2. digital
  3. 185163-3875

AES/EBU vs RCA s/pdif into dac, RCA analog out

Hi, this seems like it may be a dumb question, but here goes. If you feed the digital signal into the dac via AES/EBU and then use the dac's analog RCA outputs to your preamp (preamp only has RCA input), would this result in a better sound than using the dac's RCA s/pdif digital inputs? Or would the results be exactly the same? I hope I'm making this clear: AES/EBU vs RCA s/pdif coax input in while  using analog RCA out.  I don't currently have an AES/EBU digital cable, or I would just try this out.  I am considering purchasing one just to see if there's any difference. Thanks for any advice.

heymikey
vinylshadow
497 posts
 

Max Townshend felt that unbalanced RCA's sounded better than balanced XLR's due to XLR's added circuitry. That RCA's led to more "pure sound".

That XLR's were designed and good for very long cable lengths. 

So all of my Townshend cables(speaker, IC's, digital cables) are RCA. 

heymikey OP
80 posts
 

@vinylshadow , that's interesting, and makes sense. Now I have to look up who Max Townsend is.

vinylshadow
497 posts
 

Please do. Max Townshend was a genius in understanding sonics and design. And ahead of his time.....

Townshend's Seismic vibration isolation products are fantastic. As are their cables.

ghdprentice
6,994 posts
 

OP, sounds like you have a lot of DACs. You might consider consolidating down to a N20 and a single DAC. I had a Berkeley Alpha Reverence 3 for a while. My Aurrender streamer only  —> DAC (Audio Research Reference CD9SE) sounds best with AES… but not by much. From DAC to preamp XLR… but single ended high quality interconnects of the same brand and level sounded pretty much the same (Transparent Ultra - current iteration).

heymikey OP
80 posts
 

@ghdprentice, please note that there is only one dac  being used in my system. I am not using the built in dac in the Aurender A20, I am sending the A20's  digital signal via USB to the Berkeley Alpha USB digital to digital converter which outputs the digital signal via AES/EBU or S/PDIF to the external Weiss DAC202. The Weiss DAC202 is doing the digital to analog processing.  Thanks for your impressions about AES and single ended sound quality.

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