How can the PS3 sound so good?

Rclark · « **on:** 10 Nov 2011, 06:47 am »

If I had to choose between it and my standalone DAC for SQ I almost wanna pick the PS3

. To be fair, I don't play high res files through my dac, only cd via optical. But music files, or in game music, and especially bluray movies just sounds so rich and full on the PS3! How can a device that cost as much as my DAC yet isn't a standalone DAC sound so good, or even better than my dedicated device?

What did they do? I almost wish someone would pull out the audio parts of the PS3 and make a standalone dac with that. It would be amazing.

And to be fair, when I do use the PS3, 99% of the time I run it through my DAC, which does give it a nice boost. But by itself, it sounds better than it should.

I guess they really did lose money on the things at first. I read that in '07 it cost around $700 or so to make each one. By contrast, the 360 cost less than half that amount to make. But it really shows in the quality of the hardware. About the only thing I would wanna do to it is find a way to make it quieter (fan).

skunark · « **Reply #1 on:** 10 Nov 2011, 07:13 am »

Most likely you are using the HDMI port? It carries the same data and for AVs often share the same DAC with the digital audio inputs. There's more to go wrong when shipping the PCM stream over HDMI than straight to a DAC, but if everything is working correctly there's more advantages to that approach. i.e. data is encoded (encrypted) over the hdmi cable; most likely i2s is used if sent to a DAC instead of SPDIF; DAC is integrated with the HDMI chip.

Even if you were using the analog outs on the PS3, some of the same reasons exist, but guessing that a $300 dac is probably using the same or compatible quality DAC, and perhaps the output buffer is of lower quality.

Running my PS3 or ATV through the TV via HDMI sounds better than routing it to the Musical Fidelity VDAC, but using the Bryston BDA-1 is infinitely better.

Rclark · « **Reply #2 on:** 10 Nov 2011, 07:27 pm »

I haven't run it through my main speakers solo yet, but when I use HDMI straight into my big Samsung monitor and play nearfield it sounds really damned good. I should just use it straight into my stereo and see what that's like. But yeah 99.9% of the time, its through my main speakers, via optical to my dac. Even then as a source I want to say it's better than my cdp but that could just be the much higher bit rate stuff playing, and of course bluray.

Bob in St. Louis · « **Reply #3 on:** 11 Nov 2011, 02:10 pm »

I can't answer how they did it, all I know is that when I watch concerts, especially Bluray concerts, the sound is nothing short of amazing.

Rclark · « **Reply #4 on:** 11 Nov 2011, 11:42 pm »

Yeah I've got Rush R:30 on bluray and it is just mindblowing on ps3. Far beyond my cdp.

cmryan21 · « **Reply #5 on:** 11 Nov 2011, 11:54 pm »

Quote from: Rclark on 10 Nov 2011, 06:47 am

If I had to choose between it and my standalone DAC for SQ I almost wanna pick the PS3 . To be fair, I don't play high res files through my dac, only cd via optical. But music files, or in game music, and especially bluray movies just sounds so rich and full on the PS3! How can a device that cost as much as my DAC yet isn't a standalone DAC sound so good, or even better than my dedicated device?

What did they do? I almost wish someone would pull out the audio parts of the PS3 and make a standalone dac with that. It would be amazing.

And to be fair, when I do use the PS3, 99% of the time I run it through my DAC, which does give it a nice boost. But by itself, it sounds better than it should.

I guess they really did lose money on the things at first. I read that in '07 it cost around $700 or so to make each one. By contrast, the 360 cost less than half that amount to make. But it really shows in the quality of the hardware. About the only thing I would wanna do to it is find a way to make it quieter (fan).

Well, I'd say that when you consider that Sony can buy in bulk that no small audiophile company can, a $700 piece of hardware from Sony would yield a more valuable product than $700 from a small audiophile company. That's assuming the $700 figure is all hardware and not marketing cost as well since marketing for a new product like that would be a substantial portion of the product's cost.