Pounce Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 @videostorm As I am preparing to install my CMX and plan the inputs etc I am wondering what sort of of processing is happening on the inputs. What sort of processing paths are happening when I input analog vs digital? What sort of DAC is present and would I be better off using an external DAC for high bitrate sources? Is an analog input always converted? Ultimately looking for advice on getting the best audio quality for music. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 5.1 max is available on the digital ins and outs. Cross conversion between optical and spdif fully. Stereo can be cross converted to digital, but it’s still a stereo signal. Digital audio, like 5.1, can not be output through the stereo outs. The digital signal must be set to PCM 2.1 for this to work. i think that’s about it. I’m not sure if DD+ or the DTS equivalent is available but I’ll leave that up to VS to answer, I don’t think it is. Hope it helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pounce Posted June 8, 2018 Author Share Posted June 8, 2018 Thanks. That help some. I'm trying to get a feel for if having a good quality dac outputting to the matrix is a waste of effort or not. It seems to me if it's going to end up digital again I might be better off with digital input regardless of DAC "quality". Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Why not hook it up and see how it sounds then decide if you need extra bells and whistles? If it sounds good it sounds good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pounce Posted June 8, 2018 Author Share Posted June 8, 2018 2 minutes ago, eggzlot said: Why not hook it up and see how it sounds then decide if you need extra bells and whistles? If it sounds good it sounds good? Of course. I'm in the equipment planning and racking stage. Looking at things like Roon and building some Roon endpoints. Helpful to know the inner workings. Like you note sound is subjective, but we can make some choices if we know the capability. Like if all inputs are run through conversion and stomped on I just wont bother with an external dac. Might still sound good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 10 minutes ago, Pounce said: Thanks. That help some. I'm trying to get a feel for if having a good quality dac outputting to the matrix is a waste of effort or not. It seems to me if it's going to end up digital again I might be better off with digital input regardless of DAC "quality". Thoughts? Two completely different digitals though. The ability of SOME video switches to take full surround encoding off of HDMI and output stereo while maintaining surround sound on HDMI is a big plus in my book (andclients, which is the real point of course). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pounce Posted June 8, 2018 Author Share Posted June 8, 2018 4 minutes ago, Cyknight said: Two completely different digitals though. The ability of SOME video switches to take full surround encoding off of HDMI and output stereo while maintaining surround sound on HDMI is a big plus in my book (andclients, which is the real point of course). Not sure I follow. I want to, but didn't understand the point. I have an super audio matrix from VS. It has both Analog and Digital inputs and outputs. Great feature set. https://www.video-storm.com/proddetail.asp?prod=cmx1616a2 My question is more about the internals since it's hard to gather from the specs what's actually happening along the path. VS indicated in a previous thread when I asked if there was a forum for questions on his products and he suggested this forum is a good one... just in case anyone is wondering why I posted here addressing VS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Yes, I'm well known with the unit, have one myself. Yet I also have a C4 'd' series hdmi switch that allows me to simply get audio from the HDMI for any sources that do not have built-in stereo outputs, thus preserving full surround encoding (and not just PCM) for those sources AND feed them into my audio matrix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pounce Posted June 8, 2018 Author Share Posted June 8, 2018 Gotcha. I just wasn't sure how it related. I have audio extractors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
videostorm Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 The CMX-A2 audio switches use ADI (Analog devices) DACs with 24b inputs. Internally digital audio is processed by a custom DSP at 48b (plenty of overhead for arithmatics without saturation/clipping). From a precision perspective, you wouldn't gain anything from an external DAC. You might gain by getting better ground noise isolation though (optical => external DAC would be fully isolated from all your other audio grounds). If it makes a difference is really system dependent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pounce Posted June 14, 2018 Author Share Posted June 14, 2018 Thanks. That's helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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