Question 5.1 capable DAC with HDMI input - recommendations?

Number Six

Standard Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2010
Messages
38
Reaction score
0
Points
14
Hello

I have a PC that I am looking to upgrade by moving from an internal sound card to using the HDMI output on my graphics card to stream digital audio to an external setup.

I have a Teufel 5.1 Motiv 5 surround sound speaker set, and my intention at the moment is to stream the 5.1 channels digitally through the HDMI output on the graphics card directly to an external DAC. This would include standard PCM streams but also bit-streamed DTS HD-MA and Dolby TrueHD tracks from blu-ray rips. I would then connect the DAC's analogue outputs to the speakers (the subwoofer has a built in amp).

Therefore, a full on AV receiver would be overkill as I do not require any amps nor do I need the unit for anything other than digital to analogue conversion. I do however need the DAC to have components that would at least allow it to match premium PC internal sound cards in terms of sound quality.

Do you have any recommendations in this regard? I am completely new to digital audio streaming, having always used the analogue outputs on a PC sound card to input to my speaker set. PC sound cards often seem to have coaxial or optical digital outputs, but I have never seen anything (from this decade) that includes a HDMI output (obviously necessary for the lossless 5.1 channels). I'd be looking to spend a maximum of £500 on such a unit if it can be justified, although preferably closer to £200-300 if possible.

Thanks!
 
There are standalone DACs with HDMI inputs , but almost all just stereo.
They are rare and expensive.

Linn DSM = 3K
Bryston BDA 3 = 3.5K
NAD M51 = 1.5K
Essence = 700
Cyp AU D250 = 500

The standalone DAC market is not huge, and HDMI licensing costs a lot of money, which is why a HDMI multichannel DAC means an AV receiver, because those shift in volume and licensing costs are more reasonable.

Standalone DACs are usually aimed at music only.
When it comes to music, the HDMI interface is not the best choice, as audio over HDMI must be packetised and inserted into a video signal.
This involves compromises, especially with anything not a multiple of 48Khz.

The only items I know of that fit your requirement, i.e. HDMI input with multichannel DAC , are the Higher end Oppo blu ray players.
The x03 models like the 103 or 203
A second hand 103 might be within your budget.
A new 203 cost about 600
The X05 models like the 105 or 205
You may get a second hand 105 these days for about 600
A new 205 will cost approx 1500.
 
Many thanks for your helpful response.

The HDMI licensing issue makes sense and explains why it's so difficult to find what I am looking for.

I did consider the Essence Evolve II, that seems to be the only product that offers at least 5.1 analogue outputs and is within my budget. However, there is not much information online at all about the components or how the quality of the analogue output would compare, for example, to a high end PC sound card. Do you have any thoughts on this yourself?

Are there any alternatives to using HDMI to stream 5.1 PCM? I believe the media playback software I use now has the capability to decode TrueHD and DTS-HD MA using software codecs so the use of HDMI along with an external licensed box to decode these formats isn't essential anymore, so I may be able to get away with just using any external DAC without necessarily relying on HDMI or the ability to bit-stream blu-ray HD audio. I am not sure of what other connections would allow the transfer of 5.1 PCM though (which is what I understand HD audio tracks are decoded to). I can see there are USB DACs available, but as USB wasn't designed specifically for AV purposes, would it work just as well?
 
Last edited:
Regarding soundcards in PC,s , the high res content from DTS MA and Dolby tru HD is always downconverted to 16 bit before digital to analog conversion.
There are no exceptions to this.
It is a condition of the PAP ( protected audio path ) within PC's.

This was a big issue back in the days before HDMI became commonplace on graphics cards.
There were two very expensive HDMI soundcards ( Auzentech & Xonar ) on the market that were the only solution until Ati came along with the first Graphics cards that handled HD audio codecs properly.

Because of this , any external decoder that handles HDMI audio properly is better than any soundcard within a PC that has just analog outs.

Those soundcard analog outs are not passing HD audio from the HD codecs without downconversion.
If you want unmolested DTS HD MA or Dolby Tru HD from a PC it must come via HDMI into some kind of external decoder , be that an AV receiver or something else.

From back in the day....when this was an issue...
Do We Have A PAP? Is 7.1-Channel LPCM The Answer? - The HTPC / Windows 7 Chronicles: You Asked, We Answer!

Today , every graphics card has HDMI , so no issue, analog connections on PC's don't do the HD audio codecs, everything is downsample to 16bit 48khz as always...
 
Last edited:
Thanks again for your help.

My concern would be that although the ability to handle native 24/96 would give receivers an automatic advantage, that bonus won't have an impact on most of the audio I listen to as it isn't in DTS/Dolby HD formats (i.e most of the audio won't be bitstreamed blu-ray tracks, but multichannel PCM audio from miscellaneous files, games, music etc) and so the quality of the DAC is still important to me.

I am a complete novice when it comes to understanding the quality of audio components however so it's very difficult to decipher what any given AV receiver can offer in terms of sound quality. When I only ever used internal PC sound cards, it was very simple as I just aimed at the upper end of the price range (always in the region of £200) and that worked well for over a decade. The only technical parameter that I ever kept an eye on and which consistently correlated to quality cards was the signal to noise ratio. However, it seems it is not common to include this specification in advertising for AV receivers. I have looked at the following for example:

SONY STRDN860Black AV Receiver
YAMAHA RXV481Black AV Receiver

They seem to meet my requirements for connectivity and decoding without going overboard (no need for Atmos or DTS:X), but I have no idea how good the analogue outputs will be compared to those on my high-end PC audio card for non-bluray tracks. I see they also have amplifiers built in - I could make use of these but my understanding is the circuitry involved will induce noise in the DAC, which kinda defeats the point as the main aim of using the digital output from my PC was to move the digital to analog conversion out away from all the noise inducing components inside the PC.

The connectivity and decoding ability won't be a problem for any of the units that are within my budget, but I have no way to gauge the impact the amps have on sound quality or the quality of the integrated DACs themselves. There are plenty of reviews out there, but, understandably, none of them comment on quality in comparison to the premium PC sound cards I'm looking to move from.
 
I see they also have amplifiers built in - I could make use of these but my understanding is the circuitry involved will induce noise in the DAC, which kinda defeats the point as the main aim of using the digital output from my PC was to move the digital to analog conversion out away from all the noise inducing components inside the PC.

The noise induced into a DAC that is inside the PC is orders of magnitude worse than the noise induced into a DAC within a receiver.
That's a given.

Moving from a soundcard to a receiver or external decoder is going to be a big jump in quality for you , regardless of which model you get.
There are possible futher jumps in quality to be had, but this will be by far the biggest.
 
EDIT: Looking at the Tefuel site it seems that the amps for your system are built into the subwoofer, with three 3.5mm mini-jack analog inputs (L/R, LR/LR, S/C). Is that correct?

To be honest unless you think the internal DAC is *terrible* I'm not sure there is much to be gained by moving to external processing (with your system).

There will be benefits to handling the digital to analog conversion and processing externally (room correction is an obvious one). But any processor or external soundcard that will offer a noticeable improvement is likely to cost nearly as much as your whole Tefuel setup.

The NanoAVR (HomeTheater Series : nanoAVR HDA) might be a 'fun' addition (and justifiable if you can source one secondhand and fancy playing with advanced room calibration). You'll get Dirac room correction (on the DL model) and probably a better DAC. But your speakers and amps are likely to still be the limiting factor in your system, not the DAC. TBH I'm not sure you'll notice a huge improvement, your basically trying to soup up (an admittedly good value for money) cinema-in-a-box system.

btw. one thing to check before you go any further down this route is whether you can switch the inputs on your Tefuel system to some kind of 'direct' mode. Whereby it simply passes though each analog channel you feed it though to the respective speaker or sub, rather than trying to run any additional processing on your 5.1 analog input signal. Otherwise you might find that your doubling up on bass management (the crossover between sat and sub) or that it's trying to run Dolby ProLogic on an already processed input signal etc.

If your only interested in PCM what's wrong with using the optical out on your soundcard to the optical in on your Tefuel system? Or even just the USB connection. That will at least move the decoding away from the PC soundcard (which likely has a higher noise floor) and onto the Tefeul. Or is the DAC in the Tefeul noticibly worse?

---

Sounds to me that what your looking for is a (cost effective) processor or AVR with pre-outs? Surely a processor is just a DAC with some added bells n whistles.

Maybe a Nakamichi AV1 or it's newer replacement? I have the original model and it sounds fantastic. At least as good, if not better better than any AVR I have ever owned. Although I only use it for switching inputs, decoding surround sound formats and its DAC. I pass off the room correction, bass management and speaker alignment to a MiniDSP unit. So can't comment on how good or bad it is in those areas.
Nakamichi AV1 Pre-Pro Owners' Thread

An external USB soundcard like a Focusright Scarlett would give you 8 channels of analog output. But no room correction, bass management, speaker alignment or decoding of codecs. You'd have to do all that on your PC (and as you point out that isn't ideal) or leave those functions to the Teufel (which probably defeats the point).
Scarlett 18i20 | Focusrite

Something like a MiniDSP NanoAVR might be a good halfway house?
HomeTheater Series : nanoAVR HDA
Dirac Series : nanoAVR HD/HDA to DL upgrade (Upgrade to Dirac Live)
 
Last edited:
At the moment I connect the analog outputs on my PC's sound card directly to the built in amplifier on my Teufel subwoofer.

The speaker set I have (Teufel Motiv V, no longer available) is entirely analog with no digital components, it's just a subwoofer and 5 satellite speakers, with the amplifer that drives the subwoofer and satellites built into the subwoofer housing itself. So I will need some sort of DAC. The inputs on the set's amp are basically just a set of 6 RCA connectors for 5.1 channels. I use 3 splitter cables to connect these to the sound card's 3 3.5mm outputs (FL/FR, RL/RR, and C/Sub). In my (admittedly naive) opinion, the speakers are quite good. The set cost about £500 back in 2011.

The DAC on the card I have is listed as having a SNR of 116dB, so I'm guessing fairly high end. The vast majority of the AV receivers etc I've looked at seem to have a SNR in the region of only 100dB.

The advantage of using a PC sound card is obviously the flexible software based EQ, Bass Management etc and I would lose this with just an AV receiver connected to my graphics card's HDMI output. But it seems I could keep such features with an external setup if I were to use the nanoAVR unit you linked. My understanding is the unit you linked also incorporates a DAC, which would mean I don't need anything else between my PC and the speakers. But looking at the spec sheet for the included DAC (AKM4440), the SNR is stated as being only 105dB typically - whereas high end external and internal sound cards for the PC are available with SNRs of 124dB. I'm guessing the inclusion of HDMI is also purely to allow the transmission of 7.1 PCM (not possible over optical) - and that I'd therefore have to take care of decoding through software on my PC?
 
Ah that all makes sense, didn't realise it was the non-digital model

SNR and specs

Consumer PC component manufactures are notoriously flexibly when it comes to how they measure things like SNR levels, so I wouldn't read too much into their figures :)

I expect the more reputable manufactures know they're likely to get called out on figures that can only be recreated under specific conditions and so are a tad more realistic. The PC soundcard market long had a thing going on where the only spec. that mattered is SNR. Much like wattage output was once the only figure that mattered when selling cheap HiFi.

Likewise don't get too hung up a particular DAC chip. At this point in time they all decode audio to pretty much the same degree (bar the particularly low end ones). What is far more important is how that DAC chip has been implemented in the pre-amp, the surrounding circuitry and components chosen.

I actually ran a similar setup to what your describing, albeit with active speakers, temporarily after my old AVR died and before deciding what to replace it with. I had a high(ish) end Xonar card which was a noticeable improvement over the on-board sound card (so there is an improvement to be had there). But both the Scarlett interface I linked to above and the AV1 audibly trumped it. This was feeding active speakers that had their input gain opened up to +3db so that any noise or interference was instantly noticeable. Bear in mind that the most noticeable sources of noise/interference (of which internal sound cards are particular susceptible) aren't going to be getting picked up under the perfect conditions under which the sound card was tested.

Also, bear in mind that SNR is just that, a ratio. It means that a signal (probably a constant sine wave) can go say, 100 times louder than the noice floor. The difference between a ratio of 0 and 100 and 0 and 110 is negligible (ie. you won't hear the difference). THD+N is possibly a more useful indicator of quality/noise and you'll likely see it used over SNR on the specs for pro/studio equipment. But again it's easily obscured by the conditions under which it was measured if the manufacture is being dishonest.

In short don't get too hung up on things like SNR, especially on consumer or PC equipment, unless the numbers are terrible. It's all just marketing and easily manipulated to 'appear' better under certain 'perfect' circumstances.

HDMI and PCM

You can still run any processing you like on your PC and send it as multiple channel PCM over HDMI to an AVR.

You just tell the AVR or processor not to do any processing on the signal it receives (normally its called 'direct' mode). Most people just prefer the fact that the AVR/Processor is handling the decoding/processing/bass management, particularly if you have multiple input sources. It just makes life simple.

I am sure people on here will argue the finer details like handshake issues etc. But then people on here will still argue about the pros/cons of £1000 speaker cables ;-) But for all practical purposes HDMI is just as good and more flexible than optical. There's nothing you can do over optical than you can't do just as well over HDMI. It just 'seems' sexier to be using fibre optic cables and fancy TOSLink plugs than a HDMI cable you can buy in a pound store! It's all digital, 0 and 1's - it either works or doesn't.

NanoAVR vs AVR vs Processor vs Soundcard

As for the HomeTheater Series : nanoAVR HDA. Yes, correct, you wouldn't need anything else between your PC and speakers. Although you would have to do all the audio decoding on your PC and/or set your BluRay to output PCM. As far as I know it doesn't handle any decoding of audio codecs itself. Whether that is a better route than just using an standard AVR with pre-outs is probably up to you to decide. If you can find a second hand AVR with pre-outs that might be the easier/better option (cheap ones are hard to find new). On the other had if you fancy playing with REW and/or Dirac room correction then the NanoAVR opens up that possibility to you.

Or alternativly a secondhand processor like a Denon dn-a7100, Denon dn-500av or a Nakamichi AV1 would do what you want. Or maybe a secondhand Audiolab 8000AP or Audiolab 8200AP if you want something more 'hi-fi' looking and the latest surround sound decoding / room EQ isn't a requirement.

What is almost certainly a given is that an external sound card or processor by a reputable company will trump an internal PC sound card from the likes of Xonar or Creative.

If you really want to go down the sound card / interface route and are sure you don't need any features of an AVR/Processor then maybe look for a second hand 1st generation Focusright Scarlett 18i20 (the 2nd gen is better on paper, but more expensive). That will easily trump any internal sound card. These units are high end audio interfaces and very common in home/mid-level studios, so there a strong chance that a lot of the music you listen to would have originally passed though one of these. Also they keep a fairly high resale value if you wanted to sell it on down the line.

OPPO

As someone mentioned above another option is using an OPPO BluRay player which has HDMI in and multichannel analogue outputs.
 
Last edited:
Thank you so much for the excellent advice, gives me a lot to think about.

I did suspect the typical "spec inflating" issue that is so prevalent in the PC hardware industry when it comes to the more "testing environment dependent" parameters was at play. I guess I'll have to do a little more reading, I am so used to deciding on PC hardware using graphs and hard numbers. My other concern is that my speakers aren't good enough to notice a difference between a premium sound card and a budget external home cinema DAC. I guess the only way to know with any reasonable level of certainty (other than to try it myself) would be to find reviews that have compared various AV products to PC audio hardware.

Regarding using an external processor, I would prefer to do all EQ/Bass Management etc adjustments in software with the relevant audio device on my PC and simply pass the "adjusted" PCM digitally to an external setup (so DAC only), not least because it would seriously widen my choice of external hardware (the nanoAVR HDA you linked is the first unit I have ever come across that allows EQ and Bass management in the unit itself to be controlled from the PC via a USB link, rather than through the hassle of using remote controls/dials/tiny screens on the receiver etc). But the only way to pass 5.1 PCM digitally seems to be HDMI and the only way to do that involves using the HDMI output on my graphics card, which completely lacks any kind of software audio adjustment. It's a real shame they don't make sound cards with HDMI.

What is almost certainly a given is that an external sound card or processor by a reputable company will trump an internal PC sound card from the likes of Xonar or Creative.

Is that purely on the basis that external DACs are removed from the electrically noisy environment of the inside of a PC?
 
Hi, I'm borrowing this thread as I'm having similar issues finding DAC. I want to get rid of big AV receiver (and furniture accommodating AV equipment) and I'm planning to buy 5.1 active speakers. I'm mainly using Chromecast or TV as a source for audio and video. Thus I'd like to find small DAC or pre-amp with at least 1xHDMI IN, 1xHDMI OUT and 5.1 line outputs (dolby etc. cabable), which could be hidden easily. Are there still any reasonably priced options on the market today? I found also the Evolve II-4k which seems to be fit for purpose, but is it really?
http://www.essenceelectrostatic.com/product/evolve-ii-4k/
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom