Do I need an AV receiver for better sound?

You are not right! Even if you only stick to 2 speakers or 2.1 speakers you still will benefit from an AV processor/amp/receiver as these devices will re-encode the surround and fill in the centre speaker with a phantom speaker. It will not be as good as a 3, 5 or 3.1, 5.1 setup but it will be better than a 2 speaker setup. Basically a DAC will JUST covert stereo Digital to Stereo Analogue, but an AV pre or Av amp will encode/decode whatever the signal is into whatever speaker you have.

Simon - thanks for that and what you say makes sense. My only concern is that the AV amp would probably not be as good as the Naim amp for playing music in a dual hifi/AV set up - I was trying to avoid going to a 5.1 set up with the Naim amp driving the front 2 speakers and the AV Amp the others

Actually I think your suggestion of using stereo analogue or optical to a DAC magic is a very sound one. Just set your bluray player to 2channel output and that will integrate the center channel in with the left and right.

Good 2 channel via your Naim will usually be superior to mearly okay 5.1 or 2.1 via a AV reciever. But thats just my opinion.

Eloise

Nobody seems to have bothered to tell you that you can integrate your Naim amplifier with an AV receiver, so that your Naim amp (poweramp section) would power the front L and R speakers, and the AV receiver the other channels. That way you could still use your Naim amp for the analogue stereo inputs.

As to how to connect it up - look at the Naim AV2 manual on the Naim website. Hopefully your Naim amp has a unity gain input, but even if it doesn't, it is still possible.

Willie,

I tend to disagree with Simon here. The only place where you may get better sound from an AV receiver in a 2 speaker scenario is where the AV receiver downmixes to 2-channel better than the player. So if you have a cheap BD player then you may get better sound by inserting an AV receiver (the Pioneer VSX919 is way better than the Denon 1910 for not much more money by the way).

BUT, if you downmix in the player and get a quality DAC like the DacMagic or the Musical Fidelity V-DAC (apparently very good indeed), then the DAC quality may outstrip that of the AV receiver which is twice or thrice the price and has 15 times the components! Since you're still using the Naim amp to power the 2 front speakers, I think this solution will give better sound from 2 speakers.

Thanks guys for further advice. I think that my best approach for now is to optimise 2 channel output via my existing DacMagic and Naim amp and then if I eventually go for 5.1 sound get a receiver and use it to drive the cente and rear channels whilst the Naim amp continues to drive the 2 front speakers.

Regards
Willie

A further thought - I have 3 sources: blue ray player, hard drive recorder and the TV itself which also incorporates freesat. Currently the blue ray player and hard drive recorder are each connected to the TV by Chord Co. Supershield HDMI leads and the TV is linked to the Cambridge DacMagic (and then Naim amp) by a Van den Hul Optocoupler Toslink cable. Is this the best approach for sound quality or should I run a separate optical lead from blue ray player to DacMagic and maybe also one from hard drive recorder?

Presumably the same question also arises if I go down the AV amp route at a later date.

Willie

If your bluray or HD player have a coaxial connection, then you may get a better sound with a decent copper interconnect to the DacMagic rather than the often inferior fibre optic.

Frank - thanks for the suggestion. both blueray and HD recorder have coaxial digital audio outs and the blueray also has optical out. I will try connecting blueray audio out direct to DacMagic via coaxial and see if the sound improves