The Sentinel DAC - Design Update #1

Official - Updates
21

DEAR Daniel， if we only use the one pair XLR Output of Sentinel DAC，does it means we only got 8 channel DAC parallel output ？or it works as 16 channel DAC parallel and copy a isolated output?

22

@wekin , we are currently planning for it to be configurable based on use case. If only one output is used, all 16 modules will be combined. If the output is split, we can configure it into two 8 channel DAC’s. We want every configuration to be the highest performing possible.

23

Hi Daniel

Just out of curiosity, since seems like Sentinel will be very configurable, that leads me to ask… will it be possible to configure the Sentinel for surround sound. With 16 DACs, 9.1 surround would be easy, you could even assign 2 DACs to the L, R and C channels.

Or you could do 9.1.6 Atmos. Not common in homes but for someone mixing Atmos is would be really as good as you would every need.

Of course, it would reduce the quality of the output, but we are talking surround/Atmos, not HiFI. All the sample rates for surround are relatively low.

Of course that would require a new, and very interesting, output module :slight_smile: .

It might not seem a good choice for home surround, but with an appropriate GUI (like on a tablet) interface, it would eliminate the need for an AVP. As long as he Sentinel had an HDMI input an AppleTV box or an Roku or Google or ?? could provide the streams.

Dan

24

@Dan , that would be SO COOL! I personally have always wanted to dabble with multi-channel, but it is unfortunately not something we can break into. The only issue is the decoding and licensing. We have looked into it and the pricing is completely unreasonable for a small manufacturer. They are only looking to work with large companies moving many many boxes.

We used to circumvent this with our transports that piggybacked off the Oppo player. We were able to use their decoding and licensing connected with our Theater Master DAC. Those were some pretty fun installations. Multi-channel needs better DACs!

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25

@Daniel_Francis That’s too bad. It would be reference level surround!

Dan

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