Dac Technology Mature?

Listen to a DCS Rossini and tell me DAC technology is not much better than 5 years ago.

I think some members are confusing terms, as in adolescence > maturity > dotting off to the nursing home. I reckon it’s fair to say that after 50+ years of constant development, DAC technology has reached “maturity”.

Dac technology has been largely worked out for 20+ years. For example, Vimak corporation who invented Delta Sigma technology implemented the only truly discrete Delta Sigma dac; the DS1800Mk1 released 25 years ago which was incredibly complex and over-built. Now, Delta Sigma dacs are implemented in miniaturized chips. And in the process I think they lost something actually.

But that doesn’t mean DAC technology is standing still, or that manufacturers aren’t innovating. Data Conversion Systems proprietary ring dac and APL Hifi’s proprietary DSD dac are good examples.

Nothing is fully mature until it dies.  This can apply to both life and audio.  As long as we are alive, we are evolving....some slower, some faster.

DACs have definitely become more stable, but it’s the “transport” that’s quickly evolving.  Network based systems such as Roon is where the future of digital is going, and that’s a moving target....and lots of fun.

As digital music playback starts with a PCM or DSD 'blueprint' (of varying sample rates and bit depths) of a load of electrical signals that are the building blocks of this thing called music then the DAC is a rather important part of the picture to put it mildly as it actually builds the music brand new every time you hit the play button. These two formats are very different and yet I'm not convinced either is being converted to their respective bests. Instead we have DAC's that are primarily PCM or DSD based and convert the other format to their particular format, or we have hybrid DAC's that claim to be doing everything. The quality is extremely good but being pedantic it would be great to hear music through a dedicated DAC.