2. digital
  3. 1417757498

DAC improvements slowing down?

24/192 optical in
24/96 USB

It seems like those two figures would be the highest values most supposedly audiophiles need to have capable.

Beyond that how are DACs going to be a game changer? Most sources are regular CDs and streaming audio, no SACD for 99% of us supposedly audiophiles.

I read that people recommend using an external DAC as the technology is constantly improving but have we hit the point of diminishing returns or is there a good argument for using an External DAC still?
dinmax82
lewinskih01
909 posts
 
I think along the lines of what Mapman said, given my limited experience. My music coming from a PC, when I moved from a previous configuration to having an Audiophilleo in the chain there was a very noticeable improvement. I recently tried an exaSound e22 that has femto clock and it didn't sound better than the Audiophilleo plus Metrum Octave.

Obviously, several factors at play here, not simply jitter, but I was expecting a big impact from the femto clock. Just didn't happen for me.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Lew - I tried a Femtoclock and even designed a module for it with regulators etc. It didn't measure any better than my previous clock module. It may have lower jitter at 20MHz, but this is not important with audio.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
williewonka
3,075 posts
 
I own a Schiit Bifrost - had it over a year now. It is 24/192 across all inputs

They just came out with an upgrade to the USB which blew my socks off - such a huge improvement.

Will things keep getting g better - I believe so if this latest upgrade is anything to go by.

The Gungnir is even better.

What will happen is the cost of the better technology will come down.

Regards
williewonka
3,075 posts
 
Come to think on it - I guess 30 years ago you could have asked the same about Turntables.

Turntable improvements/upgrades/tweaks are more prevalent now than at any time in the past.

Same thing will probably happen to DAC's.

One can live in hope :-)
scvan
99 posts
 
Come to think on it - I guess 30 years ago you could have asked the same about Turntables.

Turntable improvements/upgrades/tweaks are more prevalent now than at any time in the past.

I'm not so sure about that... A SME arm, koetsu cart, and an old garrard 301 table would pretty much be a table that can take on many modern top line tables.

The improvement in sound quality will most likely not come from DAC chips. The chips will get smaller and more efficient, but who needs 1024khz/64bit sound, it probably won't happen. The conversion by the chip is pretty set science. However, having said that, improvements will come from the handling of the analog signal and amplification of it after the chip. The old PSU/CAP/linear amp discussion...
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