Use of DAC with B2

[Stephen Henton]

I have been following the forum about the use of DACs with B2s. Does the introduction of an external DAC into the system byepass the internal DAC in the B2.  If not how does an external DAC improve the sound when it is still being fed by the B2's internal DAC signal.  I have a B2 with a £300 amp and £800 speakers which although sounds good, it could be improved. Would an external DAC help?

Stephen H

[ChasGB]

I have just connected a Cambridge Audio Magic 100 DAC to my B2. I cannot answer your question about how an external DAC improves the sound when it is still being fed by the B2’s DAC....... BUT I can tell you that the sound from my amp/speakers (admittedly cheaper than yours) is very much better using the external DAC. Also (apparently) the sound is supposed to get even better as the DAC “beds in”, whatever that means. 

[Rearwing]

The optical output from the B2 gives a digital signal to an external DAC.

[Jasper Warwick]

The digital signal will be the same whatever device generates it, basically it is a stream of numbers with error checking. It is how you convert that stream of numbers back into an analogue signal that will impact the quality of the sound that you hear. The B2 has a DAC built into the machine but because the price point it is being sold at they can only afford to spend so much on the DAC. 

Say before you bought the B2 you had a HiFi with a £800 CD player, the quality of that CD player's DAC will be considerably higher that the one in the B2 and you might find that the quality of sound produced by the B2 will not be as good as you are used to. In this case it would make sense to invest in a higher quality of DAC for the B2 which would bring the quality of the sound up to the standard you expect. .

In your case I am not enough of an expert to say if upgrading the DAC would bring benefits in terms of sound quality. What I did was to listen to my favourite CDs on both the CD player and the B2 which confirmed my feeling that the quality of sound was not as good as I was used to. I then upgraded the DAC and I am now complete happy with the setup.

Hope this helps.

Jasper.

[Edwyn Corteen]

Hi Stephen

As Rearwing says the TosLink output on the B2 by passes the internal DAC, so adding an external DAC massively improves the sound, the often recommended Cambridge Audio Magic 100 DAC works very well with the B2.

[L Ahlberg]

I follow this discussion because also I've found that when I compare the sound

from my CD-player and my B2 it is better from the CD-player.

Looking around in my flat this morning I found an old DAC, a small Nuforce that

I knew schould be here somewhere, which only has an USB input

Can I use the USB-C from B2 into the Nuforce USB in and that way get a better

sound? I think I better first ask cause you newer really know what can go wrong

when playing around with electronics.

Lennart  

[Daniel Taylor]

Sorry to say, no, the B2 does not put out audio on the USB ports.  With more and more DACs having a USB input, that feature would be nice to have.

[Hugh Noble]

I purchased a SMSL SD79311DAC from Amazon for a modest £50 ish and am very happy with the result. It feeds into a Marantz PM6005 for KEF passive LS50 speakers. It does not seem out of place.

Hugh Noble

[Rearwing]

Apologies for my brevity earlier. I feed the optical out from the B2 into a Violectric V800 DAC, which then goes into a Marantz amp and Q Acoustic floorstanders. This is my study based system and it performs very well, I have a higher end system for critical listening, but for casual fun the B2 is very useful.

[Dean Faria]

Jasper - what DAC are you using?

[Jasper Warwick]

The one I bought is the Cambridge Audio DACmagic 100

 

https://www.richersounds.com/cambridge-dac-magic-100-blk.html

 

https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/gbr/en/products/hifi-and-home-cinema/dacmagic-100

Very happy with it.