This thread doesn’t make much sense to me: clocking, cables and the DAC’s analogue section are WAY MORE determinant of a dac’s sound than the chips used. The whole debate about R2R, Delta Sigma, FPGA is in my mind and experience equally blown out of proportion
AKM makes the best DACs
OK, before you flame a reply to my heading please read this section.
It is a terrible idea to judge a DAC based on the chip. I don't think consumer's should ever do that. I think there is a lot that goes into a good external DAC unit and the converter chip is just one of many factors that go into the final sound.
Having said that, it turns out I tend to like the sound of DACs with AKM chips over most others. A long time ago I would have said the same about Burr Brown.
For converters which use an all in one chip what is the brand you find yourfself more likely to like the sound of vs. not?
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I agree there are much more important criteria in evaluating dacs, however, I do observe a fair amount of stereotyping dac sound based on chip/topology. AKM more analog, Sabre high resolution, incisive, R2R more analog. FPGA only one not fitting into single niche.
I presume many hold these biases when deciding on new dac, this sells other topologies short. The one bias I don't understand is correlating highest resolution digital with increased listening fatigue or digititus. This is fast becoming obsolete, one no longer has to pay price for seeking highest resolution. |
I really have no idea why anyone would lump FPGA based DACs together. The entire basis for an FPGA is that you have hardware that can be changed via code, so despite say PS Audio and Chord (I think) using an FPGA, since the construction of the DAC in the FPGA is proprietary I would have no reason to expect them to be at all similar. Unless of course, they were sharing the chip maker and the underlying code libraries to build their DACs which is possible. |
And now for a controversial comment.😅 I think FPGA is basically a marketing tool used to differentiate some DACS from the rest of the field. I find it almost impossible to believe that it can be feasible for an ordinary audio electronics company to attempt to out-perform the decades of development into chips by companies like ESS, TI, Philips, AKM, Burr-Brown and others, not to mention the companies producing discrete R2R circuits. After all, FPGA chips are still just chips (and mostly D-S, I think). Yes, they may be altered, but for what? To correct mistakes? To bring them to where they should have been in the first place? Or to bring performance closer to that of conventional chips? Moreover, I find that within most FPGA DACs there is less by way of power supply, clocking, and/or quality analog section than in conventional chip based products at similar prices. Their margins are tremendous. I’ll cite the PS Audio DirectStream as but one example. There are many others. I’m putting my flak jacket on. |
Marketing or not, I would not know, but there is an interesting quote from the link provided bellow... ’’So does this mean anybody can design their own DAC’s using FPGAs? No I am afraid not. Creating the internal modules, getting them right, getting the DAC technology right, has taken me 30 years to do. This is not easy to do.’
https://www.the-ear.net/how-to/rob-watts-chord-mojo-tech
by the way, BB also produced R2R chips....for example many of their 1704 variants were used in different players over the years |
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