Connecting an external DAC to my Devialet 200

[f1eng]

jccox,

Yes, they may have heard a difference but it can't be attributed to the external DAC alone. I am just learning but I do not see any other way than the way you are currently doing. Please post your results.  Good luck.

In my experience a good 24/96 ADC/DAC is completely transparent.
I know this is not believed by a whole tranche of extremist audiophiles, but I have listened myself and I have yet to hear of anybody who has actually done this who does not have the same experience.

On that basis I believe that the characteristic colour of the Lampi will be perfectly reproduced by the Devialet.
I have done this myself with two DACs with tailored responses and their characteristic sound came through fine.

Frank - I have seen you post similar comments to that above and I must admit I don't fully understand what you are saying, or perhaps at least would like to clarify the point a little.  To be clear, I am not disputing what you are saying  Indeed I have not basis on which to do so, the only ADC I am familiar with is the one in my Devialet.  However, I have auditioned many DACS over the last couple of years.  Now I do find DAC's can sound very different, and to my ears the ones I like are manufactured by Chord and Devialet, which to me sound much better than similarly priced offerings from Bryston, Naim and others.  (I note you have a Hugo, so are clearly familiar with the performance of a Chord DAC)  Now from what you are saying, the Devialet DAC get the nod as being well engineered and transparent.  Now I think the Chord DAC sound similar the Devialet, when others do not.  Am I right to conclude that you think that there are many DACs out there that you think are not Transparent, at many price points, whereas the Devialet is?  I'm not quite sure I'm getting this.  Perhaps living up to my Confused title here.  I get the basic point of what you re saying, I think I would simply appreciate a bit of a clarification on the issue.  Thanks!

I think most, but not all, conventionally engineered DACs sound very close indeed, though I have not heard them all

In my own recordings a Metric Halo ADC/DAC makes absolutely no change to the sound of the mike feed to my ears, which leads me to believe that a properly engineered ADC/DAC is transparent.

Added colour comes from old fashioned ladder DACs which are generally not very linear (a linear ladder dac costs more  than a Devialet amp), no output filter leaves all sorts on spurious extra sound in the output and eccentric solid state or valve analogue output stages often have audible levels of euphonic colouration, although a transparent valve output stage is possible.

Any valve analogue stage where the sound changes when a valve is replaced with a different one of the "same" spec can not be transparent, obviously.

That is not to say people don't enjoy euphonic colouration, I enjoy my record player and all of them add loads of euphonic colouration, as well as the changes made to make an LP manufacturable, yet records can often be pretty convincing and certainly enjoyable, nevertheless.