noob DAC question

[aequitas]

Hey guys, been away most the summer but am back at school now. Was just wondering what a DAC does and where in the system it fits in (ie what hooks in/out of it)? Thanks in advance

[BrentMcGhee]

DAC stands for digital to analog converter. A DAC is most commonly located within another piece of equipment as a chip (i.e. CD player, DVD player, Cable/Satelite box, Receiver/Pre-Amp etc.etc). When information is read off a disc it is in a digital format, the dac translates the 1's and 0's into a analog waveform so it can be amped and sent out to some speakers.

There are alot of ways that a dac can do this, so different dacs will give you different results. Some of the higer-end dacs will even give you such options like raising the sampling rate and so fourth and so on. That is where outboard dacs come in. Outboard dacs are normally small devices that are normally about the size of your fist sometimes a little larger like the size of a 9" tv. These outboard dacs are in general of alot higer quality and will give you much better results than using the standard dacs within your equipment.

Where do they get plugged in... well for example, when you hook up a cd player to a receiver with the standard red/white rca stereo plugs you are using the dac in the cd player becasue the signal has already converted to analog before it left the cd player (i.e that is why you are using the analog connections.) Now if you hooked up the same cd player to your receiver with a digital connection (optical or coax) you are now using the dac in the receiver because the cd player is sending the 1's and 0's out of the player unchanged. When you use an external dac you would use a digital cable out of the cd player to the external dac so it can convert the digital signal to an analog waveform and then hook the dac up to you receiver or amp with analog rca connections.

That is kind of a very quick description for yha but it should help clear up some of your confusion

[michael_w]

edit: ok nevermind my way of saying it wasn't nearly as good as that ;)

[aequitas]

ah, that makes sense now, thanx.

[BrentMcGhee]

I think we should all buy some bananas........ so tasty and sweet :D