DAC question

[fyrn]

I have seen the Emo DACS have a synchronous / asynchronous feature. Which my understanding of it, is whether the DAC controls the master clock or not.
My question, is that for every input?
I'm trying to understand when the DAC is the master and the connected component the slave and vice versa.
Thanks for any input

[KeithL]

Our bad for making the menu labels a bit confusing.

ALL of our current DACs have asynchronous USB inputs - including the XDA-2, the DC-1, the USB Stream input on the XMC-1, and the Egos.
And you are correct; an asynchronous USB input means that the DAC provides the data clock, which eliminates any jitter on that input.
However, that ONLY applies to the USB input - and, since there is no down-side to it, you can't turn it off.
(A non-asynch USB connection is pretty bad for digital audio, and there's no real benefit other than it's being cheaper to make.)

The XDA-2 and the DC-1 ALSO have something called an asynchronous sample rate converter (ASRC) which can be used to remove,
or at least drastically reduce, any jitter that might be present on ANY of the inputs (it is redundant with the asynch USB input, though).
Since it does sometimes alter the sound a tiny bit, we give you the option of disabling it if you want to..
On the XDA-2, this control is labelled "SRC Bypass"; but, on the DC-1's menu, it's called "asynchronous / synchronous mode" (so "asynchronous mode" really means "ASRC enabled").
The XMC-1 also has an ASRC between its DSP stages - which both eliminates jitter on its digital audio inputs and serves some other purposes.

Feb 24, 2016 13:58:15 GMT -5 fyrn said:

I have seen the Emo DACS have a synchronous / asynchronous feature. Which my understanding of it, is whether the DAC controls the master clock or not.
My question, is that for every input?
I'm trying to understand when the DAC is the master and the connected component the slave and vice versa.
Thanks for any input