What are your guys personal opinions about headunits.
Is a 24bit DAC all that important, how about time alignment, how about compressed file restoration(all my music is compressed), how about 2.5 volt pre-outs.
One of the reasons i ask is because the eclipse cd5030 is supposed to have really good noise free sq and it does not have a 24 bit dac
I got a few decks im looking at but i want to discuss these things first and then i will probably make a new thread.
Time Alignment "Enough" Equalization - Whatever your needs require... Active Capable - Built-in Crossovers with "enough" options (preferably 4-way for 3-way front stage + substage) >4V preouts
In a nutshell, check out the Pioneer DEX-P99RS for my definition of a "Sound Quality HU"
Time Correction is very important for sq, second a good eq is very important the more bands the better. This will allow you to normalize each frequency to guarantee the arrangement of instruments. Also x-overs which can djust the each pre-out seperately with frequency ranges are great at isolating certain instruments to each speakers. This is extremely important as Im assuming you connecting your speakers to an amp.
Option B could be just buying a cheaper deck and get a seperate eq that could do everything for you and you wouldnt touch any of the settings on the deck. THis acutally gives you the best functionailty.
Option C: If you didnt buy your amps yet you could get amps that have EQ's built in such as the DC reference series from Zapco, which again you dont touch any settings on the deck anduse the amp's eqs to adjust everything
You should go with the 24 bit dac its very important for decoding. One thing which i would look for which i even have to check mine is if it supports .flac audio (lossless) because its one of the best audio codecs for sound.
the 24bit dac is the receivers ability to decode mp3 formats and other digitaly compressed music, if you only play audio cds the 24bit dac wont make a difference as most have a 1bit dac for that
read that and im not convinced i need 24 bit still. I think im just going to buy my 590ib back. i liked that deck a lot and it sounded alright minus the white noise @ high volumes which supposedly is unavoidable.