how good are the non os dacs?

muralman,
as i am no engineer, what seems to be the concern in the design of the dac. i respect your hesitation and would like to hear what you think is a problem.

I am fence sitting right now. Though some of the detractors don't care for it, the TD A1545A chip is OK with me. It is the asynchronous reclocking that gives me pause. Some folks well learned in electronics theory don't give this type of clocking any credence.

I would love to try it against what I have, but this Malaysian company does not take non-defective returns. That means I am stuck whether I like the DAC or not.

Critics of the NOS sound are listening to something I never have had the displeasure of hearing for myself. OS is often grainy, and bright. NOS DACs are not grainy, and the highs can be extended and very sweet. It is true some builders roll off the highs to the benefit of seductive mids, but that is a designer's choice.

i assume that the term "non os dac" means 16/44.1 khz .

there are differneces in sound between 16 bit non upsampling dacs. some use op amps, some do not. some have tube output stages, some do not. the caps used in the signal path may very.

thus there is no generic sound to these dacs. i own three of them and each sound differs from the other.

there is no point in generalizing. just as there is no value to make general statements about other components.

by the way i have not heard any lush or euphonic digital components in current manufacture. if anyone is aware of a very tube-like sounding digital product, in the classical sense, please let me know. i'll buy it myself.

mr tennis,
i was very specific in the dac i was most interested in if you want to comment on that one or any of the three you own. the adjectives used indicate that the listener enjoys the presentation and i believe that is what this is all about.

NOS vs. upsampling I have been able to do direct comparisons on the "Fly" with a touch of a button in the past.. NOS has a bit more body, more intimate and even meat in the middle midrange in your face, but pretty smooth, and with many transports can add weight to the lows yes..

As for Air, soundstage, its good and more like sitting in the recording studio..

Using upsampling definitely adds a little bit more of synthetic air, and causes a slight enhancement in surround sound type approach.. But can be sharper sounding in the end as the highs seem to carry more air exactly because they are a little more enhanced thru upsampling it seems.. Bass, well it depends its still deep, but more separated, so it might be as punchy but more spread out.

By the way fact is some recordings if they are just bad, or really need something can benefit from one type or the other of Dac, upsampling can help if its just a really compressed sounding recording, but to me is not as natural sounding, so yes Vinyl type sound is a little easier to mimick via NOS if you ask me.