Nothing matters before the dac?

[Ashmore]

Is the accepted wisdom that in digital reproduction, nothing before the dac matters (obviously notwithstanding file quality) as it's all just ones and zeroes until that point?

And if this is true, is it fair to conclude that any old half knackered pc, running whatever OS you like, connected via a bog standard ethernet will perform as well as anything that could be designed specifically for the audiophile purpose?

[Reid Malenfant]

No, I'm not sure about PCs, you ought to have a good read of John (welder) server thread, but with transports there can me huge differences that frankly you wouldn't expect.

John cut down a PC motherboard until it got down to the basic functions & discovered it sounded better with each bit of non needed circuitry removed...

All things are in no way equal

[SPS]

.

John cut down a PC motherboard until it got down to the basic functions & discovered it sounded better with each bit of non needed circuitry removed...

All things are in no way equal

funny that ... i have found the same thing with valve amps too.

but then the component quality and implementation get more critical.

[Yomanze]

Transports make a big difference especially with non-reclocking DACs. Flimsy transports that rely on loads of error connection & an unbuffered, badly impedance-matched SPDIF out are going to sound glassy and more digital than properly designed transports. I have 3x decent transports that I use and can tell them apart blind with the DVD player being the most natural and tightest bass.

[Tim]

is it fair to conclude that any old half knackered pc, running whatever OS you like, connected via a bog standard ethernet will perform as well as anything that could be designed specifically for the audiophile purpose?

Most definitely not, I'm afraid your conclusion is very wrong.

[Batty]

My laptop is the worst of all my sources.

Laptop via USB to DAC.
NAS box via WiFi to Squeezebox Touch to DAC via coax.
Pioneer DVD player via optical to DAC.
And the winner - Townshend Rock not to DAC

[sq225917]

It depends on the dac.

[magiccarpetride]

Is the accepted wisdom that in digital reproduction, nothing before the dac matters (obviously notwithstanding file quality) as it's all just ones and zeroes until that point?

And if this is true, is it fair to conclude that any old half knackered pc, running whatever OS you like, connected via a bog standard ethernet will perform as well as anything that could be designed specifically for the audiophile purpose?

While it certainly would depend on a DAC, the issue resides also with the unwanted noise that a poor transport box tends to introduce into the audio chain. This noise then gets amplified and finds its way into the chain of the signal reproduction. This is why, with each upgrade to one's digital transport, the music keeps sounding better and better. Mostly the upgrades serve to lower the noise floor of the digital transport.

And having a brilliant DAC cannot help you with that even one bit.

[John]

I guess in some ways it goes back to the old mantra source first and this case its the transport
In my own experience yes it does matter

[bobbasrah]

Is the accepted wisdom that in digital reproduction, nothing before the dac matters (obviously notwithstanding file quality) as it's all just ones and zeroes until that point?

And if this is true, is it fair to conclude that any old half knackered pc, running whatever OS you like, connected via a bog standard ethernet will perform as well as anything that could be designed specifically for the audiophile purpose?

If only it were that simple.... what is on your drive is data, what goes into the DAC is that data interpreted/transformed to a stream the DAC can understand then convert.
An analogy might be a word/excel file on the drive, which is unintelligible data until Word/Excel interprets/transforms it for display/print etc....