Rega Saturn / Rega Dac dem.

[stu pitt]

The old Apple TV outputs at 44.1. I know this because my old Theta DAC only accepts 44.1 and not 48. I called Theta to verify. Unless Theta is wrong, anyway.

To the best of my knowledge, the Rega DAC re-clocks the signal, thereby reducing/eliminating jitter. Most DACs now a days do this too.

 

[hifinutt]

Hello!
My Rega DAC will arrive at late February, my current player is the Arcam CD36. It will be the transport for the DAC, of course.
I have a van den Hul The First Ultimate interconnect and I`ll try to use it as a digital cable.
Though, in the future I want to use a better dedicated digital cable. Any recommendations for my setup?
Thank you!

hi fi critic always speak highly of the van den hul but other suggestions are the missing link range, analysis plus and acoustic zen mc2 digital , all brilliant

 

[kdoot]

To the best of my knowledge, the Rega DAC re-clocks the signal, thereby reducing/eliminating jitter. Most DACs now a days do this too.

There's a limit to how effective this can be, sadly, since incoming SPDIF dictates the actual frequency and it can drift all over the place.

I was reading about a DAC the other day (can't remember whose) which uses a clever buffer to overcome this. It plays back just a little slower than the incoming data so that it can have a jitter-free datastream coming out of the buffer. It uses digital silences in the input as the opportunity to drain the buffer and catch up - the silence you hear is slightly shorter than the silence in the program.

This is where async USB has an advantage, taking the data in at its own pace.

Anyway the Rega DAC... has a buffer, I read, but I don't know anything about how it works. If it works like the one I described above, I'm going to be a happy boy.

 

[BlueEyes]

I'd rather run this with a cheap transport than own the Apollo again. No contest.

So, presumably, if you already have an Apollo buying the Rega DAC and using the former as a transport is a no-brainer?

 

[kristoffer]

There's a limit to how effective this can be, sadly, since incoming SPDIF dictates the actual frequency and it can drift all over the place.

I was reading about a DAC the other day (can't remember whose) which uses a clever buffer to overcome this. It plays back just a little slower than the incoming data so that it can have a jitter-free datastream coming out of the buffer. It uses digital silences in the input as the opportunity to drain the buffer and catch up - the silence you hear is slightly shorter than the silence in the program.

This is where async USB has an advantage, taking the data in at its own pace.

Anyway the Rega DAC... has a buffer, I read, but I don't know anything about how it works. If it works like the one I described above, I'm going to be a happy boy.

Intriguing. Can any Rega reseller confirm this?

 

[kdoot]

Intriguing. Can any Rega reseller confirm this?

Just to follow up on the buffer business, I read now that the Rega DAC buffer uses the PLL clock, which means it's not as fancy or jitter-busting as the other DAC I described earlier.

Still should be pretty good though, I'm hoping.

 

[stu pitt]

I heard it buffers the same way that the Apollo and Saturn buffer. Not sure about the technology and if this is possible or not.

 

[Sovereign]

Thats a lot of buffing.

 

[FatElvisForever]

I tried an optical lead and an AE with my Macbook and found no sound difference between them.

I just "switched" from Macbook optical out to the Airport Express optical and "at first listen" they sound the same through the Rega DAC. I have Audio MIDI settings at 16bit, 44KHZ, so no iTunes/OS X "upsampling" (which can sound dreadful). Was hoping to eliminate a long cable run and make my setup a bit more "elegant", assuming no sound quality trade-offs (of course!).

In fact, the Rega DAC seems pretty apathetic to source transport. My soon-to-be-sold Rega Saturn (as transport feading coax input) also sounded identical to AE and MB. Would like to give it a go with my cheap Sony DVD player, and will, eventually.

Haven't tried USB. All listening thus far at standard CD resolution (obviously, as I'm using AE)

The Rega must be "doing its thing" with the signal, assuming the Jitter from AE is really that significant of a problem. Doesn't seem to be with the Rega DAC, anyway.

Impression based on one evening of reasonably serious listening (Rush - Moving Pictures (original CD release), Chick Corea Electric Band - To the Stars, and Roxy Music - Avalon (original).

Can't help but think how Apple could fill a market gap by improving the AE resolution limitation and also by offering hi-res downloads on iTunes. Guess they first need to start selling ALAC first.