upgradeable dacs

Empirical Audio Overdrive SE can be upgraded: USB interface, Master Clock for USB interface, Coupling Capacitors, separate power supply chassis and 13 internal regulators. It has already seen all of these upgraded over the last 2-3 years. Since it can drive amps directly, a transformer buffer stage is available to add-in other analog sources as well as bal-SE and SE-bal conversions.

Overdrive has been in reviewer and customer shootouts with all of the DACs mentioned, as well as Debussey, Weiss 202, PD MPD5, Emm Labs, Ayre, PWD, Metrum Hex and others.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

The technology is changing quickly. Your question is relevant. The issue is whether or not the new DACs sound better to you. The newer ESS chips sound better to some but others like the NOS DACs. Vanilla or chocolate? My advice is that you will have to experiment. Trying to keep upwiththe latest tech in DACs is fruitless. It is impossible for a manufacturer to design a DAC to accept every new chip that comes along. Can you hear the difference? I propose that the software that plays your bitstream may be more important.

What formats are we talking about here? If its just redbook, I'm not sure how much more designers are going to get out of it. Its a pretty mature format. As far as everything else goes, I wouldn't get too worked up over it. If you buy something that sounds good to you now, it should still sound good in the future, even if there are upgrades. Not only that, who's to say the upgrades will be the best sounding option? Maybe in the future, you will be able to spend $500 on something that you like better and costs less than an upgrade. Anything can happen, especially with newer technologies.

"What formats are we talking about here? If its just redbook, I'm not sure how much more designers are going to get out of it. Its a pretty mature format."

You would be surprised. I personally used to upsample all 44.1 tracks to 24/96 because the DACs I was using sounded better. I either did it with Foobar on-the-fly or later with R8Brain and Wave Editor in batch style.

Now that I have eliminated the nasties of digital filtering and minimized jitter, I have no motivation to upsample anymore. It actually sounds better 44.1. The trick is to minimize the effects of digital filtering.

These are recent advancements, so there is still a LOT of gas left in redbook IMO.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"Buying new DACs is the current audiophile scam. The proliferation of new DACs is they can be made cheap, and sold for plenty to folks who can be bamboozled into blowing money on hot air."

Rarely have I seen such a high degree of misinformation in these forums. :(