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Sugesstion DAC for Dynaudio Xeo 2

nolanng

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Hi guys.
I own a Dynaudio Xeo 2 active speaker.
I am planning to buy a seperate DAC connect from my source (PC) to the Xeo.

Purpuse: Fully decoding MQA file from Tidal. Possibly choose Topping D90/ ifi Zen Dac

My confusion is the DAC is converting the digital signal from PC to Analog and streaming to the integrated Amp in the speaker.
However, the built-in Adc/Dac&Amp is receving Analog signal then converted it to digital again (pure digital amp). I connect from DAC to speaker via RCA.

Then, is it obvious that the seperated DAC is meaningless? Or the DAC is still helping improving the sound?

Please help. Thanks guys!

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BDWoody

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Then, is it obvious that the seperated DAC is meaningless? Or the DAC is still helping improving the sound?

Well, nothing is ever really obvious in this crazy industry, is it?!

It is unlikely you will gain anything by adding a separate DAC. If the speaker has digital input, use digital input.

As for MQA...that's likely to start another battle, but it isn't something I'd spend extra on. It is a needless, useless, more bad than good kind of thing imo. Lots of info in lots of threads, so won't get more into it than that.

Plug in spdif, be happy. You aren't missing a thing.
 
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nolanng

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Well, nothing is ever really obvious in this crazy industry, is it?!

It is unlikely you will gain anything by adding a separate DAC. If the speaker has digital input, use digital input.

As for MQA...that's likely to start another battle, but it isn't something I'd spend extra on. It is a needless, useless, more bad than good kind of thing imo. Lots of info in lots of threads, so won't get more into it than that.

Plug in spdif, be happy. You aren't missing a thing.

Ya thank you. But I got ifi Zen Dac from my friend and its output is only RCA not optical, MQA decoded by this DAC is fine, however I just don't know how the Dyn deals with Analog signal from dac, it seems like compressing back to digital and amplifying it. Then I am not sure the bit rate, freq, still the same or not, aizoo headache!!
 

BDWoody

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Ya thank you. But I got ifi Zen Dac from my friend and its output is only RCA not optical, MQA decoded by this DAC is fine, however I just don't know how the Dyn deals with Analog signal from dac, it seems like compressing back to digital and amplifying it. Then I am not sure the bit rate, freq, still the same or not, aizoo headache!!

Once it's analog, whatever it was in digital form is irrelevant to its future. If it is resampled, you can assume it is at a rate that preserves all of the incoming information, so you won't lose anything specifically.

You will be adding whatever noise/distortion the DAC contributes, but that is very likely also in the inaudible range, so it just boils down to using whatever is easiest. It is very very unlikely one would sound different than the other if you couldn't peek to see what was connected.

Another option would be a USB spdif converter like the D10...
 
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