Why I havn't bought a NOS DAC leading to an XXhighend AV idea

[Robert]

I thought I would blog this.

I do appreciate that the NOS dac is all everyone says. Its excellent!!

I have not bought one yet for the following reasons:

1. Don't have a dedicated listening room just for audio.

2. I believe one should live with his system and use it everyday so this means its in the main living area. Sometimes to the annoyance of others who don't always like your choice(music) but as we may not like theirs we have to live with it.

3.  I use to play drums many years ago with live instruments so have always strived to repeat this in my lounge. Further to this my most favourite way to enjoy music is watching and listening to live performances(PCM stereo) via an Optoma projector and Cambridge 751 BR player.

4. In order to accommodate my AV with XXhighend computer I bought the Benchmark DAC2 for switching and volume control.
I do recognise that the Benchmark is not perfect and is limited by only allowing 24bit input plus only outputting 192 and probably other issues.

Solution:

If somehow I could run the AV through XXhighend, then the NOS would be an excellent idea. I have ripped my best BR/DVD concerts already to a hard drive.

I realise this is adding more connections and reducing the sound quality somewhat but I feel the overall AV experience is worth it. I could disconnect all AV wiring to enhance dedicated Audio listening.

Currently XXhighend sound easily beats my best sound from my Cambridge 751 player(24/192). I'm not upgrading my Cambridge to the latest Oppo or whatever as I think its the end of the road for software on disks. I have tried JRiver for AV but its Audio is not as good as XXhighend.

Just more work for you Peter but I think its worth mentioning as an alternative.

Robert