When and do you expect to have an updated model with digital output. Anthony

I'm a little confused about the talk of a digital output. Obviously you need to get the signal into an analog form before passing it to the speakers, so now you're relying on DAC's in the receiver/pre-pro rather than the DAC's in the IR1000?(correct me if I don't have this all straight please)
So what is to be gained here with a digital output? Can the DAC's currently in most pre/pro's convert the signal as is, or would you need some special DAC's to do this? How does bass management fit into this?
I'm fuzzy on this so any explanation is appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Kent

With the analog connection, the first thing the receiver is going to do is re-convert the signal back to digital, to do its DSP magic (bass management, ProLogic, etc.) Then the signal will be converted back to analog before being sent to the speakers. This extra A-D-A step will hurt signal quality, although probably by not too much if it's done well. And you're still using your receiver's DACs.

With a digital connection from the IR1000 to the receiver, you basically eliminate that extra A-D-A step.

So why not put out a "digital only" version of this? Seems like you could save a little money with out the DAC in the thing.

It would probably cost more to produce two versions of the product than they'd save on the DAC. I don't believe a 2 channel CD quality DAC is that expensive.

This has really bugged me. NO digital output on the IR1000.

It couldn't have been a price point issue. Even my Audiotron at a price point of about $270 has both RCA and a SPDIF/TOSlink connectors. It was one of the biggest reasons for its purchase.

Unless they are trying to market this at people who have 2 channel audio systems WITHOUT digital input... but that doesn't make sense.

Best of both worlds would have been nice.

Jeff

I doubt whether additional a/d and d/a conversions will have a great impact on the quality of streaming audio.

It's the principal of the thing, ukexpat.

Heres the big question though. The IR1000 runs in a digital environment, its a network appliance (a mini computer so to speak). It streams internet radio stations and mp3's (soon to be added feature) from a computer. All digital pathways. It seems that it would be quite easy to put the digital out on the IR1000, so why leave it out? You would be getting the signal native, no special adjustments so to speak. It cost more money to put the DAC in the machine, it would be pennies to add the digital out.

To me it makes no sense.

Jeff

ukexpat's post in the ir1000 pictures thread indicated that Outlaw was concerned about getting sucked into a digital piracy debate -- RIAA and the other big companies that make their living off selling music and movies have been very touchy on that subject in recent years, and Outlaw is pretty tiny compared to those monster corporations. I can see their point.

Additional thought -- the argument that there is a threat of a device like the IR1000 being used as part of a digital piracy mechanism to produce perfect digital copies of songs is basically absurd (it's been compressed heavily and streamed across the Internet, so the concerns that RIAA has with digital output on DVD-Audio and SACD don't really apply), but the basic idea of wanting encryption on digital outputs is very fresh on the RIAA's mind, and they're not known for using logic in their decision making processes...

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Gonk

[This message has been edited by gonk (edited February 01, 2002).]