When Will the DAC Singularity Be Reached?

That wasn't my understanding of how class D works.  Yes the digital signal is being converted to an analog signal but at the amplifier section not at the input section.  A DAC converts digital to analog but a class D amp to my understanding does the same thing but with gain.  So typically a digital signal implementing a DAC converts it twice using a Class D amplifier.  Digital to analog then a ADC in the amp converts into what the Amp can read and then outputs analog.

According to PeachTree

• Coaxial S/PDIF input with native support up to 24-bit/192kHz 
• DAC-less design 

I'm not an engineer or do I play one on TV but I believe (which can easily be full of whatever is in that bucket)  That it truly is a DAC-less design.

here is a youtube reviewer who pretty much specializes in reviewing affordable dacs, reviewing one that is much more expensive

among the talking heads on yt covering hifi gear, this fellow is one of the better ones -- articulate, honest, no nonsense, relatively complete in his disclosure and approach

https://youtu.be/ncZdxm0khTg

danager

... Or will the need for DACs be simply eliminated. I predict that DACs will eventually be used only in the esoteric realm ...

Unless there’s a return to the analog era - which is extremely unlikely - there will be a need to convert digital to analog. So, no, I don’t see a future without DACs.

A DAC converts digital to analog but a class D amp to my understanding does the same thing but with gain.

Most DACs have gain. I’ve never seen a class D amp that could apply Reed-Solomon error correction or follow any of the other digital transmission protocols, unless they had a built-in DAC, of course.

@danager Don't take this personally since, as I said above, the manufacturers are encouraging this misconception.  

But physics and engineering don't support the existence of a digital amplifier. 

indeed you don't need to buy a DAC, since they have incorporated it.  They call this "DACless".  

marketing...much more believable than physics.

Wouldn't it be a great world if we could increase power by manipulating a digital file.  our hard drives would power our house. 

jerry

Borrowed this explanation, paraphrased from threads on ASR.

A class-D amplifier is an analog amplifier. It uses analog circuits, with an analog signal as the input, to turn transistors on and off.

A 1-bit sigma-delta DAC that switches 5V power rails (or whatever they use), is a DAC.

A 1-bit sigma-delta DAC that switches 50V power rails is a digital amplifier. It uses the digital input signal to turn transistors on and off.  To avoid any misconception, there is not a separate DAC chip and class-D amplifier. I assume the digital logic that would be in a DAC chip would need to be in there somewhere, but not the the DAC chip.