I’ve been intrigued lately by the prospect of experimenting with different DACs to see if I could improve my CD playback. I’ve asked before about advice on a new CD player. Up til now I was using my HD-A2 to play CD’s, using an optical cable to the 1070, hence leaving the job of DA conversion to the 1070. In the pursuit of what I’ll call “a different” sound, I started looking at various used NAD and Rotel players on Ebay and Audiogon. I haven’t purchased anything yet but I consulted with my father in law and he gave me an interesting piece of equipment – it’s a Pioneer DVL-700 LaserDisc/DVD hybrid player.

He said that at the time it was produced, it was noted to have a very good DAC and it would be worth my time to try it out. And so I did.

I have to admit it was really fun to play around switching between the following scenarios and I have some questions that have cropped up as a result of my weekend experiment.

My three primary scenarios were:
1.) HD-A2 via optical to 1070, 1070 in “Stereo” mode with Digital Bass Management set to “Digital” – (my original setup)
2.) DVL-700 via analog to 1070, 1070 in Bypass mode – bass management same.
3.) DVL-700 via analog to 1070, 1070 in Stereo mode

My understanding of this is Scenario 2 is the most “pure” mode. I spent some time listening and relistening to an excellent rendition of Sinatra’s “when I was 17” – and to my pleasure was able to actually, for the first time, really notice the added warmth to the vocals in bypass mode, as well as the airyness to the background instruments. I found myself thinking – does a 9 year old source really have better DACs than my 1070? I think the answer was yes. Well, not necessarily "yes", but different, and different as my ears perceived, in that the player offered a more natural sound than what I'd been hearing. I was pleasantly surprised.

However I found that I preferred the added bass of running the 1070 in Stereo mode so as to include the subs.

Q: When running in Stereo mode (scen 3), is the ONLY processing for the bass? What is the essential difference between bypass mode and stereo mode, when the source and the 1070 are linked via analog cables?

More questions sure to follow, but I’m enjoying the ongoing experiment. If anyone has any recommendations of settings/modes to try out, please let me know.

Thanks!