With the optical conection, your receiver was doiing the decoding. With the analog connection, the AirEx (or is it the computer?) is doing the decoding. You may be able to hear a difference but being able to attribute it to one something in particular, such as the DACs being used, would be a stretch. And, given a variety of listening material, you might not even be able to choose which connection you really preferred. I wouldn't worry about it at all. You really have no choice for Zone2, anyway, right? So.......................
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Airport Express. RCA vs. Optical.
Last night I set up Zone2 with my Onkyo 805 so I can have some music outside on my deck. I've always had my Aiport Express hooked up to the receiver via Optical but Zone2 only works with an analog source. I swapped it out with mini jack to RCA so it works inside and outside. For just 2 channel stereo, is there any difference between the two? I know I won't be able to listen to multichannel music using just RCAs, but I never did anyways. Is there a sound quality difference between optical and RCAs for two channel MP3s?
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John Atkinson did a full set of measurements of the AE for Stereophile. Using the analog out, the measurements were very good, with one exception: jitter. But the jitter levels were still an order of magnitude below what listening tests have found to be audible.
So while it's never a bad idea to move the D/A conversion further downstream, it's highly unlikely that you could hear a difference between analog and digital in a fair comparison.
So while it's never a bad idea to move the D/A conversion further downstream, it's highly unlikely that you could hear a difference between analog and digital in a fair comparison.
Great thanks for the input!
with analog, the ax does the decoding...
if anyone cares... which they probably don't...
itunes converts the music you select to alac...
the alac is transmitted via airtunes...
the ax converts the alac to pcm..
then...
if optical, ax passes the pcm to the avr...
if analog, ax does the d/a conversion, and sends analog to the avr...
as noted by both you and mcnarus, i find it unlikely that anyone could reliably tell the difference...
Quote:
Originally Posted by sivadselim /forum/post/16875172
With the optical conection, your receiver was doiing the decoding. With the analog connection, the AirEx (or is it the computer?) is doing the decoding.
with analog, the ax does the decoding...
if anyone cares... which they probably don't...
itunes converts the music you select to alac...
the alac is transmitted via airtunes...
the ax converts the alac to pcm..
then...
if optical, ax passes the pcm to the avr...
if analog, ax does the d/a conversion, and sends analog to the avr...
as noted by both you and mcnarus, i find it unlikely that anyone could reliably tell the difference...
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