The State of DACSES

[The Monkey]

Having been out of the game for a while, the rapid development of DAC tech (or at least the verbiage dedicated to same) appears to have accelerated even more.  I'd appreciate it if you fine folks could catch me up as to where we stand.  What is the latest and greatest tech?  What are some of the basic must-haves in a DAC today?  Which chipses tend to sound best?  And, most importantly, which ones have the prettiest lights?

[swt61]

[shellylh]

I would definitely try to find a used NAD M51. 

[Ledzepp]

I'm paying close attention to the Soekris based R2R DACs. They just announced a bunch of them. See left side column.

 

[kevin gilmore]

dac1541 is going to be the giant killer.

r2r,sign/magnitude, fully balanced, and dsd

for a price that is less than half of a yggy

 

[sorenb]

4 hours ago, swt61 said:

...well, you certainly got it plug'ed in number two ...

27 minutes ago, kevin gilmore said:

dac1541 is going to be the giant killer.

r2r,sign/magnitude, fully balanced, and dsd

for a price that is less than half of a yggy

 

how's the mafia DAC comming?

[3x0]

Based on the precedent of "progress" established by the likes of the Holo Spring and AGD Singularity 19, I'm not hopeful...

[blubliss]

1 hour ago, kevin gilmore said:

dac1541 is going to be the giant killer.

r2r,sign/magnitude, fully balanced, and dsd

for a price that is less than half of a yggy

 

what does sign/magnitude mean, i googled without much success.

[swt61]

1 hour ago, sorenb said:

...well, you certainly got it plug'ed in number two ...

I have much experience pluggin' #2. 

[The Monkey]

3 hours ago, kevin gilmore said:

dac1541 is going to be the giant killer.

r2r,sign/magnitude, fully balanced, and dsd

for a price that is less than half of a yggy

 

Interesting.  As a fan of the Electrocompaniet ECD-1, I've always been partial to that unmistakable Scandinavian sound signature.

6 hours ago, shellylh said:

I would definitely try to find a used NAD M51. 

 

Heh, right you are!  I should just get whatever DAC you had 3 years ago.  You and I have always liked the same gear.  Great minds and such...

[sbelyo]

6 hours ago, swt61 said:

Brings me back to the 70's riding in my step mom's Charger with the 8 track playing Dark side of the moon.  I miss that car

[justin]

The state of DACSES is good. They should be sentient within 2 years.

[purk]

The loaner Matrix X-Sabre Pro for the Atlanta Meet is quite good sounding too.  They did a much better job compared to the original ESS9018 X-Sabre DAC.  Definitely prefer it to the M51 and Oppo 105 that I used to have.

[Hopstretch]

5 hours ago, blubliss said:

what does sign/magnitude mean, i googled without much success.

See page 6 below.

PCM1704.pdf

Edited May 5, 2017 by Hopstretch

[swt61]

9 hours ago, sbelyo said:

Brings me back to the 70's riding in my step mom's Charger with the 8 track playing Dark side of the moon.  I miss that car

A big memory of mine was driving my '72 Duster. I'd just bought Rod Stewart's "A Night on the Town" 8 track, and I was astonished to find a song about a gay guy. It was of course "The Killing of Georgie", and I must have played it back to back 20 times that night.

As bad as the 8 track sounded, most younger people don't understand what a revolution it was to control what music you listened to in your car. Very similar to the Walkman in terms of breakthroughs.

16 hours ago, The Monkey said:

Having been out of the game for a while, the rapid development of DAC tech (or at least the verbiage dedicated to same) appears to have accelerated even more.  I'd appreciate it if you fine folks could catch me up as to where we stand.  What is the latest and greatest tech?  What are some of the basic must-haves in a DAC today?  Which chipses tend to sound best?  And, most importantly, which ones have the prettiest lights?

In the same vein, I'd be interested to know about streaming music. Are there large libraries of music one can subscribe to, and play what they want? Kind of like a giant Netflix for music? Or do you still have to purchase your own library. Obviously Hi Rez options are preferred.

[EdipisReks1]

Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal (I know Shelly is a fan of that one).  I don't know if any are high-resolution, but Tidal is lossless, I believe. 

Edited May 5, 2017 by EdipisReks1

[Whitigir]

I have Amazon Music, but they only offer MP3  damn it.  Btw, is there such thing as DAC with R2R and Tube stages ?

Edited May 5, 2017 by Whitigir

[MLA]

If you have (or can get hold of) a british IP-address when signing up: http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription

Great for jazz and classical.

 

Edited May 5, 2017 by MLA

[joehpj]

38 minutes ago, Whitigir said:

  Btw, is there such thing as DAC with R2R and Tube stages ?

Lampizator......... Errr....no

[MexicanDragon]

Steve, I have a family membership with Tidal which lets people after the first get a discount. PM me if you want to talk about it.

Tidal does "Masters" which are MQA, and have been determined to be, at least in some/many cases, the same tracks as one of the hi-fi download shops. @TMoney, you were telling me that, right?

**BRENT**

[Grahame]

Steve, this may be relevant
https://gizmodo.com/streaming-music-services-from-most-screwed-to-least-sc-1793612699

[Pars]

I have Amazon Music, but they only offer MP3 [emoji20] damn it.  Btw, is there such thing as DAC with R2R and Tube stages ?

Someone with more knowledge than I please correct me, but for a current-out DAC, tubes aren't a good choice for an I/V converter as these expect very low input impedance (0 ohms, i.e. dead short preferably). Most of the tube stages you see are resistor I/V with the tube stage just being a buffer and maybe some gain. The SRPP tube stages that are bandied about are a very poor choice, but Doug or Kevin could give better advice.


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[kevin gilmore]

so i have a big problem with the morons that charge stupid money to add a tube buffer to a solid state output stage. modwright instruments, and lampizator for example.

you start with something that has a 200 ohm output impedance, and by the time you are done with the cathode follower, its a 1.5 k output impedance, or in the case of the lampizator something like a 3k or more output impedance. its stupid and counterproductive. but hey there are these glowing things sticking out the top.

you can't make a decent i/v converter with tubes without 6 triodes per channel. and even then, solid state is far better.  r2r is a voltage output anyway, not a current output

[dsavitsk]

---------^ That.

Tubes are excellent as voltage amplifiers, but they are high impedance devices. For a medium amount of gain, they are about the most linear option available. But a DAC doesn't need the gain, and the impedance is a hindrance.

[Pars]

It seems that most who want a tube output DAC are not looking for the most linear stage they can get, but instead are looking for the "tube sound" in an attempt to quell the digital nasties

 

Kevin: I guess I hadn't looked closely at soekeris (sp?) and other more recent r2r DACS to note that they are V out. Older r2r DAC chips (TDA1541A, PCM63, etc. were usually I out. The 1541 seems to be a frequent target for lampizator, etc.

 

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