Question about Burr Brown DACs


I am a bit confused about the different Burr Brown DACs and how they relate to the overall sound of a player. Currently the Burr Brown 1790 seems to be in use in many universal units like the Denon 2900 and 5900. In Stereophile's recent review of the Musical Fidelity DAC it mentioned that it used the latest Burr Brown DAC - the 1792. I took a quick look at the Burr Brown website and they make mention of a new generation chip - the 1796.

So my question is...

Is the newer DAC an indication of potentially "better sound"? In other words does a 1792 DAC make a 1790 sonically obsolete and likewise does the new 1796 make the 1792 yesterday's news? Would an upcoming stock unit with a 1796 make a modded unit based around a 1792 DAC sound ancient?

If the 1796 is going to be a sonic improvement over the 1790 I would assume it will start cropping up in new players. I am currently using a CEC transport and Audiomeca Enkiathus DAC but I am interested in migrating over to a universal player (perhaps a modified unit like the Exemplar Denon 2900 or the Goldmund Eidos 18) but I'm not in a rush...I'm getting great sounds but I always want better.

Are significantly better sounding units on the horizon?
lasercd
The awful truth is that pretty much everything here is a compromise, 'cause every company who's trying to make a living from what they do has to do it at an overall profit. For this question, that may not necessarily mean that each successively higher numbered chip is more sonically wonderful. Each is designed/manufactured to a price point - features for a price (that's also where the yield, etc. come into the equation). The '92 or '96 chip may or may not be improvements that you can hear at all - they may be manufacturing gains (more-chips-for-less) or packaging (chipset) gains - in profit.

Slappy may or may not be at risk for a big snack - we all probably won't know unless a B-B engineer spills the beans. And even if B-B did gain performance with the higher numbers, as Audioengr & Bombaywalla accurately point out there may not be an improvement to you if the overall system solution isn't better. You can easily bury the best of chips w/ lousy boards and/or support chipsets.
Listen to the BB1751 dac in the little toshiba 3950 dvd player. This is their cheapest dac but the sound quality from cd on this player is amazing for the money. Will it beat your big rigs? No, but it has a relaxing, engaging manner of presentation that is simply fun and musical. Dacs are improving at a terrific rate. If you crank the toshiba the sound falls apart. What surprises me here is the toshiba sound is just on a smaller scale, less weight, less fullness but listenable....amazing. remember I'm not claiming this to be the holy grail, just a good little player...cheers
Generally speaking DAC chips have "evolved" over the last ten years but mostly to make them less expensive and easier to use. I sold both Crystal Semiconductor and Burr Brown for a lot of years. The Burr Brown PCM63K (military grade) was an awesome DAC but was expensive ($50) and required a POT and other circuitry to tweak it. Burr Brown did not have a volume consumer-market mentality, they were a bunch of very talented analog designers with a quality-first and cost-be-damned approach to things. That all changed when Texas Instruments purchased Burr Brown for $8 billion roughly five years ago. TI was a volume manufacturer with very good digital designers (their TMS32x DSP's are the most widely used in the world) but they lacked analog expertise, it made sense to acquire Burr Brown (although the price tag is still bewildering to me).

TI knew that in order to compete effectively with Crystal Semiconductor they would have to make devices that were less expensive and required no additional supporting circuits to allow for a much simpler end-customer design. The key motivator was getting design-ins on true consumer electronics to drive significant manufacturing volumes. Economies of scale allow for agressive average selling prices while maintaining a healthy margin. DVD players and the like have driven DAC design for the most part. Simpler/more elegant design techniques coupled with more advanced semiconductor processes, such as 130nm or the newer 90nm, and 12" wafers have driven costs down big time.

Has this made today's DAC's better than the more esoteric monolithic chips of years back? I'd have to say that it has and it's also made good digital gear very affordable. Need a CDP for a bedroom or office system? Pick up a decent DVD player for under $150 and you're off to the races. Jeff