Are DVD audio D/A's 16 or 24 bit?

[Circlotron]

I read somewhere that DVD players have 24 bit D/A converters but that sounds like too much of a generalisation to me. Do some of them have 16 bit and others 24 bit or what?

GP.

 

[alfsch]

Hi,
ALL DVD players have 24 bit DACs, *but most sound not very good, because the chips for video processing make a lot of digital noise...}, play CD is 16 bit data, only the DVD/AUDIO disks have 24bit . 96kHz data, LPCM/track*sounding better than CD, but expensive...

greetings
alf

 

[Asen]

And what about using DVD as a CD transport with external DAC? Is it a good idea? Anyone with experience?

Asen

 

[alfsch]

Hi,
different results: some DVDs are very good, some average, like any CD you can buy; depends also on the data your sending: audio CD or DVDaudio or DTS or what?
(i build at the moment a non-oversampling DAC, sounds very nice, different to most normal DACs, just as an extra in an old CDplayer for testing...)
alf

 

[Holger Barske]

And what about using DVD as a CD transport with external DAC? Is it a good idea? Anyone with experience?

Asen

Yes, I have. I don't think the DAC is the bottleneck on DVD-players, it's the drive, or, more exact, the drive electronics. All those different clock frequencies, lots of pll circuits, tons of noise - not much fun.
In my experience a dedicated CD drive sounds much better then a DVD model, assuming the same price category. Of course, there are extremely good sounding DVDs, but not at reasonable cost.
---
Holger