Higher End DACs

Even at the top echelon ( which is ever moving ) a well sorted network and electrical power system in home is essential. ... many things can be done at low/no cost. Which leg of your panel is the audio system on ? What leg are the “ hash and trash “ generation bits on ?

Consider a DAC with the ugly bits in a Faraday cage... to wit Aesthetix 

the Brinkmann as another poster noted above is also superb

@yyzsantabarbara
@tomic601
RF is insidious. If we had eyes that revealed the full EM spectrum we would see fire hoses of radiated energy everywhere. I don’t know why DACs are so sensitive to RF noise but as our systems become more transparent, its clear to me that less RF noise impinging on a DAC improves the sound. I can’t delve into a DAC to measure whats going on (and in fact the levels are below test equipment noise floor). What I do is measure is the full spectrum (audio band and RF) coming into and leaving a DAC. My corollary for better sound is less measured RF energy in all cases. So the challenge for audiophiles is to get the RF level down to ambient.

To answer your questions: using optical where possible helps, using battery power helps, using low powered sources reduces their potential RF and that helps. I am all about optical isolation (DX and USB in my case), lifting the digital chain off the AC mains with battery and moving the digital components as far away from the DAC as possible. In the case of using best practices with an RF-STOP faraday cage, you have an equivalent separation of 1000 meters, optical to the DAC and optical to the (distant) network switch. It requires an audiophile to appreciate and understand that it’s a whole chain process ...no single product is a fix. But then the isolation is guaranteed by physics.

Try a USB cable with DBS and RF shields also.... Audioquest 

and a Jitterbug 

and as always, your actual mileage may vary greatly! 

My reference to a Faraday cage was internal to a DAC.. in particular to isolate the FPGA and display/control microprocessors FROM the A part of a DAC....

have a look at the guts of Jim Whites IMO excellent Pandora