Jon T. Gale
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Joined: Jan 31 2012 - 7:18pm
How 'bout this for cheap?
jazzfan
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Jon,

May I suggest that you download the hi-rez sample tracks available from HDTracks and then compare the sound of your el cheapo setup with that of the Sony XA9000 playing an SACD. You might try using a more up to date DAC instead of the Rotel. I believe that with a modern DAC, i.e. less than say 5 years old, and high resolution files the WD-TV will sound very, very close to the Sony or any other SACD player.

Jon T. Gale
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Oh, absolutely this is what I am expecting! Plan on adding a 24/192 DAC ASAP. But this is a great cheap way to get started and begin archiving my existing collection.

Jon

jazzfan
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Jon T. Gale wrote:

Oh, absolutely this is what I am expecting! Plan on adding a 24/192 DAC ASAP. But this is a great cheap way to get started and begin archiving my existing collection.

Jon

Jon,

Before I made my prior post I checked whether or not the WD-TV Live could actually handle high resolution audio files. I own the slightly older WD-TV live Plus, which is basically the same the newer WD-TV Live except that the Live Plus does not have Wi-Fi, and I found that while it would play or pass through 24bit/96kHz flac files it would not play 24bit/88.2kHz flac files. I don't have any 24/192 files so I could not whether the WD-TV Live Plus can play these files.

So please check whether or not the WD-TV Live will play high resolution audio files before spending good money on a 24/192 DAC. A 24/96 DAC may be all that you will need.

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