I think we should discuss this in its own forum rather than other people's question.

No way, 701 isn't M DAC at all. the actual chip is made by Burr-Bown PCM1608Y (budget grade sort of DAC). This chip is actually a 8 ways 24/192 DAC.

What ever analogue comming in to the H701 will be convert to digital by Burr-Brown PCM 1810U which is not a good thing to have at all. worse than that is the digital filter chip (CS8412) which made by currus logic. this decade old chip is actually out of production several years ago. All those AD convertion can be bypass by changing your HU

So if you can find a cheap alpine HU with digital out then good luck. the only problem with the very old unit is that it will need laser pickup replace soon. and you are not making use out of all you got anyway. How would you compare a 300 PPM (part per million ) jitter to a 15 PPM of the F1 head unit. that alone make a huge different alredy. I am sure enough because I and Henry have try it alredy. F1 HU V.S. the DVD player which will give out the apruximately same amount of jitter as the 7998R and that is the cheapest option without loosing too much performance or spending $$$$ for the F1 HU. Anyway for both of us ~300 PPM jitter is not acceptable for us :x

when i realised what Shiny and Henry were saying i was a little disappointed that someone had lead me astray (i don't even recal who it was)
but Alpine don't issue much info on the topic which makes it harder to figure out.

in the past hour i have found many options

i've found 2 decks that aren't more than $500
1X CHA-624
1X CHA-605
3 different DVD arrangements
1 2nd hand, 2 new
2 2nd hand 7990's for under $1500
there's also the 7998 to consider, but i don't think i'll take that path...

you got to open up your 701 and study how those components are connected to each other to figure out those info. no one is going to point out their products weakness right!!!

At least a mad scientist is mad enough to open up a brand new H701 to study how it work and be able to point out its weakness of those unit.

Oh by the way cha609 is the way to go here if you can find one. it is very close to the F1 HU. the digital stream is just a bit less solid than the f1 HU

by 'decks', you no doubt appreciate the 'CHA' models are 'changers/stackers'. :?

it's very impressive you guys know what's what inside the actual units! i personally don't sweat over it...and merely use my meager 7998 and 501.

pffft, as good as any 'source' can be, installation and tuning is more important in car audio.

(that's my poor excuse for not wanting to change my gear! :wink: )

Ben will bring it over, and i'll open it for him
I honestly don't know of a single item (electronic) that i haven't pulled apart before i've even used it!!!
i always check all the parts, etc in it to make sure they are crap low end ones That said too the D/A convertors of old that have finished production was because they weren't being used in the correct way....
Of course, a low quality DAC to begin with doesn't help, but the components around the DAC are just as important as the DAC itself... However, when you have a signal going in from rca's from a deck, the low quality DAC will really, in reality not make the situation overly much worse... however, i'm 100% in agreeal with Arktran (is that the right spelling mate?) about getting something with digital out, i did the same thing to by-pass the DAC!
Aaron

So theorectically, does that if you took several different cd players that had digital out and put them onto the same dac and they had the same laser pickup - the sound output would be the same?

What are some good dacs out there? All I've heard of is Burr-Brown...

seems a little pointless getting an analogue signal converting it to digital processing it then converting it back to digital again. Thus is where lots of errors are produced (phase and jitter)

rf (am & fm) doesnt matter so much since the specs are very poor to begin with. However with a digital source like dvd or cd i personally would like to convert it to analogue once only.

with all this being said would you ever notice the difference???

one thing that MIGHT be detected COULD be a loss of signal to noise.

but don't lose sight of what a processor like the 701 can offer (not to say Mr_Bob's HU can't do virtually all of it anyway):
*time alignment
*either parametric EQ or 31-band
*adjustable xovers

these are important tuning tools in a competition-system.

i'm not suggesting the 701 is the solution or not here, but any signal degradation itself may be greatly outweighed by the tuning benefits.

Good point.
The real world is the winner compared to the "ideal" world every time......

i'm definately in the digital out -> processor/dac group too. an extra analogue-digital stage is unnecessary and becomes the weak link in a system.

there are plenty of dac manufacturers out there... burrbrown, crystal, zoran, analogue devices, akm semiconductor, phillips...

d

Mr_Bob: thanks guys!
still working on it, infact the Alpine product manager (i belive) is experimenting with some products to see if he can clarify some of my ideas....
also looking at a more exotic digital source... capable of reading HDCD's properly.

and there's a few 7990's around 2nd hand too

7990 is a transport only mite won't do anything with HCDC. you need the H 900 to decode HDCD.

good point
same with any other digital source too!
*crosses HDCD off the list*

On this same topic - pulled my clarion processor apart - it has an AK4393 vf DAC in it, supposedly a very high end one, or good quality anyway a few years ago.... Golf_bht - heard anything with this in it before? When using the stacker with optical i never get any noise at all - but supposedly a very good DAC - interesting!

Mr Bob hope you see this, I can't PM you I don't know why? Anyway you can have it over the weekend if you want.

thanks Henry!
any chance you can email me?
mr_bob@caraudioaustralia.com
so we can meet up somewhere?

Well a nice DAC in The clarion unit. This DAC can be found in some very good studio processor. Meaning that they are using the DAC chip in recording studio equipment. good one. very accurate DAC but while BB isn't as accurate they seem to more musical to your ears. anyone correct me if I am wrong. I think I have seen the same dac in my Protool DIGI 002 recording system. but not sure about the model. will have to look again.

i do agree golf, i've never really listened hard, but the systems i've liked all had burr-brown, it's all in the head though, the rest of the system would have made the difference!!!
I'm thinking of getting rid of my h/u and processor and stacker anyway for something different!