Another DAC bits and Hz question

See ... I told you I am not digital wise. Stereo5 ... what is the AK chip? How does it compare to the BB chips?

Bif - the PCM1792 is not a new chip. There are newer BB chips that are better, more detailed with lower noise.

Stereo5 - the PCM1704 is a very musical chip, however the detail will always be less and the noise higher than newer technologies. However, I would not recommend to replace it with a player with AKM chips. These sound very unnatural to me. Probably due to the switched capacitor techniques. The AD and BB chips are better. Some like the Wolfson, but I am not familiar with that sound. The Sabre chips can be good, but only if used direct with I2S. If you like the 1704 like I do, then I would highly recommend getting a source with lower jitter to give more detail. 50% of your detail is being lost now because of jitter and the other 50% because of the D/A chip. A reclocker like the Synchro-Mesh can deliver this.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"Is my hypothesis reasonable? Or do the newer DACs extract the musical data better today regardless of the bits and Hz perhaps due to better re-clocking or algorithms?

I posted this question over on computeraudiophile, but I think it was the wrong location since I don't stream music or use a computer as the source."

I think you'll be able to work the digital aspect out, whatever you decide to do. In my opinion, I think the biggest mistake people are making today when buying digital products is overlooking the analog section. Just as an example, a brand that I like very much overall is Ayre. A lot of the Ayre house sound that their amps and preamps share carry over to their DAC's and CD players because of how the analog section is designed. If you took just the digital portion of one of their sources and gave it to another company to design the analog section, you would most likely have a very different sounding product.

I think your instincts are right on CA. I have no idea what those people over there are trying to do. Its just one big never ending argument.

ZD542, yes that is more along the lines of what I was thinking...older DACS with better build quality, power supplies, and components...

One of the replies to my post on CA used the whole precision/accuracy illustration to explain the importance of the number of DACs per channel. Seemed to make sense to me, and my guess is that the audiophile quality DACs of yesterday probably had at least one DAC chip per channel, even if they were only 18/44.1.

Ok ... so here's my conundrum. The BB DAC used in my redbook CDP is not cutting edge anymore -- per Steve (Audioengr). That may be true, but I cannot validate that view unless I do some serious auditioning.

Notably, the ARC Ref CD-9, which replaces my CD-8 redbook CDP, uses quad DACs in mono configuration, whatever that means. But ... the CD-9, also supports a wide array of other digital media and formats. So I do not know how much of this additional quad/mono DAC firepower is dedicated to just the redbook CD format.

Maybe my point is this. I've been consciously looking to improve the digital side of my rig. A more modern CDP may be the way to go. Dunno??

But here's "non-tweak" that took my current CDP setup to another level. The "non-tweak" is hi-def/hi-rez CDs. I picked up a couple of MoFi "gold" quality CDs to see if the quality of recording and mastering redbook CDs make a difference. IMO and IME, the answer is a unqualified ... yes!!

Out of curiosity, I may check out ARC's latest digital products to see if they can "suck more juice" out of my redbook CDs. I surmise that the answer is a little, but not a lot. Afterall, a garbage CD is still garbage by any other name. Sounds like something Shakespeare might say.

If Steve or our other digital techies can explain in plain English what the quad/mono DAC topology is all about, I'd appreciate the education. Please be kind ... I'm a tech boob. :)

Thanks