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IMO

It would be hard for a discrete R2R DAC to outperform an R2R that has been miniaturized on a chip in terms of technical performance. The laser trimming of resistors in a chip based DAC is a precision that would be tough to match with "macro" scale resistors. I also notice that the chip based ones could handle higher clock speeds. I think a BB PCM1704 or PCM63 could acutally handle up to 16X oversampling...this translates into speeds up to 768Khz, which is far above 192, 256 or even 512Khz that everyone is talking about.

The one argument that I have heard that might account for a better sounding discrete R2R is that you can use "better" sounding resistors. This would of course would be difficult if not impossible to determine from measurements.

However, there might be something to it. Why, when the performance was very similar, was one 20-bit DAC chip preferred over others when their performance numbers were very similar? I am thinking also of the AD1862N, and the UA D20400A DACs that were the direct competitor of the PCM63PK. The UA was very good as was the BB and for some reason the AD didn't catch on. HOwever, the AD1865N did catch on and is beloved and used to this day in some very high end designs? Was it how the resistors sounded?? Doubtful but who knows for sure. Perhaps the artifacts of their operation gave the color to their sound as each had signficant differences in their architecture.

Interestingly, the first Accuphase DACs were discrete 16 bit implementations that were optically isolated...

Don't know if they sounded good but maybe they are overlooked gems today??

Personally, I still love my PCM63PK based Monarchy M24 DAC and my UA D20400 based Kinergetics DAC (now Lampizated for the output stage). Although, I have now heard the Lampizator Atlantic with a discrete R2R and that was very nice sounding indeed.

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