Hi,
I have seen several references to "DAC"s in postings concerning preamps. What is a DAC? I see that it seems to take digital in and send analog out (maybe I just answered my own question -- perhaps it is a Digital-to-Analog-Converter?).
Why would one want both a DAC and a pre-amp, given that pre-amps also have digital in? Are DACs presumably better at doing digital-to-analog?
I have three main music sources: phono, CD, and Sonos. The Sonos box allows me to stream Pandora, Sirius, iTunes, and Amazon Cloud to my pre-amp. The Sonos boxes have both analog and digital out. The digital out is in two forms, coax and "optical". I currently use the analog out and route it to the "Line In" on my old Carver pre-amp. For the most part the sound is acceptable, but I am wondering if adding a DAC and then going SonosDigital->DAC->Preamp would result in cleaner sound.
I have seen several references to "DAC"s in postings concerning preamps. What is a DAC? I see that it seems to take digital in and send analog out (maybe I just answered my own question -- perhaps it is a Digital-to-Analog-Converter?).
Why would one want both a DAC and a pre-amp, given that pre-amps also have digital in? Are DACs presumably better at doing digital-to-analog?
I have three main music sources: phono, CD, and Sonos. The Sonos box allows me to stream Pandora, Sirius, iTunes, and Amazon Cloud to my pre-amp. The Sonos boxes have both analog and digital out. The digital out is in two forms, coax and "optical". I currently use the analog out and route it to the "Line In" on my old Carver pre-amp. For the most part the sound is acceptable, but I am wondering if adding a DAC and then going SonosDigital->DAC->Preamp would result in cleaner sound.
