Have you tried connecting one of the SB3's digital outputs to one of your AVR's digital inputs? You may like the sound of the AVR's internal DAC better than the one inside the SB3. For now, it doesn't matter whether you use an optical or coaxial connector. I think you can leave your analog cables in place and be able to switch between the two using the AVR's input control. It likely won't be "night and day", but you may prefer one over the other.
If you elect to get an external DAC, it would be connected to the SB3 via digital cable (again optical or coax) and the DAC output would go into your AVR over analog cables (left/right). A "digital-to-analog" converter will typically only output an analog signal. I've read good things about the DacMagic and good results with other moderately-priced DACs have been reported elsewhere in this forum. A bit higher in price and also well respected are the Benchmark units. You don't need to change any settings in SqueezeCenter if you switch to an outboard DAC. I've read on these forums that the digital volume control on the SB3 will start to degrade playback quality only when it is below the half-way mark. That loss may or may not be audible to you, but I'd recommend you adjust the SB3 volume to roughly match your other sources and then use the AVR volume control as the master. I do the opposite, but only because I do 90% or more of my listening from the SB3 (and my pre-amp does not have remote volume control). Good listening! -- Apesbrain ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Apesbrain's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=738 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57314 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
