High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.
The Sigma Delta architecture has to my ears a sound that gives digital a bad reputation. Just bad implementations. If you do the digital filtering right, it can easily beat all the old chips, including 1541/1702/1704. I designed DACs with the 1704 as well. Musical, but not live like my Sigma Delta DAC. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
I also use a SOtM USB regenerator, but with my own power supply. Makes ALL the difference with USB: https://sotm-usa.com/collections/sotm-ultra/products/copy-of-tx-usbultra-regenerator-1 Inserts in-line with the USB cable. Simple. Need 2 cables, each 1-2m long. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
I designed DACs with the 1704 as well. Musical, but not live like my Sigma Delta DAC. Sorry don’t know about yours, but totally the opposite for me, no Delta Sigma I’ve heard can match it with those three R2R Multibit dac chips you mentioned or others when implemented well, for "prat", "boggie factor" and "dynamic slam" when converting PCM redbook. If anything the good Delta Sigma’s are too sweet and limp, not exciting, without any "live" feel to them when doing PCM Redbook, but they can do DSD SACD if your into that stuff. Cheers George |
I hope that CDs will also hit a revival life LPs. I have 7,000 CDs. However, currently there are CDs that sell for $100s each. Those are the Kevin Grey/Steve Hoffman CDs especially gold DCC CDs. I also favor Japanese jazz CDs from the 1980s which were expertly transferred/mastered. I have about 2 dozen remarkable Japanese jazz CDs from that era. I've been buying excellently remastered CDs for a decade now and jumped on the CD bandwagon since I bought my EAR Acute CD player. No, it's not the latest R2R DAC but wow, it sounds as good as my $22K analog front end. As to LPs, many of my 1980s classical Japanese pressings, although perfect and often virgin vinyl, used lower quality submaster tapes which had lower resolution and compression compared to the original masterings. I can point to German pressed Living Stereo recordings which generally sound dynamically tepid compared to the originals, only superior in pressing quality. The master copy of the recording makes the difference there. |
Sorry don’t know about yours, but totally the opposite for me, no Delta Sigma I’ve heard can match it with those three R2R Multibit dac chips you mentioned or others when implemented well, for "prat", "boggie factor" and "dynamic slam" when converting PCM redbook. That's the point. You have not heard every DAC, so making sweeping statements is not useful. The dynamics and clarity I get is unsurpassed. Every time a customer brings over or ships me a DAC to try, it is disappointing. Other vendors have brought their DAC's over (I wont mention) and they lasted 30 seconds in the system because they sounded so bad. Even the other vendors wanted me to remove them. Steve N. Empirical Audio |
