Should I use digital out?

[ahblaza]

Hello,
I just acquired a Rotel RCD-955AX cd player from my brother, it is mint with less than 50 hrs. use, built like a tank, it will make a good transport when I can afford external DAC, in the meantime my question is since this player is 16 bit 4x over samp., would I be better off using the digital output from player to dig. input on my receiver since it is 24 bit 192, or just stick with the analog outs for now. Thanks all, I'm lost when it comes to this stuff.
Jeff

 

[Seth=L]

I believe you won't likely notice a difference. I would use the analog outputs though. My thought is that the Rotel is a nice piece, and that it should be used as a sum of all it's parts. It would personally make me feel warm and fuzzy inside to use the analog outputs.

 

[jamie2112]

I agree with Seth. In fact the Analog outputs should be a little higher as in 3 db or so.At least that is my experiance with digi out on cd players...........

 

[j_garcia]

I'd try both and see if there is a noticeable difference. If not, it doesn't matter which you use. I often use analog, but my receiver cascades the DACs when it processes 2ch via digital, so it sounds as good as any good source. The Rotels have a very nice sound to them via analog.

 

[ahblaza]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your advice, I also like the analog warm sound and I believe using digital out may complicate things between player and receiver.
Regards....jeff

 

[MDS]

I also like the analog warm sound and I believe using digital out may complicate things between player and receiver.

It won't complicate things at all. The only difference will be that the receiver will be doing the D/A conversion instead of the player but as everyone else has already said...you aren't likely to hear a big difference.

By the way, the fact that the receiver has 24/192 DACS doesn't matter with regard to CDs. CDs are 16/44.1 and that is exactly what will get delivered to the receiver.

 

[ahblaza]

Thank you for that, so what would be the advantage if any using an external DAC? Also would not my receiver upconvert that 16/44.1 signal ? Please forgive my ignorance of this subject. I was thinking of using the Rotel as transport and external DAC Magic from Cam . Audio. Any thoughts?
Thanks for your help.....Jeff

 

[MDS]

Thank you for that, so what would be the advantage if any using an external DAC?

IMO, none. Even the cheapest receivers have pretty good DACS. There will be tiny differences between different DACS that can be measured with lab equipment but in practice you just won't notice any significant difference.

Also would not my receiver upconvert that 16/44.1 signal ?

Not by default. Some players and receivers offer upsampling but the benefit is debatable.

In a nutshell, the Shannon/Nyquist sampling theorem says that you need to sample at twice the highest frequency you want to reproduce. Given that human hearing is 20 Hz - 20 kHz, the CD sampling rate of 44.1 kHz is sufficient because the Nyquist frequency would then be 22.05 kHz - above the upper limit of human hearing.

The only benefit of a higher sampling rate is that it pushes quantization noise (tiny errors from the sampling process) into higher frequencies which in some cases can be noticed as slightly better high frequency response. As usual, that slight difference is almost imperceptible to most people and of course will also vary from recording to recording if it exists at all.

 

[Lordoftherings]

Rotel is reknown (well known) for their quality analog section. They always sound best from it.
I know, I own few Rotel components.

 

[ahblaza]

Thanks guys, I feel a lot better now and you saved me money on something I probably would not have heard the difference with.
Jeff

 

[Pyrrho]

Hello,
I just acquired a Rotel RCD-955AX cd player from my brother, it is mint with less than 50 hrs. use, built like a tank, it will make a good transport when I can afford external DAC, in the meantime my question is since this player is 16 bit 4x over samp., would I be better off using the digital output from player to dig. input on my receiver since it is 24 bit 192, or just stick with the analog outs for now. Thanks all, I'm lost when it comes to this stuff.
Jeff

What receiver and speakers are you using? If your receiver is doing bass management to send bass to your subwoofer(s), then it is likely that it will convert all analog inputs to digital for the bass management. In which case, you would theoretically be better off using the digital output on the CD player to avoid extra conversion, though it is doubtful if you will hear any difference, if you were to level match the two.

Basically, if you hear a difference between the analog and digital output, it is extremely likely that this is due to the levels being slightly different rather than due to a real difference in quality. To properly test to see if you could hear a real quality difference, you would have to level match the two outputs, and then listen "blind", which is probably something you will never do, so you will never have a proper test to know. But if you are using bass management in the receiver, and if the receiver does this digitally, I recommend using the digital output of the CD player. Otherwise, it should not matter.