# DAC , JDS LABS , Whats the Benefits?



## fschris (Oct 31, 2009)

Okay, A friend lent me a ODAC from JDS LABS. I read around about using these external Dacs in the Audiophile forums etc. I have not used on my Mains yet. I have hooked this up to my PC running Foobar and I have some M Audio BX5A Powered monitors. Using the PC this is very easy to setup.

Its sounds nice. Way better than my Mother Boards built in sound processor obviously. I still need to try this with my Zaph speakers on my main set up in the living room. 

I am still trying to figure out how to integrate one of these with my AVR set up and is it even worth it? It is easy with the PC. Just plug in the USB and the DAC has RCA outs.

Do these 150-300 Dacs perform any better than say a Marantz Rcvr, Onkyo 818 ... etc for music? I guess it comes down to how sensitive ones speakers are etc? I am not an audiophile rocket scientist by any means... 

It just seems likes these dacs are all the rage.... 

here is the link to this JDS labs DAC

http://www.jdslabs.com/item.php?fetchitem=46


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## chrapladm (Jun 17, 2009)

Sounding better than your motherboard would be easy but better than a middle of the range AVR I am not thinking it will. Are you referring to the TX-NR818?

If so I am going to say that I would think 192khz/24bit capabilities are going to be better in the AVR. That being said most people can not hear the difference anyways. 24bit/44khz in my opinion is the best your going to hear. Everything higher than that is great but your ears wont know the difference.

And lastly comes down to music being played. Most tracks are not above 44khz unless they are raw uncompressed tracks. or otherwise stated.

SO having a good quality DAC is most helpful. It will make your computer's music tracks sound better and your high quality tracks sound marvelous.

Hope this helps.


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