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In Reply to: RE: Schiit's spin posted by morricab on November 21, 2016 at 06:41:39
This highlights some of the issues of a discrete, or a hybrid discrete, DAC approach. That industrial IC DAC utilized for the lower 12bits undoubtedly required hand trimmed gain scaling so to linearly match the upper 4bits. Otherwise, there would be a significant discontinuity (producing distortion) every time the signal crossed the -24dBFS level.
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Ken Newton
Edits: 11/21/16Follow Ups:
Hi Ken,
It was the first 8 bits discrete and the last 12 IC. There was also a significant amount of supporting cicuits for deglitching etc. measurements were SOTA at that time.
Hi, morricab,Yup, the Ultra Analog DAC modules were widely regarded as state of the art at the time. However, as for every industry, the IC industry is largely driven by pressure for cost reduction. That drove the release of full resolution 20bit and 24bit DAC ICs, such as the PCM1702, AD1862 and PCM1704 over discrete or hybrid DAC modules. Cost later drove the wide scale transistion to sigma-delta DAC technology that rules today.
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Ken Newton
Edits: 11/21/16
Have you ever heard one of the old Accuphase DACs that were discrete? First they had a discrete 16 bit one and later I think a 20bit discrete DAC. Interesting that was one of the first really high end approaches and now it comes back again...kind of like tubes...and SET in particular :)
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
I have my eyes on a DC-81L, which is discrete 20bit.
with the matching DP-90 transport. Lots of PCM63s!
I guess most examples of these will be 100V, meaning step-downs and so on, but it would be lovely to find either an 81 or a 91 and renovate/revitalise them.
Big J
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
Yeah one of those would be nice!!
I am looking seriously now at the Aries Cerat Kassandra II DAC. It is using 16 AD1865N per channel with a tube/transformer coupled analog stage. 70KG of DAC!! Enormous power supply for max stability on the tube stage.
I never had opportunity to hear one of those Accuphase DACs.
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Ken Newton
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