DAC improvements slowing down?

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

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

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 :-)

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...

Scvan - I see your point, but all I have to do is think back to my first PC with it's 16k of ram and 10 Mbyte hard drive - who could possibly want more than that :-)

Once they get quatum computers on everyone's wrist our view of the "digital audio world" will change dramitically!

Just maybe not in my lifetime :-)

Regards