Whats the limiting factor with a pre amp and a new external dac?

logo896

So I plan on building my dedicated 2 channel thats computer based and so far I have picked up a B&K reference 200.2 and a Cambridge audio dac magic along with my xps laptop. So this is my question, does it matter what kind of on board dac the pre amp has if i use my external one or do i have to buy one that can cover at least the 24/192khz otherwise im out of luck. I may use it for some tv viewing as well so that's why Ive looked into the reference 20,30 and 50. My concern is if I use say a reference 20 that it wont be able to handle my incoming signal from my dac magic. I guess the other option would be to get a true stereo pre amp and run it in that way.IVe considered the pt3, pt5 and reference 5s2. My biggest concern with that is it has to have subwoofer settings since I plan to buy some golden ears Triton once i get my bonus next year and keep my lsi's for home theater. Thanks for any help gents.


Stone Fortress.

steveinaz

If all of your sources will be connected to the external DAC, and you're going to run that DAC into an analog input on your pre, It won't matter what DAC's are in the pre---as they will be by-passed.

tonyb

Steve hit it....like he said, connect everything to the dac and as long as you use the analog outs of the dac to the pre, it won't matter what dac is in that pre.

Dawgfish

What the others said regarding the DAC. That's some nice gear btw. You're going to love that B&K amp. Something you might want to consider playing around with sometime is adding a tube buffer between the DAC and the pre if you are not going to use a tube pre outright. Others will have a different opinion on this, but I really like the warmth a good tube buffer will add in a setup like this. YMMV though. I'm pretty biased towards tubes.

BlueFox

Are there many pre-amps (I assume he is talking seperates) that have an internal DAC? All that I have seen only accept analog input. Obviously, AVR pre-amps have digital inputs, but they are usually built into a component, not a seperate.

logo896

Just to make sure I fully understand when you say any along Input it doesn't have to be a pure direct? As in if I put it on "cd" it would still sound correct? Thanks for the quick replay.

[Deleted User]

Dawgfish wrote: »

I'm pretty biased towards tubes.

Pun intended ? Sorry, couldn't resist. :cool:

tonyb

logo896 wrote: »

Just to make sure I fully understand when you say any along Input it doesn't have to be a pure direct? As in if I put it on "cd" it would still sound correct? Thanks for the quick replay.

Sure, you could use the analog connections to the CD input from the dac's analog outs, if thats what your connecting. Here's the problem as I see it with your plan. If your going to use the B&k as a pre, and your going to do HT, you don't have hdmi inputs, and the B&K only does bass management in the digital domain. That may cause some issues down the road. If you were doing just a music only system, you'd be fine. Don't get me wrong, I love B&K, but if your doing both HT/Music in one system, they are somewhat dated and lack connectivety and processing of the newer surround sound codecs.