Hey, I’m considering a network bridge to connect to a legacy DAC that can only accept 16bit / 44.1 or 48.
Can the DCS network bridge downsample to 16bit / 44.1 ? In the documentation it seems to indicate 24bit / 88.2 is the lowest downsampling.
I’m going to be using it amongst other sources as a Roon endpoint, and Roon can downsample, but I would imagine the Roon downsampling is inferior to the network bridge?
Thanks
No, unfortunately it would not seem to meet your needs
Network Bridge was never intended as a universal component and therefore does not downsample any incoming format to output any choice of lower ones. It was meant to provide compatibility and connectivity for replaying hi-res files with early dCS converters of which none were limited to processing 16/44.1 files. So given this here is no need to deal with your Roon comparative point.
Incidentally I would mention that Network Bridge is itself a legacy product.
Hey @PAR ! Thanks for clarifying. I would like to have your or others’ view on Roon downsampling vs a dedicated outboard downsampling device though…
The DAC I have is custom built and uses a Crystal (Cirrus Logic) CS4398 DAC chip. I love the musicality of this DAC for redbook. But a lot of my music that I have in Roon is higher sampling and bit depth than what this chip can accept.
Thanks!
I would love to give you an answer but cannot as I am not a Roon customer and no longer have a Network Bridge. Perhaps there is another contributor who has an opinion given this combination of equipment .However my point is that even if it is thought that the NWB is superior it will have no practical outcome for you given that it won’t work with your custom DAC. In any case I am not aware of other “dedicated outboard downsampling” devices.
There is theory out there . If you can use it to theoretically compare various implementations of downsampling then good luck as it lies beyond my capacity.
Haha, thanks Pete…I’ll take a look and decide how much time I want to spend pondering and working this out!