R2R Ladder DACs or All in One Streamer Solutions

Surely if there are classic cars, classic homes, classic amps, there can be classic chips. Occasionally, people know WTF they’re doing and they implement things beautifully. "Oh, that old Frank Lloyd Wright house? Who’d want to live in that?" Um, me.

Oh, and: http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/TDA1541%20corner/TDA1541.html

The point is simple: one can dispute that this chip sounds good or assert that there's a better chip which has come along, but resting one's argument on the fact that something is old is facile.

Classic cars are nice to look at. Put it on the track with something modern and it gets trounced.


Those who claim classic cars are "better" than modern cars are using the same congitive dissonance of those claiming that the TDA1541 magically enabled better DACs 30 years after it became functionally obsolete.

I am making the argument that there is nothing inherently "good" about TDA1541 DACs just that they are the flavor of the month for a subset of the audiophile community.  They DACs they enabled sounded bad 30 years ago. Their performance hasn't changed .... the audiophiles who support them ...

They DACs they enabled sounded bad 30 years ago.

Do you have examples to share where the bad sound was the fault of the DAC chip?

The owner of MHDT, Jiun, reportedly started buying up as many of these chips as possible and they became the foundation of an enormously popular model of DAC. Clearly it's not "functionally obsolete." You can read around to see others on this chip. A classic car does not get "trounced" by a modern piece of junk. Indeed, it becomes "classic" not just because people are sentimental but because of design. That's why the reference to Frank Lloyd Wright is in my post, too. I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you. Over and out.

At this point I recommend one with volume control as you request. A big rotary pot with level indicator display.. All play apps have software (remote) volume ctrl. It also includes 4 digital inputs for source pass through selection, headphone amp and DSP with calibrated mic. mini DSP SHD Studio. I power one with an UltraCap 1.2 but a Teddy Pardo would be a fine choice instead down the road. I will say that the 1.2  @  12 volts runs 140°  and I put a AC Infinity mini fan on it.
I still believe that a cheap Topping DAC will exceed the Oppo but if you want a sweet spot look at a RME ADI-2 DAC.
It has EQ, a remote and enough features to keep you busy for months.
These are just suggestions, good luck finding a perfect fit.