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Worlds best DAC

Went to CES this year to work on my transition to high Rez digital. I've heard many of the highly regarded players in my room or in others systems in the past. I'm actually very happy with my current cd based sound. As I listened to various DACS playing CD then high Rez, I was not bowled over. High rez was better, but only slightly so. The best (and most different) sound I heard happened to have one similarity. They were 2 non oversampling DACS with tube analog stages(Zanden and Ypsilon). These were without question the most natural sounding digital systems I heard at the show. They made CDsound miles ahead of high Rez. What gives?

PS: I understand the limitations of show auditions.
bflowers
magfan
1,583 posts
 
Give me an old TDA1541 system with 176khz oversampling, any day.
babybear's avatar
babybear
106 posts
 
Hi,
I was wondering if you had a chance while at CES to hear the CH Precision digital front end. I had the pleasure to hear this digital front end in my system at the beginning of December for a weekend. Like you, I have a good digital front end that I am happy with and I have listened to many other great digital front ends either in my room or in other systems that I a familiar with. In addition, I have a friend who has built a non oversampling dac with a tube output stage using the TDA 1541 dac chip (limited to redbook only). I would agree with you that my friends dac might have been the most natural sounding of them all until I heard the CH Precision. This is by far the best digital that I have ever heard. It is a 2 box design - with a CD/SACD transport and DAC which can also be used as a preamp. the dac has has all of the standard digital inputs as well as asychronous USB, and an ethernet card to be released in February (which they were showing at CES) to allow direct attachment to a network attached storage device. With its full solution you can play CD and SACD using its transport and also redbook and hi-rez digital files from either a computer or a NAS. I didn't get a chance to hear the Ypsilon dac so I don't know how they would compare (and that is difficult to do at CES anyways) but I think the CH Precision gear is certainly worth looking into.

Arnie
edorr
714 posts
 
The new PS Audio perfectwave DAC performs best in non- upsampling ("native") mode. The new MKII upgrade has some innovative circuitry on a new digital processing board, involving changes in the powersupplies, and replacement of CMOS switching for the gates and clocking with analog switches. It also implements new jitter reducing circuitry called NativeX. I will get my upgrade tomorrow, but the first reviews are extremely positive. Wonder how the MKII ($4,000 MSRP) would stack up against the mega bucks units mentioned here.
fiddler
581 posts
 
I have about 275 hours on the Perfect Wave DAC MKII upgrade. Don't know if it's the best in the world or not, but I suspect it can compete with anything out there on equal footing. I have never, ever heard digital this good anywhere.
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
the advantage of a tubed dac is the ability to alter the sound by changing the tube. sometimes one prefers more or less resolution, a warm sound, or other presentation. having a tube , especially in the gain stage has its benefits.
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