Thread: Finding an amp with a digital input vs. Buying a sound processor vs. Good ol' Analog

You won't notice any difference in a car environment. Most people don't even notice a difference in a home theater setup. Just buy a good USB DAC with RCA outputs, buy a good RCA cable (I prefer twisted pair for no real reason), and keep it away from power cables, and you'll be fine.

if you going to build such complicated multichannel system you'd like to setup it correctly, right? Then you'll need to ajust the phase and Freq range for each channel independently.
Grab external car audio processor like Bit.One or PXA-H701.

your post is a little vague on what you intend to get out of the system, so i don't know if you are using $25 walmart speakers, and $10 amps, or went with some hybrid audio legatia pro drivers(the 6" driver pair retail for $650)....

Originally Posted by kegobeer

You won't notice any difference in a car environment. Most people don't even notice a difference in a home theater setup. Just buy a good USB DAC with RCA outputs, buy a good RCA cable (I prefer twisted pair for no real reason), and keep it away from power cables, and you'll be fine.

it depends on the circumstances, but in some cases, it could be possible to hear the difference.

i think i need to hear more on your setup before commenting further on why you feel that you need to go optical.

I personally wanted to do optical out as it is immune to RFI and while the speaker wires out from the amp are not, it's one less thing to reduce noise. I suspect he is thinking along the same lines.

Also: Alpine makes an amp with optical input, though the word I'v e heard on it is that it was designed for a specific series of Alpine head units... unsure if the optical input on it is set up for proprietary signal or not.

So why not mount the analog amp where the optical is?

Or are new speakers optically connected too?

Ok, so I am running into the same question. Do I want to use the separate analog 6 channels out for a 5.1 setup and go to the analog in of a 6 channel amp or use a dsp? If using a dsp, I only use 2 channels out of the soundcard and let the dsp do all the 6 channel separation correct? I would think the PC would allow more customization if the 6 channels came directly from it to the 6 channel amp...is this correct? I am not so concerned about the analog/digital quality difference as I have used analog all these years and been very happy with it. Now if I was using the car to watch a movie while not moving, in a very quiet environment, that would be different. But, loud music with the windows down being 95% of my use, I don't think it will matter.

Thanks for any info.

guys. the car environment is bad enough as it is.
and your advice is: fcuk lets make it worse by not using good quality components.
you got it backwards.

turn the damn car off and then you will hear the difference. if it sounds better with the car off then it will certainly sound better with the car on.


btw i ve bee searching for the solution(reasonably priced) for some time now.

and theres really nothing available to do that unfortunately. not yet.

unles you really good and can replace the power supply with a 12volt and use a home audio amp with digital input.

short of exhaust-note noise and a small amount of motor vibration, my sound system doesn't sound any different with the car on or off..

so i have no desire to go optical if it doesn't pose any major audible advantage-- esp. considering the extra cost optical components have..


i disagree with the "f-it, lets make it worse" attitude. i have made my sound system much better by changing the speakers, the wiring, and the amps.

while i understand the desire to go optical to get the best quality signal, i still don't see a major advantage in the way that most installs are connected.

the only installs that i really believe would truly take advantage of the optical-cable clarity would be installs that run optical cables to each speaker location, and then keep the amp within a couple feet of the speaker..

in most installs, all of the equipment is mounted in the back of the vehicle-- which means that the optical signal would provide a very clean signal to the amps, but would leave copper-noise-inducting cable to connect to the speakers that are usually at least 10-20' long.... so now all the work that you went into to get the clean signal at the amps has been lost with the speaker cabling running like a antenna along the length of the car....


i guess for me, it is similar to having a chance to buying a Ferarri, or a much cheaper kit-car that looks exactly the same-- sure the motor, and the italian design are nice, but for me, if the styling of the kit-car was the same as the real thing, i would choose the cheaper model...

speaker wires do not introduce nearly as much noise as RCA cables do,
like i said earlier.
the signal is converted from digital to analog and back to digital if you have a digital amp or any kind of processing built in the amp.
with optical amp the signal is only converted at the amp which means the signal reaches the amplifier 100% noise free.
and i think that is a big+ in addition to having a good quality speaker and good quality recording.

the quality of components and conections matters at home, i dont understand why people would argue about the importance of better signal in the car.

some people cant hear the difference at home and they argue about a set of 5 dollar RCA cable vs 50 dollar set... etc.
if you dont have a good reference audio system you wont hear a difference in anything.