DAC question

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GravelBen

Original Poster:

15,698 posts

231 months

Friday 9th December 2016
quotequote all
Silly question about how DAC works...

If I'm running audio from laptop to receiver via headphone port to RCA input, obviously thats using the laptop sound card for DAC and sending an analog signal through.

If I run HDMI from laptop to TV, then optical from TV to receiver does it stay as a digital signal until the receiver and use the DACs in the receiver instead?

My impression is that it sounds noticeably better when connected via HDMI + optical, but it could be placebo effect as I haven't done a back to back test with critical listening - just sat there and enjoyed it.

Its a ~10 year old receiver with no HDMI inputs (Onkyo TX-SR503), but the manual says it has individual DAC for each channel.

GravelBen

Original Poster:

15,698 posts

231 months

Friday 9th December 2016
quotequote all
thumbup

Cheers, I thought that was how it would be working.