I need some help deciding whether an outboard DAC would improve the sound of my music. First let me trace my digital path. I rip all my CDs to my iMac using Apple Lossless. From there, the files travel through a CAT 6 cable to an Airport Extreme located in a closet in the center of my house. The Airport Extreme assigns an address and sends the data on to a router, also located in the closet. From there it can travel to any number of locations in my house. In this case, it travels via CAT 6 to an Apple TV box connected to my Arcam AVR350 with an optical cable. First question: Does this mean that my Arcam does all the digital to analog conversion inside the receiver? Question 2: It sounds great to me. Would a outboard DAC make it sound better? Question 3: Does all this digital routing around my house degrade the digital signal in any way? Thanks.
I need some help deciding whether an outboard DAC would improve the sound of my music. First let me trace my digital path. I rip all my CDs to my iMac using Apple Lossless. From there, the files travel through a CAT 6 cable to an Airport Extreme located in a closet in the center of my house. The Airport Extreme assigns an address and sends the data on to a router, also located in the closet. From there it can travel to any number of locations in my house. In this case, it travels via CAT 6 to an Apple TV box connected to my Arcam AVR350 with an optical cable. First question: Does this mean that my Arcam does all the digital to analog conversion inside the receiver? Question 2: It sounds great to me. Would a outboard DAC make it sound better? Question 3: Does all this digital routing around my house degrade the digital signal in any way? Thanks.