D/A convertors

[mr. torture]

How much better of a sound can be had if I were to use a quality 96khz
A/D convertor going directly into the digital inputs on my AW4416?

At this time I am running my "chain" (Great River pre/EL8 distressor) into the mic pre's on the 4416. I try to maximize the gain through both units but, by the time it reaches the 4416's XLR's I have to have the pot's turned down really low so the channel does not clip.

Would I be better off buying a good 2 channel A/D convertor with higher resolution, or is the way I am currently doing it ok?

Thanks for the help!!

[Blue Bear Sound]

There are a number of issues that I can see from your post.....

1) Why are you running the output of your GR/Distressor back into the mic pres of the 4416???? You've got a great front-end signal chain being totally negated by the comparatively lower-quality pres on the 4416! You lose every advantage the GR pre gives you by doing this...... doesn't make sense........

2) The D/A converter doesn't enter into the picture above at all.... at least, as it relates to your question. But you DO want a good D/A converter from a monitoring perspective (assuming you're dealing with digital signals after the front-end has gone "to tape") for the same reason you need good monitors, if you have a bad monitoring chain, you can't be sure if the tracks sound bad, or the monitoring chain itself is clouding the sound of your tracks.

[Dethska]

Yo, Bear. Read closer. He says A/D in the post. Just the title is messed up.

Mr.Torture- I would think you'd get much better quality using a good A/D rather than going through the relatively low quality preamps on the 4416. Those are killing your chain as Blue Bear mentions.

(Woohoo, I corrected the bear, I corrected the be... *whomp* *eaten by Bear*)

[Blue Bear Sound]

True -- missed seeing that minor detail.... but my spiel about the need of D/A could still apply, in a general sense!

[mr. torture]

Sorry, I wrote the title wrong
So will a A/D convertor plugged in to the digital input of the 4416
really make a big difference in sound quality?

Also what type of cables are needed. The digital in and out on the 4416 are coaxial and appear to be RCA connectors. There is one input and one output and each one is stereo.
The A/D convertor i have been looking at is the LUCID A/D 9624 which has 3 different types of output. I was thinking of an XLR to RCA cable which of course will need to be able to send in a stereo signal.

Thanks for helping me out

[mr. torture]

After some searching I have found the type of cable I need for hooking it up.
My next question is this:

I set the sampling rate in the AW at 44.1 because that is the same rate as cd's and since I have a CDR built in for mixdown everything is matched up.

If I were to record through my "Chain" into the lucid converter then into the 4416's s/pdif digital input and finally onto a track, can I record with the lucid set to 96khz? or do I have to remain in the 44.1 realm?

Does it matter what sampling rate you record at if it is done with an external A/D converter? Or will it have playback problems?

Thanks again!!

[Blue Bear Sound]

The digital chain must be the same in terms of sampling rate through all digital devices. A mismatch in sampling rate will give significant clocking errors.

Word length (bit depth) should also be uniform but the worst you would get is truncation (not good-sounding) if you send a 24-bit digital stream into a 16-bit device.