[chrisyak]

Hey audiophiles! I'm building a system to quickly compare 5-6 headphone amp/DAC combos. My goal is easy switching between setups to find the best pairings or gear.

The Challenge: How do I feed a high-quality audio source (PC or possibly a streamer) into a system that lets me easily switch between multiple DACs?

Current Idea:

Analog Switcher: Handle output to Amp/DACs for easy switching.

Optical Switcher: Manage digital input to DACs.

Questions:

Optical Switching: Is this the best approach to preserve audio quality?

Streamer vs. PC: Would a streamer offer better sound quality as my source?

Community Experience: Has anyone done something similar? Tips/tricks?

The Goal: Simplified setup for critical listening, comparing gear, and eventually doing reviews.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[chrisyak]

I hope someone can help not sure if it's way I explained it or maybe I should draw a layout of what I need to do?

 

[HWB3]

If you look at my avatar, you'll see that I have a three-way switch that I use to control which amp I'm using. It's one in and three out. I run my DAC and EQ in and then select which amp I'm using. Hope that helps.

 

[chrisyak]

If you look at my avatar, you'll see that I have a three-way switch that I use to control which amp I'm using. It's one in and three out. I run my DAC and EQ in and then select which amp I'm using. Hope that helps.

I know the one. You using the XLR version? They have versions with up to 8 XLR I puts.

Where I have been stuck is at two spots:

Let's say I have 3 sources: PC, Streamer and Smartphone. I would need to select the source and it would need to be a digital out source.

From their it would need to be plugged into a another switcher in the input so I could select which DAC it would to to and I could maybe get away with using a XLR switcher as long as it does not try and convert it analog and keeps the digital source.Then it could be plugged into the dacs and the dacs plugged into the amps. That was the audio quality and bit rate is not messed with before it gets to the DAC.

That where the chain gets messy.

I always thought I could just plug in a pair of headphones into the amp and because the DAC is plugged into the amp I'm going to hear the amp and the DAC. Then I could just put a analog switch to the amp and it would be easy.

 

[HWB3]

That's more complicated than my set up. Mine's pretty straight forward. Good luck.

 

[chrisyak]

That's more complicated than my set up. Mine's pretty straight forward. Good luck.

I need it. One of the problems is it's not well documented how to do this stuff. Once I get it set up I am going to do a forum post. I am going to try and outline my stuff. Very simple. Give people a few different options of equipment. Also. I will be open to easier suggestions. I had to Google pretty deep to find some of the solutions. Switching between amps is probably the easiest thing. Switching between sources and switching between Dacs is different because of the digital audio and trying to maintain the source quality when switching.


I've been researching for past few weeks and actually tonight I made some headway. It seems a lot of this equipment is not really consumer level and you have to go to the Pro Audio in order to find it. I may dabble around a little bit more in the Pro audio area to see if they have some suggestions and other products to suggest.


When you get into the Pro Audio stuff, the equipment gets real expensive. Fast. Those switchers are pricey. However, they take a lot of factors into account that some of the normal consumer grade stuff doesn't have, such as an impedance levels, volume levels, noise, interference, conditioning, feedback, this that and the kitchen sink. However, you pay for it.

 

[Thomasr]

I'm not 100% clear on whether you're looking for a digital signal switcher (pre-DAC), analog switcher (post-DAC) or both.

Amazon sells USB-C switchers, so that may solve that problem. For analog switching, multi-pole rotary barrel switches are the way I'd personally go. A 4P4T switch for example would give you the ability to choose among 4 different balanced sources, then a second 4P4T would let you send it to one of 4 amps, etc. Many of these are quite robust, high-current units so you could even use one (suitably wired of course) to send amplified output to one of several headphones.

If you don't give a crap how this all looks, you could even repurpose a few old computer I/O switches, which at this point are basically free if you can locate some. For example, below is an old one I happen to have in a random box of crap. Fabricate some serial-to-XLR adapters and you'd be all set. Stuff like this manufactured in the 80s is typically pretty sturdy and "overbuilt" so if you keep your cable lengths short you should be good from a signal degradation and noise perspective.



... Or, just accept your fate and spend the $$$ on a pro audio unit, which will be guaranteed to work (at an appropriate SNR) and if it doesn't you have things like warranty and customer service.