@georgehifi Its not a drop-in for normal opamps because its CFB. I get better results using a passive filter before my opamps than I did with AD811 and no filter. AD829 is doing very nicely as I/V for me at present, preceded by a filter.
Downside to R2R Ladder DACs?
A sales person I generally trust told me to steer clear of used R2R DACs, since their reliance on high precision resistors causes them to sound best when new, and degrade fairly quickly. It seems reasonable; have others had any experience with this?
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...steer clear of used R2R DACs, since their reliance on high precision resistors causes them to sound best when new, and degrade fairly quickly... I think your sales person is trying to sell you a new DAC. My R2R DAC is a Theta ProBasic III that is more than 20 years old. I love the thing as it does it does not have that treble edge that one hears in so many "modern day" DACs. Listed new for $2,700 and I bought used about three years ago for $600. Thanks for listening, Dsper |
At therisk of being contentious: Aggressive treble is more a sign of poor clocking than a design fault of delta sigma dacs compared to r2r dacs. Even highend dacs benefit from reclocking with Mutec, Cybershaft, Antelope, sotm et al. There is no superiority in r2r dacs, they tend to be more euphonic but sometimes less resolving. YMMV |
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@cheeg the section labeled "Oven Control" in the Lavry DA924 user manual may be informative. The DA924 (DA2002 for consumers) was often considered a "gold" standard in professional audio DACs and not just for its color. The specific sentence relevant to your question is: The PCM DAC is constructed of custom made laser trimmed thin film resistor networks; yet any resistor is subject to short term drift due to temperature variations and long term drift due to component aging. |
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