2. home-theater
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Best decoder DTS,AC3,etc for Bel Canto Dac2

Hi All,

I am not *extremely* knowledgeable when it comes to home theatre and am eagerly awaiting a Bel Canto Dac2 that I just purchased from Audiogon. The user manual online says that it takes a 16-bit/44.1KHz signal (and works all it's magic thereafter). Well, I would like to use the Bel Canto Dac2 for the occasional movie on a 2-channel setup; I have found some of my media to be purely DTS, AC3, True HD, etc and am curious if anyone knows of the best solution to decode these sources such that the Bel Canto Dac2 can process them. Any help or enlightenment is very greatly appreciated!! Thanks.
jparan
everest_audio
285 posts
 
Within the audio menu of your DVD player or blu-ray, for use with the DAC2, make sure the digital output is set to stereo. This will often be shown as PCM (pulse code modulation) or L-PCM (linear pulse code modulation). With your player set to this, all of the bitstream home theatre soundtracks will be downconverter to just a standard stereo signal which your DAC2 can handle.
jparan OP
3 posts
 
Thanks! Is there certain levels of quality to this down conversion? That is, will one manufacturer be a better down converter than another? I imagine turning a DTS signal into stereo PCM output must have *some* degree of science behind it.
everest_audio
285 posts
 
I imagine there are probably different quality levels in downconversion. I can't say though which player may be better in this regard than another.
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