PCM player advice

[martinswimmer]

Apologies for a stupid question - I'm mainly an analogue listener.
I've recorded some of my LPs onto a 24bit 92khz audio recorder in the PCM WAV format and was wondering if the playback would be improved if played on something else rather than the Mac laptop.
I don't have a digital out on my audio recorder.

[Macca]

I'd output from the laptop via USB to an external DAC that should give you 100%.

[martinswimmer]

I'd output from the laptop via USB to an external DAC that should give you 100%.

Thanks. How much would a DAC better than the Macbook built-in one cost? Which one would you recommend for a noticeable improvement?

[Lawrence001]

Get one of the Topping or SMSL DACs for about £100 they are decent for the money.

[Macca]

Thanks. How much would a DAC better than the Macbook built-in one cost? Which one would you recommend for a noticeable improvement?


It's not so much that it will be a better DAC just that having it off board eliminates the possibility of added noise.

Like Lawrence says a DAC from Topping or SMSL will be notionally perfect and not expensive.

[Jimbo]

Thanks. How much would a DAC better than the Macbook built-in one cost? Which one would you recommend for a noticeable improvement?

A separate DAC used with a MacBook is noticeably better but you don't have to spend too much cash. I have had a number of MacBooks and use Audirvana and my off board DACs have always sounded better.

[Poldark]

S.M.S.L SU-1 has had many positive reviews and is a very sensible cost

https://amzn.eu/d/hKzoImZ

Sent from my moto g32 using Tapatalk

[Lawrence001]

It's not so much that it will be a better DAC just that having it off board eliminates the possibility of added noise.

Like Lawrence says a DAC from Topping or SMSL will be notionally perfect and not expensive."Notionally perfect". What a can of worms you have summed up so elegantly [emoji23]

[Macca]

"Notionally perfect". What a can of worms you have summed up so elegantly [emoji23]

is it possible to sum up a can of worms? :D

[Lawrence001]

Must be if you did it

[Mikeandvan]

What does PCM mean? Used to have a Marantz PCM player, sold it for £70 on ebay, even though it was fuct.

[Lawrence001]

Pulse Code Modulation. All CDs are encoded in PCM. DSD/SACD is different, it's been described as "PDM" although there is some argument around that.

[Mikeandvan]

Pulse Code Modulation. All CDs are encoded in PCM. DSD/SACD is different, it's been described as "PDM" although there is some argument around that.

What does Pulse Code Modulation mean? :lol:

[Lawrence001]

It's basically the way the analogue waveform is reconstructed from the bits (pulses) in the datastream. Think the classic picture of a bar chart approximating a sine wave - the more bits the bigger the bar.

[Macca]

The analogue signal has just three properties - frequency, amplitude and phase - the sampling frequency determines the highest frequency that can be encoded, bit depth determines the maximum amplitude that can be encoded.

[Mikeandvan]

Thank you fellas.