High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.


Something that came as a surprise to me is how good DAC's have gotten over the past 5-10 years.

Before then, there was a consistent, marked improvement going from Redbook (44.1/16) to 96/24 or higher.

The modern DAC, the best of them, no longer do this. The Redbook playback is so good high resolution is almost not needed. Anyone else notice this?
erik_squires
Digital has made great strides ,and many dacs have custom analog output stages as well as very well designed power supplies which were often overlooked.even the digital cables have come a long way in 10 years ,bits are notjust bits.
digital noise or artifacts better know as jitter is finally much bettter understood.
there are still a lot of Audiophiles who get sucked in with the numbers game 
such as DSD which can be very good but not much for offerings.and 48/192, when in fact most digitalis in 24/96.
all the terminology about sampling,oversampling is many times a marketing ploy.
it can make a difference if designed properly  but there are so many ways to implement  a digital design .
Unless you are a digital engineer  you just have to trust your ears.
some of the best digital I ever heard was the now rare Multibit dacs like the      BB 1704 ladder dacs which were individually tested which was why they were often used in pro audio.or even The old Phillips 15 series 16 bit non oversampling  dacs ,they we're very natural sounding ,there are also great Vacuum Tube dacs that truly add
body And naturalness to recordings . You can  spend over $100 k from DCS if you have the income to afford it. I have heard several of their lower budget stuff around  $35k which was fantastic. But as Eric stated for under $2k youcan get excellent 
digital performances,and who would have thought even 5 years ago that we would have highquality streaming ? And there is still Much more to come .digital now can not only match a good turntable  but in many ways surpass them in several areas . Welcome to the future !!
audioman58,

"...digital now can not only match a good turntable  but in many ways surpass them in several areas..."
Be careful. If guys from the "vinyl vs. digital" threads read this, you are in trouble.
So what's the general consensus on the Schiit Yggdrasil these days? Any recommendations in a similar price?
Cd's sound just fine to me on a very good player. Maybe I'm old....I have no need or intention on ever streaming anything.....and sacd's sound even better. I am I guess one of the crazies that likes to hold and touch my physical media. Downloading crap just ain't for me. 
Now, we can finally do discrete dacs well enough and economically enough...so R2R comes back with a vengeance, in the high end area of digital. Same for the FPGA versions of similar design and thinking as discrete R2R dacs.

And this Airist discrete R2R Multibit Dac was peanuts, around $299 or something with a Massdrop purchase, got the quota filled very quick. All 300 getting shipped next month so they say.
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac?mode=guest_open&utm_campaign=Drop%...

Review
https://darko.audio/2018/06/airist-audios-r-2r-dac-350-via-massdrop/

Measurements
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/airist-r2-r-dac-measurements.6418/

Cheers George