Recently I bought a very old dac (Sphinx Project three.)
It has 3 spdif inputs, 1 optical and 2 rca types.
When using the optical input the dac works good (very good is probably a better statement for a 15 year old device, i prefer it over my sony sacd).
But when i use either of the electrical inputs it only works properly when connected to my (also old) tascam cd player. With the new sony there is a lot of distortion/noise.
Does somebody have an idea what might be wrong, I suspect there is a mismatch between the old and new devices, maybe something like a dc offset?
It has 3 spdif inputs, 1 optical and 2 rca types.
When using the optical input the dac works good (very good is probably a better statement for a 15 year old device, i prefer it over my sony sacd).
But when i use either of the electrical inputs it only works properly when connected to my (also old) tascam cd player. With the new sony there is a lot of distortion/noise.
Does somebody have an idea what might be wrong, I suspect there is a mismatch between the old and new devices, maybe something like a dc offset?
I can think of at least two possible causes;
* (perhaps too obvious?) Your Sony SACD is not properly configured to output 16-bit 44.1KhZ PCM (only), thus the signal is not understandable at all to the old Sphinx dac.
* There might be something wrong with the input buffer circuit; there might be a DS9637 dual line receiver (or similar) sitting directly on the inputs, and converting the signal to 0/5V.
So if you can rule out the first problem, I would take a closer look at the input circuit(s) and perhaps look with an oscilloscope (if you have one handy 😉 )
* (perhaps too obvious?) Your Sony SACD is not properly configured to output 16-bit 44.1KhZ PCM (only), thus the signal is not understandable at all to the old Sphinx dac.
* There might be something wrong with the input buffer circuit; there might be a DS9637 dual line receiver (or similar) sitting directly on the inputs, and converting the signal to 0/5V.
So if you can rule out the first problem, I would take a closer look at the input circuit(s) and perhaps look with an oscilloscope (if you have one handy 😉 )
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