Digital receivers vs DAC receivers

[Jace]

DAC stands for Digital to Analog Converter. it is needed regardless of technology before your speaker sees it. speakers are totally analog devices and cannot do any sort of conversions itself.

here is the short and skinny of both methods described. for a system that is not fully digital (ie. the sigal goes to analog amps before going to your speakers) you get your input signal in either digital or analog, depending on which method you use from your source. if it is an analog input, an ADC (analog to digital converter) is used to turn the signal into digital for processing (bass adjustments, eq's, surround sound decoding etc.). this digital signal is then converted to analog by the DAC's and sent to the amplifier stage. after that, the amplified, analog signal goes to your speakers.

in the case of an all digital system, you get your input, the same as described above. you process the data the same as above. now this is where the difference is. instead of converting the signal back to analog to amplify it, you keep it digital and send it through a digital amplifier. the output of your digital amplifier signal is still gonna be digital and therefore is not suitable for your speakers since it is all in binary code (1's and 0's, or in other words, high voltages and low voltages that make up a code that represents your analog information. this is done using whats known as pulsewidth modulation). so at this point, it goes through a filter (final stage of the amplifier) to convert the already amplified signal back to something a speaker can recognize and then it goes to your speakers.

-Jace