Can a DCX2496 be a sustitute for Orions x'over?nt

[EchiDna]

Originally posted by Ken L


I think you're the _smart money_ on this one. I was told that Terry Cain of C&C speakers bought a similar unit for use in demonstrating his speakers at VSAC and CES. Used a laptop and was playing CD's that had been ripped to the hard drive. If I remember correctly it cost about $4500 US.

The vinyl guys that heard it said that it sounded like the best vinyl you have ever dreamed of - or words to that effect.

It's gonna have to come down a lot in price over time before it will be viable for me _big grin_.

The computer part should be easy to do and the DAC/ADC part does seem within the purvue of DIYer's with skills in that area.

I am sincerely appreciative of the contributors to this thread. It takes a certain amount of effort to make technical posts of this length. I am learning a lot reading it.

Best regards

Ken L

Going OT, but anyway...
As I understand it the pc based system was from a new company you can find here: www.vrsaudiosystems.com there is no special DAC etc, just the original onboard soundcard (Lynx L22, I am lead to believe) which comes with analogue outs for 2 channel. The thing this card lacks is multichannel and bass management drivers for surround sound etc... but for two channel, it is fine...
This however has nothing to do with orions, orion 'clones' and crossovers.

here is a link to a project which is sort of on the lines of which you speak, and can fit the crossover thing needed for the orion or clones... http://www2.gol.com/users/pcazeles/asioxo.htm

[Thunau]

Originally posted by Vadim
Jan,


Now, the question is what happens when we want to attenuate the signal? I must say that I do not know how to accomplish such an operation without affecting the resolution of the signal. Attenuation must result in a bit reduction of the digital word. Because when we scale down the signal we also are attempting to scale down the noise, but the noise being stochastic (non-deterministic) in nature will resist that and its amlitude will (or perhaps should) remain the same.

So, I think a dithering technique is in order here if we were to attempt to accomplish amplitude reduction without any significant bit reduction. I somehow doubt that Behringer programmers did that.

Now, that although the A/D section is 24 bit capable, we naturally do not get the 24 bits if the signal originates at the analog outputs of a CD Player. Also, I am sure that there is no way for that 24 bit A/D converter to actually do 24 bits in a real world environment. Perhaps, if we were to place this converter inside a Faraday box (a completely electromagnetically screened metal enclosure), then maybe we can measure 24 bits, - and that is a much stretched ‘maybe’. Inside your equipment rack you will get 16 bits at best out of this 24 bit internal architecture.
....
With all this in mind I still think that we cannot afford to do any digital attenuation. I need to go back to my DSP books and look at exactly how to do digital attenuation. So I am not 100% sure that I am right about this, but …

Vadim

I suggest that you read up on floating point operations. Your signal stays very close to the original resolution throughout the process. As long as you utilize the full dynamic range of the D/A your output will have the same resoultion as the input (extreme processing algorithms/cases exempt of course). And just to reiterate one more time, S/N and digital resolution are related but are not the same.
Also, on another note, the need for dither can be eased up somewhat by the presence of analog noise floor above the theoretical A/D converters resolution. It's not the optimal noise shaping but can be often "good enough".