Yes. ;-)
-
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!
Review and Measurements of Okto DAC8 8Ch DAC & Amp
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
jacobacci
Member
I have added Roon Bridge to (standalone) RP3 / Volumio as described here.
@Okto Research would this work on the DAC8 as well?
Keep dreaming.
etc6849
Active Member
It seems this device supports 32 bit depth for all audio channels when using USB. Having the extra digital headroom for Dirac seems like a great idea.
Unfortunately, since I need to use multiple units I would have to use a card that outputs 16 AES channels, and AES3 is limited to 24 bit. Not Okto's fault, but if there's a way to use multiple units and still have a bit depth of 32-bits, someone please let me know.
Unfortunately, since I need to use multiple units I would have to use a card that outputs 16 AES channels, and AES3 is limited to 24 bit. Not Okto's fault, but if there's a way to use multiple units and still have a bit depth of 32-bits, someone please let me know.
etc6849
Active Member
Veri
Master Contributor
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2018
- Messages
- 9,598
- Likes
- 12,040
Like he said, 24-bit already delivers more headroom than the okto can manage and the okto is the best DAC reviewed on the site.
There is little point besides placebo levels of precision.
etc6849
Active Member
It doesn't seem pointless at all for digital software running on my PC to have extra headroom to make room corrections. The DAC will certainly accept these corrections as an input without digitally clipping even if they are beyond 144dB.
Hypothetical example:
I know there are no real 24 bit recordings that use the full 24 bits of headroom available, but let's assume there is a perfect recording, I have a perfect speakers and neglect my room's noise floor.
So if Dirac corrects a 30dB dip at 30Hz and the DAC sees 174dB. This gets played back with a dynamic range of 119dB. 119dB of real dynamic range is output. Without Dirac, I'd have 114dB dynamic range played back. This appears to mean 32 bits is beneficial as I'm clearly showing a 5dB improvement that Dirac could NOT have corrected for without the extra digital headroom of 32 bits.
Please explain why I am wrong, I don't do this for a living so I very well could be...
Hypothetical example:
I know there are no real 24 bit recordings that use the full 24 bits of headroom available, but let's assume there is a perfect recording, I have a perfect speakers and neglect my room's noise floor.
So if Dirac corrects a 30dB dip at 30Hz and the DAC sees 174dB. This gets played back with a dynamic range of 119dB. 119dB of real dynamic range is output. Without Dirac, I'd have 114dB dynamic range played back. This appears to mean 32 bits is beneficial as I'm clearly showing a 5dB improvement that Dirac could NOT have corrected for without the extra digital headroom of 32 bits.
Please explain why I am wrong, I don't do this for a living so I very well could be...
16/24/32 bits...
Just for the record, as implemented, the "extra" range turns out to be ever smaller subdivisions at the tiny end, not expansions of the upper end...
The DAC doesn't change its maximum output voltage when the bit depth changes...
Poor analogy: A foot long ruler can be divided into 1/16, 1/24, or 1/32 inches, but it's still only a foot long.
You might know that, but, I'm not sure from what you said above.
Very good and fair priced red wine from Bolgheri wine region... a real hidden (or maybe not so hidden) gem in my opionion, always present in my small cellar
solderdude
Grand Contributor
When software has to correct a 30dB dip it can only do so by lowering the frequencies that do not need boosting by 30dB.
It's all very fine to do this in 32 bit digital realm and mathmetically this is no problem at all ... but the DAC can only go up to 0dBFS.
Basically the music will play 30dB softer than when no correction was applied and as the physical noise floor of the DAC is still the same the effective S/N ratio has gotten worse by 30dB in the real world.
Just not 30dB worse in the 32 bit format applied signal to the DAC.
The bits below 24bit are buried in system noise.
With trickery like KSTR has done one can actually see the DAC will output signals smaller than 24 bit in actual level but not in real time in real world situations.
The physical noise floor of a DAC is around 22 bits or so.
Probably lower than that of many amps behind the DAC.
Last edited:
6speed
Active Member
HDMI to I2S devices do exist, but are rare and I never see any DIY discussion of them. You would need to do all the decoding upstream as well.
graz_lag
Major Contributor
Tampa' vineyards white wine ?
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2018
- Messages
- 1,137
- Likes
- 1,499
Will the Octo Dac 8 have and 8 ch AES input?
i ask since the Nano shark parts for the Dac8 DSP aren't available,An alternate solution would be a Minidsp DDRC 88D to do DRC to feed the Octo for the D/A conversion. I deal for bi amp multi sub setups.
i ask since the Nano shark parts for the Dac8 DSP aren't available,An alternate solution would be a Minidsp DDRC 88D to do DRC to feed the Octo for the D/A conversion. I deal for bi amp multi sub setups.
Yes, the "Pro" version.
So if you had J River or Roon send a 7.1 channel LPCM signal via USB to the OCTO from a Windows box, and then sent the OCTO's output to 7 powered monitors and a powered sub, you would get 7.1 Dolby Digital surround?
Last edited:
Let's put it the other way since the OKTO (like almost all audiophile DACs does not do any decoding), if you had JRiver or Roon play a "7.1 Dolby Digital surround" track and decode it and "send a 7.1 channel LPCM signal via USB to the OCTO from a Windows box, and then sent the OCTO's output to 7 powered monitors and a powered sub, you would get what you want and expect. All the decoding and channel mapping is the the JRiver/Roon software.
Similar threads
- Poll
