I'm going to chime in with something here... to try to offer a bit of clarification about DACs.
READ TO THE END- I'M GOING TO INCLUDE A FEW ALTERNATIVE SUGGESTIONS.The reason your Klipsch speakers are bright and edgy is
because that's the way most Klipsch speakers sound and are designed to sound...
And it's also almost certain that your room is contributing (by being relatively reflective and "live".)
This is
NOT a great situation to try and use a DAC as a tone control for your speakers (at least not in general).
The idea that different
TYPES of DACs have huge differences in sound is largely a myth promoted by companies who make things like R2R DACs.
With a few exceptions - which I'll get to in a minute -
ALL HIGH QUALITY DACs SHOULD SOUND QUITE SIMILAR.
There is no "magical mystical smoothness to R2R DACs" (or, if there is, it's a really
REALLY subtle difference.)
In general, if a DAC sounds wildly different, it's because the designer chose "interesting" rather than "accurate" as their design goal.
As you should already know... audiophiles have a tendency to exaggerate really subtle differences in components when describing them...
So, when you read that "R2R DACs sound smoother and less harsh than D-S DACs", you need to take that claim in the proper context...
While you
MIGHT be able to tell them apart if you listen very carefully...
If both were designed properly, and designed to be accurate, then they will sound
VERY similar...
If you hear major differences then there are other factors involved that are causing them.
1.
Some Sabre DACs have an unusual sonic signature that causes them to exhibit exaggerated brightness and an excessive sense of detail.
This is absolutely
NOT true of all Sabre DACs... and depends both on what Sabre chip is used and how the rest of the DAC is designed.
It is also more common with older designs that use Sabre DAC chips (for some reason).
However, DACs that do exhibit this sonic signature tend to sound "
VERY bright and detailed"...
(So, they sound good with dull speakers, but they would
not be a good choice to go with speakers that
already sound harsh and excessively detailed.)
2.
Some DACs offer multiple filter choices and, for some of those, one of the choices might be a "slow roll off filter" that rolls off the high end.
This is simply a filter choice that does the
exact equivalent of turning the treble down a few dB.
(It may alter the sound in other ways, but the largest effect it has is simply to roll off the high end, which does make things sound "smoother and less harsh".)
3.
Some DACs, and especially "non-oversampling DACs" may include this high-end roll-off unavoidably or by default.
Non-oversampling DACs tend to roll off the high end when playing 16/44k content because of limitations in their reconstruction filters.
Some other boutique DAC vendors may design their DACs to sound this way "so they sound more mellow or less harsh"...
(And, yes, designers who add "tube buffers" sometimes introduce a bit of high frequency roll off to make their DACs "sound mellower" too.)
And there are probably a few DACs that really just sound that way because they aren't designed especially well...
The bottom line here is that there is no reason to expect a well designed R2R DAC to roll of the high end any more than any other type of DAC.
(And, if you find one that does, it is
NOT because it's an R2R DAC.)
Most manufacturers, including Emotiva, don't include digital outputs on our high-end processors simply because we already include high-quality accurate DACs in the product.
In short, we doubt you're going to find a better sounding "external DAC", and we really don't expect people to try to "tune their system" by using a different DAC.
(Tuning your system is what things like room correction and tone controls are for.)
To answer your question...
On our RMC-1 and XMC-2, if you use an
ANALOG input, and
REFERENCE STEREO mode, then you will not be using our internal DACs.
If you use a
DIGITAL input, or any mode
OTHER THAN REFERENCE STEREO with either type of input, then you are using our internal DACs.
Note that, if you insist on using an external DAC as a tone control, to
ALTER the sound before you feed it into the analog input on your processor...
The alteration that your external DAC has introduced isn't going to be magically wiped away by our analog section or even by our internal DACs...
(They're going to accurately pass whatever you send to them... since, as far as they're concerned, the output of your external DAC is "just another analog input source".)
NOW FOR THAT SUGGESTIONThe DACs we used in the RMC-1 and XMC-2 are
NOT in the least bit "bright"...
They really both measure and sound quite "flat" (accurate)...
So, not to sound trite, but...
IF you're thinking about buying and adding an external DAC just to use as a tone control...
THEN PERHAPS YOU SHOULD TRY THE ACTUAL TONE CONTROLS FIRST.
Try setting the Treble Control to a rollover point around 10 kHz... and setting it to -2 dB or -3 dB.
Or try setting a PEQ band around 10 kHz, with a very LOW Q (maybe 0.75)... and set that to -2 dB or -3 dB.
Or, if you use Dirac Live, add a dip above about 8 kHz, of about -2 dB or -3 dB (in addition to the default "house curve" built into Dirac).
Or, if you really want to be radical, add an extra thickness of thin grill cloth in front of the tweeters on your Klipsch speakers.
(Just cut a 6" disc of cloth and stick it on the inside of the grill cloth in front of the tweeters if you're using grill cloths.)
(It sort of makes you miss the days when speakers had "tweeter level" controls... doesn't it?)
I have a basic question about DACs that I can’t seem to find an answer to. I’m thinking about adding an external dac for streaming and cd but I’m not sure if my subs will still be active or I will have to use reference mode only? If I use direct mode will I be hearing the rmc dac or the external dac? I’ve been reading a lot of posts about dacs but none I’ve found exactly answered this. I’ve never had a separate dac and I’m curious to see if an r2r will take the edge off my bright klipsch rf83s.
