Basic DAC question - integration with surround sound receiver

[ktm_2000]

Hi Folks,

I have pushed off purchasing a dac far too long and was thinking of getting the new schiit bifrost 3 that is pre-release. My reluctance in the past has been how to use it properly....

I have 2 setups and 1 is straight forward and the other is what confuses me

setup 1

yaquin 13b tube preamp (2 inputs)
Lexicon 412 amp
Kef reference 401.2

I primarily use that for listening 2 channel to viynl, I have a raspberry pi with a hat and volumio which is connected to my nas with a extensive library of hi-res. to me a Dac instead of the dac hat could up the game here quite a bit.

setup 2
main TV in livingroom - most used setup
Pioneer Elite surround sound receiver
B&W speakers all around
Running plex on my NAS and the TV has an app for Plex, gives family nice easy interface with remote to find music and play

How do I use a DAC to up the game here? I would think a dac is 2 channel where a lot of what I run through this setup is surround sound. I am using HDMI from the TV to the receiver and going through the on-board dac.

What would be the recommendation here? is this just avoid the plex / TV and put another raspberry pi infront of a DAC and just use volumio, 2 different places? or maybe get a streamer type box infront of a DAC?

your thoughts and recommendations of paths to take?

 

[justin_r_23]

There are stand-alone Surround-sound-processing DACs that take HDMI out there but they can be expensive enough that you might as well stick with your AVR or buy a new one.

Though, sometimes they go on sale: Evolve II-4K HDMI Multi-Channel DAC - 4K Hi-Res Audio

The one I linked will likely be a good upgrade because it brings the possibility of higher resolution video and newer Dolby and DTS formats.

You could, of course, upgrade your AV receiver, since there are formats from both Dolby and DTS that didn't exist when your AVR was made.

Your Pioneer is likely old enough that it not only took HDMI but also multichannel RCA inputs, right? That's what you'd end up using to go from the DAC I linked to the Pioneer.

 

[charles 1973]

Check the back of your AVR for a Digital coax or optical output. Many AVR's do not have one, but if you do, that's is an easy way to connect an AVR to an external DAC. Whether it improves the sound is a crapshoot.

The DAC in my recent Yamaha Rx v485 avr is actually superior to the amplifiers its feeding. Spotify Premium on highest setting has the clean, punchy., transparent sound one might expect from a separate DAC of reasonable quality.

If you using it for video, like gaming, an external DAC may add nasty Processing latency as well.

 

[ktm_2000]

so both of you are thinking output of tv audio through dac to receiver and that seems it is a path which seems a lot different than most folks who have setups here. it is also that path that was the most confusing to me.

Is another option to get a get a different UI to manage music via some type of streamer type box then to DAC then to receiver?

what would one recommend if I went that path?

 

[linuxfan]

setup 1
I have a raspberry pi with a hat and volumio which is connected to my nas with a extensive library of hi-res. to me a Dac instead of the dac hat could up the game here quite a bit.

Yes a Schiit Bifrost 3 might sound better than a run-of-the-mill hat-DAC, but if your hat-DAC is from the likes of IanCanada or Allo, then maybe not so.

setup 2
Pioneer Elite surround sound receiver
...
How do I use a DAC to up the game here?

With a "normal" AVR such as your Pioneer Elite it's complicated to the point of being impractical to add an external DAC. As @charles 1973 mentioned you could take your Pioneer AVR's HDMI output to an HDMI audio extractor, then to the Schiit DAC, but I think it's impossible to feed this line-level audio signal back into the Pioneer to be amplified for the FRONT-L and FRONT-R speakers.
Of course you could add a separate stereo amplifier for these 2 channels ... but what a mess! And you run the risk of the FRONT-L and FRONT-R having a slight delay compared to the other channels.

If you really want to go down the audiophile home theatre path, you need an AV processor paired with external power amps - think Trinnov, and think big $.

 

[Gigantic]

I have a hybrid system that has been serving me well: for 2 channel listening, I'm running a Schiit Bifrost into a Schiit Freya+ via balanced interconnects, driving my 3-way horns via a DSP processor and 6 mono amps. The Bifrost gets my Plex server via USB, my Oppo BDP 103 via Coax and my Apple TV via optical S/PDIF, from an HDMI to Optical converter, which also passes through to my Pioneer AVR. I can run the 2-channel setup independently, or concurrently with my AVR; the drawback here is that I have to control two volume knobs and manually balance the output of the two systems, as the splitter disables any HDMI ARC functions from the Apple TV. Also, time alignment of my mains is off ever so slightly, as my Pioneer's speaker management system doesn't account for them.

I also have the option of running my mains from my AVR with passive crossovers. I'm working on a pair of switchers to go from 3-way DSP control, to standard two channel input, with passive networks inside. However, the current configuration requires me to manually switch cables; I typically default to the hybrid setup that I first described.

 

[ktm_2000]

btw - 2 different rooms 2 different setups, 2 channel is in bedroom, AVR in livingroom, kinda backwards my better audiophile system is in a small room, we downsized our house and are living in a smaller place............

I do have the allo dac hat on my PII, does sound good. it seems like I might be OK there. It has also confirmed my research that there isn't much I can do easily if I continue to use my TV as the UI to choose music. Part of that reason, when we rebuilt the current place, we setup a closet in an ajacent room to hold all AV gear, have nas, receiver, internet, switches, home automation server, etc in there so living room is clean, no wires running anywhere and one remote from TV does it all.

To make that living room setup any better It seems like I need to switch away from the TV as the UI and use something else, maybe present desktop of automation server and run a DAC off of that, but that would use keyboard mouse, kinda crappy interface.

 

[linuxfan]

To make that living room setup any better It seems like I need to switch away from the TV as the UI and use something else

Yes - a smartphone or tablet.

maybe present desktop of automation server and run a DAC off of that

Into what amplifier? Your Pioneer Elite? No need - the Pioneer can/will act as a DLNA renderer - so all you need is a DLNA server running somewhere on your network - and since you already own a NAS, that's the easiest solution. Your NAS will almost certainly come bundled with some form of DLNA server - check the documentation for your NAS to enable it.
Tip - if you have a Synology NAS the correct DLNA server app is "Media Server", not "Audio Station".

 

[linuxfan]

Ah, I see in an earlier thread you have already tried DLNA from NAS to AVR -
https://audiokarma.org/forums/threa...amer-for-volumio.1000473/page-2#post-15737405

It's difficult to know if you're looking for better functionality, better sound quality, or both. If SQ is your aim with your living-room setup, yes, I can see why you wish to try something OTHER than the Pioneer Elite as endpoint - to avoid the Pioneer's DAC.
OK, so start with a new Schiit Bifrost 3, sure. Now what transport device to connect it to?
Yes, if you already have an automation server on your network, you could install an audio renderer there (or both server and renderer).
But since you are already familiar with Volumio, maybe consider setting up a second rPi-based Volumio box in your living-room! During installation of Volumio make sure to assign it a different hostname, to avoid a conflict with your first Volumio box.