DAC1 Pre and Airport Express

LCR -- Wed, 09/03/2008 - 14:47

After reading the special Digital Edition of TAS I made the leap from CD's to on-line music.... Had been in a state of limbo for too long having music scattered about between iTunes, CD's, mp3 players...

I have an iMac in my family room along with a 2 channel stereo. I recently decided to connect them and started with an Airport Express. I now use iTunes as my front-end. Toslink connects the airport express to my A/V receiver optical input - and it actually sounds pretty good. I have also ripped many of my CD (using Apple Lossless) and the convenience of this approach should not be under estimated.

Has anyone tried connecting the toslink output from an airport express to a Benchmark Dac1/Dac1 Pre?? Are significant sonic gains possible in this setup, or are improvements in sound constrained by shortcomings in the wireless/airport express/toslink path?

Steven Stone -- Sun, 09/07/2008 - 11:53

The better your DAC the better your lossless files will sound.

The Benchmark will beat a vast majority of AV receivers at decoding digital to analog but to hear it's full potential try running it through your receiver's bypass inputs. If you use a standard analog input the receiver will employ its own internal A/D and D/A on the signal and much of the benefits may be lost.

Obviously the Benchmark isn't the the only stand-alone DAC that will better your receiver's DAC, but that's the one you've asked about.

Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications