... AND another newbie question

Home Theater Mode… what does it mean? Referencing the stellar dac
thanks

I wonder that also since it should not bee the same as 5.1 SACD mode and what’s the difference between 5.1 SACD-mode and 5.1 Home Theater mode?!?

RE: Stellar Gain Cell DAC?

If yes then (from the manual under “Home Theater Setup”):

“The next menu screen is Home Theater Setup (HT Setup). Channels are selected by rotating the volume knob. This feature allows you to select from one of the three analog inputs as a home theater pass-through input. The purpose of this function is to enable surround sound users a fixed volume level when the input volume level is controlled outside the Stellar Gain Cell DAC. In some cases, home theater owners may share the front left and right loudspeakers with their home theater setup, enabling them to use the Stellar Gain Cell DAC as their 2-channel control center when playing music, then using the same left and right front channels when watching a film.”

Hope this helps,

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Basically it means the amp can slide nicely into a home theater setup without having to disconnect speaker wires when switching between music and home theater.

In more detail, you always want the better amp driving your speakers for 2 ch music, so you connect your L R speakers to the amp.

But good amps don’t have home theater processing decoding, which will typically be in a HT receiver or processor to power a surround sound system of multiple speakers.

Well, with the bypass you just run interconnects from your receiver to the amp, and then when doing home theater you enter the bypass mode so that volume control of everything done by the receiver but the amp still powers your L R speakers. The feature lets the HT commands to the LR speakers bypass the amps preamp and volume control, if that makes sense

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think so. I have the fronts driven by a Stellar 300 power amp, using the pre outs of the AVR. and the others driven with the Anthem MRX520. And presume my Tascam DA20 DAT will connect by the RCA connections to the Dac, or does it work if connected with the coax?

You may already have everything configured this way but I want to double check. The AVR should be sending the front left and right to the GDAC which then feeds the signal to the S300. With this config and the GDAC in HT bypass, it essentially allows the signal to pass through the GDAC down to the amp, and you control the volume with the AVR like you normally would.

I would hook up the Tascam via digital coax to the GDAC.

The benefit of this config is that when listening to music, you’re not involving the AVR at all. It’s just strictly the 2 channel gear. Then when you’re using the HT, volume control and all that jazz is not impacted.

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