DAC improvements slowing down?

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

are recent advances in jitter reduction really an improvement over my old genesis digital lens? (limited to 16/44)?

Wille,

I suppose so, but I suspect the limit in sound will come from the speakers. The information being fed into the speakers will be much better than that coming from the electronics side.
The next big improvement in digital audio will come from really hi-end DSPs with software that will have potentially infinite band EQ's with both frequency, phase and SPL adjustment. That will be allowed because of the advances in computers. The DAC will just be part of that. In the future all music will be stored digitally (which is really is now).