I’ve been using a WiiM Pro streamer with both Coax and Optical out into the amp using it’s onboard DAC but have recently bought a Chord Qutest and am feeding the WiiM into that instead and find it a big upgrade.
What do others think of the onboard DAC, I’m guessing the results would be the same streaming say Tidal direct to the amp or via MConnect / Bubble UPnP as it’ll be using the same DAC as the digital inputs.
You are comparing a DAC that costs about (£1,200) or 60% of the original price of the SA30 so yes it’s likely to sound better.
I happened to have had a Zen DAC Signature V2 spare (was about a £400 DAC when new) which I felt was a fairer comparison that I fed a Raspberry Pi running Ropieee into and then into the RCA feeds. It sounds about the same as Roon (possibly a tiny bit better) through the SA30 or the CDS50 through a decent coaxial cable. To my mind the DAC in the SA30 certainly sounds better than the DAC in the CDS50 (even though I believe they are pretty much the same)
The reason for putting the Pi and Zen DAC in place was to give additional streaming facilities through LMS, PlexAmp and HQPlayer.
To me this suggests that the DAC is fine (or maybe better than fine), but can be improved upon with an even better external DAC. Just remember that if you use DiRAC that everything gets digitised anyway, which I now do as I get better control of my speakers and they can be closer to the back wall which makes the wife happier.
I don’t use Dirac but it was the next thing I was going experiment with … so does this mean it doesn’t matter what DAC I put in front of the amp it’ll just use the amps DAC anyway?
Not quite, you just have to accept that things go through another digitisation process.
You can still benefit from a better DAC, especially if it gives a certain musical tone that you might enjoy more.
Dirac is excellent (or has been for me), but I would look to buy/borrow a UMIC-1 type of measurement device as I was not impressed with the free included calibration mic. Took me a long time to listen to the advice to get one and I got much better results after finally doing that and re-measuring the results.
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Cheers for that and d have a Umik-1 … I did try Dirac ages ago before a room reshuffle and didn’t get on with it but think my listening tastes have evolved sone then so definitely want to give it a try again!
Cheers for your input!!
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Good luck with it, and you can always create a few measurements and switch between them