Mark, can you please stop dissing something you have never listened to. For someone who keeps telling us to use our ears this is strange behaviour.
Secondly you will note for Bob we have been discussing units with SPDIF output.
I have listened to the same chip and various other implementations using it, some better than Okto, some worse. I know what it is.
I did't mean to suggest otherwise. I was only saying that Okto is a better dac than the dacs in the minidsp boxes that have them, which I mentioned because I know some folks reading along are probably interested in various options and trade offs. We get questions about dacs for multi-way speakers fairly frequently over in the dac subforum. Okto is one that has been looked at pretty closely before. I once looked at all the current version Okto PCB pics I could find to see how it was designed and if it could benefit from modding.
Thanks Bill, So you can select each digital input as a digital preamp of sorts, very nice.
How’s the master volume control on it ..... good enough to control the whole show? I’ve heard differing opinions on minidsp volume control.
bob - fyi, in case you've not seen it... Review and Measurements of Okto DAC8 8Ch DAC & Amp | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum
A very good question. How much does your volume control vary over the course of listening? If less that 12dB I'd say stay digital, if more consider an analog volume setup. If you need 30dB of attentuation to keep your tweeters from exploding your gain setup is wrong!
In theory any volume reduction in the digital domain reduces resolution. In practice? Personally I feel up to 4 bits in a 24 bit chain should not be audible. But I do have an analog volume control in the wings should paranoia get the better of me
Here’s another option, Motu 8a ?
It looks like one could come straight from a server (such as sgc i5) usb into the DAC8, using Roon/hq player for dsp/xo duties and eliminate the need for any minidsp at all.
There’s a thread on the DAC8 launch by a feller named Pavel, i could get some more surety there......is that the same Pavel that used to frequent the lounge (haven’t seen any posts from him for awhile)?
I suppose I’d be giving up Dirac without the mini..... Roon offers rew though (i think)
This is a bit tedious but I’d rather build a hypothetical system that’s going to do what I want instead of finding out after the fact it won’t.
It looks like one could come straight from a server (such as sgc i5) usb into the DAC8, using Roon/hq player for dsp/xo duties and eliminate the need for any minidsp at all.
There’s a thread on the DAC8 launch by a feller named Pavel, i could get some more surety there......is that the same Pavel that used to frequent the lounge (haven’t seen any posts from him for awhile)?
I suppose I’d be giving up Dirac without the mini..... Roon offers rew though (i think)
This is a bit tedious but I’d rather build a hypothetical system that’s going to do what I want instead of finding out after the fact it won’t.
I've always wondered how this is done - currently, these days - as I truly have no idea. The little Zoudio amp has a volume control, but it's certainly not analog. Unsure how it works exactly. Same with the soft volume implemented by Daphile.
I thought I once owned a Panasonic class D amp which varied the power supply voltage to the output stage to achieve volume control. I could be wrong about that but it made sense as a way to keep all the bits...almost 20 years ago.
Generally by multiplying the wanted signal with a number less than 1! 6dB is 1 bit. so 24dB is 4 bits. Given I mainly listen to redbook stuff off the server I'm happy with 4 bits being chucked as I can still argue I have 16 bit resolution. I have no issues with people being paranoid and not wanting ANY digital attenuation though.
All depends if you have two reference levels
1. Wife in house
2. Wife gone out
Personally if you have 'late night listening' levels of around 65dBA I feel that you've lost enough DR due to the noise floor of the room that a teensy bit of digital resolution loss is quite literally lost in the room.
When I was paranoid about my miniDSP I did consider a switchable 10dB pad on the outputs so I had normal and loud modes available. Then reality hit me.
1. Wife in house
2. Wife gone out
Personally if you have 'late night listening' levels of around 65dBA I feel that you've lost enough DR due to the noise floor of the room that a teensy bit of digital resolution loss is quite literally lost in the room.
When I was paranoid about my miniDSP I did consider a switchable 10dB pad on the outputs so I had normal and loud modes available. Then reality hit me.
just one....wife gone out!
otherwise it doesn't matter it's just background music , if we're watching a concert or videos at night she likes it cranked up a bit anyhow.
I put a feeler out in the oktodac forum to see if it'll work straight from the sgc i5....hope it does it looks like a nice unit for the money.
otherwise it doesn't matter it's just background music , if we're watching a concert or videos at night she likes it cranked up a bit anyhow.
I put a feeler out in the oktodac forum to see if it'll work straight from the sgc i5....hope it does it looks like a nice unit for the money.
So Bill,
About linear phase on the xo....of the minidsp opinions, seems only the open DRC units provide the option.....there’s mention of FIR in (some) ddrc-88d literature but when you get down to it in the manual there’s no mention (it does say ‘mixed phase’), minidsp also has a link to fir capability and only lists the two open drc units.
Sooo, much confusion......the open drc da-8 has what I need right now to wet a toe (including a rather low end 8 channel dac) and at $375 it wouldn’t be too painful if it didn’t perform up to par.
How important is having the fir capability in your opinion?
They also make the u-dac8.....usb to the same AK4440 as the open drc-da8 (which measured horribly at ASR).
Now to add to the confusion Andrew Gillis (from SGC) told me in a email that he uses the u-dac8 straight from his servers with great success! (This version I’d be using the SGC server for dsp)
OktoDAC has yet to respond.....I don’t know if I want to get that far off the beaten path anyhow.
Could just get the shd and patch it in with the yamaha running the sub xo/dsp then cross up to the tweets with the other pair of outputs from shd (its only 4 channel)
shd has the best specs and best subjective reviews of all the minidsp products it’s just lacking channels!
About linear phase on the xo....of the minidsp opinions, seems only the open DRC units provide the option.....there’s mention of FIR in (some) ddrc-88d literature but when you get down to it in the manual there’s no mention (it does say ‘mixed phase’), minidsp also has a link to fir capability and only lists the two open drc units.
Sooo, much confusion......the open drc da-8 has what I need right now to wet a toe (including a rather low end 8 channel dac) and at $375 it wouldn’t be too painful if it didn’t perform up to par.
How important is having the fir capability in your opinion?
They also make the u-dac8.....usb to the same AK4440 as the open drc-da8 (which measured horribly at ASR).
Now to add to the confusion Andrew Gillis (from SGC) told me in a email that he uses the u-dac8 straight from his servers with great success! (This version I’d be using the SGC server for dsp)
OktoDAC has yet to respond.....I don’t know if I want to get that far off the beaten path anyhow.
Could just get the shd and patch it in with the yamaha running the sub xo/dsp then cross up to the tweets with the other pair of outputs from shd (its only 4 channel)
shd has the best specs and best subjective reviews of all the minidsp products it’s just lacking channels!
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For me 'personally' linear phase crossovers are not something I feel I need. Room correction is something I might want to play with in the future but would probably cheap our at first and use the convolver in jriver or roon. So I wouldn't pick a DSP with FIR right now. But ask me again in 5 years!
A very good question. How much does your volume control vary over the course of listening? If less that 12dB I'd say stay digital, if more consider an analog volume setup. If you need 30dB of attentuation to keep your tweeters from exploding your gain setup is wrong!
In theory any volume reduction in the digital domain reduces resolution. In practice? Personally I feel up to 4 bits in a 24 bit chain should not be audible. But I do have an analog volume control in the wings should paranoia get the better of me
Is that before or after giving your DAC a -6 dB cut to keep it in a nicer region of operation? Demian talks extensively about a lot of DACs behaving best about -6 to -12 dB down from max output, and it completely bypasses the inter-overs worry.
And, yes, we almost all have too much gain in our systems.
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