day of a specific gaming title).

DRM, just like closed source mediums, is making less and less sense, especially with cyber security issues today proliferating at alarming rates, only open source remains the most literal, and logically sound method of remedy against exploits and such. There's a reason why 90%+ of the web is run on Unix/Linux based servers.

I have no relationship with any of the related industries but the above makes no sense.

Anyone on the content creation side believing the above is hopeless as well. The above views can only be held by people who have not generated content with commercial viability. These content producers have their own gripes with the studios and distributors as well but not with DRM.

I don’t get the logic. Door locks can be picked and it creates nuisance such as getting yourself locked out, losing keys, etc. Does not mean you would leave your doors open because of it because you have a vested interest in protecting the contents inside. As a content consumer, you have no vested interest in protecting the commercial potential of content so magnanimous in decrying any protection even if not entirely in self interest. And you think of all kinds of rationalizations for it.

DRM isn’t perfect but with DRM, you are limited to discovering piracy sites and downloading from there. While, in theory, anyone can do it, I would estimate it isn’t what most people want to do or able to do on their own. But availability of content without DRM would increase private sharing between ordinary people (say using the cloud) with the file sharing process being so mainstream and pretty soon that becomes the norm. So DRM does serve a purpose of limiting piracy even if it is not perfect.

I am not sure what open source software has anything to do with distribution of commercial content with discouragement for illegal sharing. If you are suggesting the DRM implementations need to be open source so that vulnerabilities would be found by a larger group of people and fixed quickly, then it is not saying DRM should not exist but rather that the implementations should be open source.

Then there are those who say all content should be free and content creators can come up with different business model because some X somewhere did Y. This is usually said by people who haven’t spent a day trying to make a living out of creating content or have any experience with business models. Free content with voluntary donations just like free software with donations just don’t work on the average. There is always a tiny fraction that may succeed that way but as the odds of that happening or very small, it would discourage most content producers and we would all suffer because of it. Just talk to app developers that make apps for Apple or Android. Freemium does not work for most developers but they keep trying like buying a lottery ticket to be one of those lucky ones. That is why you land up with mostly throwaway, quick to build crap apps.

No one has complained much about the DRMs for apps in these devices by the way, except for those philosophically opposed to it who have not tried to make a living out of it.

Apologies for the out of topic rant in this thread.

 

[somebodyelse]

Apparently Apple did.

Apple didn't - they went BSD instead. Almost everybody else did, including Microsoft with the recent release of WSL2. Anyone know the temperature in hell at the moment?

 

[g29]

Apple didn't - they went BSD instead. Almost everybody else did, including Microsoft with the recent release of WSL2. Anyone know the temperature in hell at the moment?

Isn't WSL just a virtual machine/emulation layer (similar to WINE on Linux or Parallels on MAC) ? Cygwin has been around for decades. Installing a VM isn't replacing the underlying core OS.

Also, the variance between BSD and Linux is about the same as in different Unix (BSD and non-BSD) variants. Linux and Unix are basically the same thing (except for the open/closed free/pay source aspect). Porting code between Linux/Unix/BSD is a lot easier than between (Linux/Unix/BSD) and Windoze.

 

[Rja4000]

While it is technically possible, there is no need to modify the DAC8 PRO. DAC8 Stereo is going to have 4+4 channels working together from factory (+wider variety of stereo-only inputs).

Hi
Thanks for your answer.
I'm not sure I understand it though.
I'm interested to be able to either use it in stereo mode, with maximum SNR, or in 8 channels mode when needed.
What's required to be able to do that then?
I guess only the Pro model has 8 channels AES, so that's the one I'm interested in.
Is there a way to increase its performance on a single stereo output? And, if yes, how?

By the way, I'm a bit puzzled by your rack mount.
Does that mean the device will require 2U???
That's a bit if a show stopper if that's the case.

 

[BYRTT]

..... By the way, I'm a bit puzzled by your rack mount.
Does that mean the device will require 2U???
That's a bit if a show stopper if that's the case.

Using post 573 picture into ruler helpers in MS publisher program and scale of that picture to fit the lower power plug is about 25mm in height then relative it looks be a 2U about 88mm in height.