New vs. old DACs - opinions?

On Benchmark forum people tried DAC1 with different transports and only few stated that they noticed faint difference (placebo effect?).

My point was to try first, before buying expensive transport and feeling stupid afterward when cheap DVD performs alike.

I read manufacturer description of your DAC. It states 16x and not 4x but it specifically says that it does not reclock (asynchronous upsampling). Without reclocking there is no jitter rejection and DAC is sensitive to jitter/transport. Upsampling by definition uses non-integer oversampling rates while simple oversampling (usually done by PLL) is always integer. So if it states 2x, 4x, 8x 16x oversampling be assure it is not jitter rejecting DAC (as stated on MSB website). Benchmark has equivalent of over 1 million times oversampling.

I say my MSB Plat DAC upsamples 4x because it upsamples everything to either 176khz ($ * 44.1) or 192khz (4 * 48.1). If you include the 24 bit upsampling, I would guess that is where the other multiple comes in.

You are right about it not re-clocking the data.

However, I do know there are lesser and greater re-clockers. And I doubt the Benchmark has the best re-clocker of data out there (Ultraclock?). My OffRamp Turbo2 coming out of the computer does re-clock the data using a Superclock4 (one step below Ultraclock).

Interestingly, I would guess the biggest differences people hear with transports that do not re-clock the data better than the Benchmark is probably in the differences in the different digital cables they use. I have heard big differences in digital cables... I cannot explain why these differences occur per se... I only can observe them. I am glad I do not have to deal with that anymore. Although people have touted the differences in USB cables, and I did recently move to a more expensive USB cable (Wireworld's Ultraviolet 5), and I did get some sonic improvements.

I still think that re-clocking is not the magic bullet that can make all transports sound the same. Error correction is important as well. And that is where most transports fail when compared to a music server. Exact Audio Copy has amazing error correction in it, and this just cannot be duplicated on the fly with a traditional CD transport.

Keith

Keith - I'm sure your DAC is great sounding and I noticed that it gained Stereophile class A recommendation. It just needs good transport to show its full potential (and good digital cable).

Benchmark has such strong jitter suppression that not only the transport doesn't make any difference but also digital cable is not important. Benchmark tested DAC1 with up to 1000' of cable and they could not hear any difference. There is no other parameter than jitter that affects the sound of transport or digital cable.

Reclocking is in a sens "magic bullet" but only for the jitter and other parts of the DAC like clock, power supply analog stages etc have to be great as well. In addition not everybody likes the sound of oversampling and upsampling DACs - many prefers sound of NOS (non-oversampling) DACs.

EAC is a great program but it doesn't come in version for MAC (I recently switched).

Interestingly, I just replaced the MSB Plat dac/dig preamp with a EMM Labs DCC-2 DAC/dig preamp. Just got it yesterday. It is quite a piece.

Keith

The main thing that has inarguably improved over the past couple decades is the fabrication processes by which monolithic ICs are made - and since the overwhelming majority of audio DACs are based on monolithic products . . . the palete of resources available to the IC design engineer has changed considerably.

That being said . . . just as everything else in audio (and life in general), the success of a design is very closely connected to how the designers/engineers work to reach their goals with the resources they have available. And in the late-1980s/early-1990s, the goals of most IC designers were probably more similar those of audiophile products than they are now -- there used to be many $10-and-up "statement" mono DAC chips available, that cared nothing for power consumption or single-supply operation, and assumed that the circuit designer had no problem spending extra money on separate circuitry to do the processing/upsampling.

Nowadays, a $4 audio DAC is VERY expensive, they're all at least stereo (if not multichannel), and have some sort of oversampling or sample-rate-converter built in - making the circuit designer's job much easier, if they want "off the shelf" performance. Most of them are also much more flexible in terms of software control, and place low power consumption as a priority. Translation: these days, the perfectionist audio business has very little part in paying the bills at Texas Instruments et. al.

It's true, the chips HAVE gotten "better" . . . especially if you're paying attention to the same parameters that most IC designers have. But all circuit architectures have their stregnths and weaknesses - and they're all ultimately dependent on the designers and engineers of the final product whether the parts fulfill the promise of what the chips themselves can do.