RE: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips?

Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

Posted by John Elison (A) on January 31, 2017 at 20:13:06

In Reply to: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? posted by dave789 on January 31, 2017 at 06:03:21:

No! A DAC has no capability to correct a source signal that has been clipped. There is no such thing as headroom in a DAC.

On the other hand, there might very well be such a thing as headroom in the digital meters of a digital recorder, but this has nothing to do with its internal ADC or a playback DAC. It just means the meters are set to show full-scale zero-dB when the input signal is still 3.5-dB below actual full-scale zero-DB in order to give the recording engineer 3.5-dB headroom before clipping. However, nothing can be done on the playback end to correct for a clipped source recording.

Best regards,
John Elison

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? - dave789 06:03:21 01/31/17 (15)

RE: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? - Thorsten 21:18:31 01/31/17 (3)

RE: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? - Mr_Steady 06:33:44 02/01/17 (2)

+2 (nt) - 13th Duke of Wymbourne 12:18:42 02/01/17 (1)

RE: +3 nt - jusbe 22:41:28 02/02/17 (0)

RE: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? - John Elison 20:13:06 01/31/17 (0)

RE: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? - Roseval 11:57:48 01/31/17 (0)

RE: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? - knewton 07:31:30 01/31/17 (8)

RE: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? - dave789 10:15:36 01/31/17 (7)

So, you "bought" what they say........ - Ric Schultz 11:43:04 01/31/17 (6)

RE: Unfortunately ... - slider 11:53:38 01/31/17 (5)

I have never measured a CD that has peaks beyond 0db.....but - Ric Schultz 14:10:15 01/31/17 (4)

RE: I have never measured a CD that has peaks beyond 0db.....but - knewton 19:35:39 01/31/17 (0)

RE: I have never measured a CD that has peaks beyond 0db.....but - slider 14:26:04 01/31/17 (2)

There is hype and there is reality......... - Ric Schultz 20:41:33 01/31/17 (1)

RE: OK - slider 08:27:32 02/01/17 (0)

Follow Ups

RE: 3.5dB headroom in off the shelf DAC chips? - John Elison 20:13:06 01/31/17 (0)

Post a Message!