When is a DAC too old? Have they peaked for a while?

The number of excellent sounding recordings has no correlation to DAC quality.

 

The type of DAC used in a recording studio has no correlation to DAC quality.

 

If you try and keep up with Jones's in the audio world...you'll go broke, unless money is not an issue.

I've owned two outboard DAC's the past couple years--HRT iStreamer and now a DacMagic. All are only used for my computer music. My Pioneer Elite DV 58AV sounds better than both those DACs. And for 2 Channel it sounds better than my Oppo 93, which I sold after comparing the two.

I'm learning...it's just up to you what sounds good. After trials and errors I have a system that most people would not even consider mid-Fi...but sounds excellent to me.

 

In my opinion, a DAC is too old if it can't handle all of the formats currently in use (24bit/96kHz-192kHz and 2.8MHz-5.6MHz DSD).

 

I was thinking that a DAC has +/- 5 year life span.

 

Unfortunately, that covers 99% of the market for stand-alone DACs, since only the Mytek can handle DSD, but not over HDMI. So no possibility to connect a SACD player with HDMI output.

Mark Levinson announced a DSD/PCM DAC with HDMI input for the end of the year.

 

Not true, the new USB DACs from Chord, Fostex, dCS, EmmLabs, Playback Designs can do DSD as well. And more are on the way...

 

Unfortunately the only way to get Blu Ray, DSD and DVD-A off of a spinning disc is via HDMI.
I do have a Denon receiver and blu ray player that are connected via Denon link IV that seems to work well but I am not convinced the DACs in the Denon are truly up to snuff.

 

Then you are saying we are wasting all our money?
I'm not saying they are the expert, but don't they control majority of the content we listen to? You can have a film picture taken in black and white. In post processing, you can colorize, sharpen, etc...at the core, however, you still have a B&W picture. And the real quality of that photo lies in the original negative. Unless there is data hidden somewhere that current technology cannot read.

 

Is this tongue in cheek? Or
you might be trying to show off technical chops on this one. Thats fine. I just had an original simple question. I would think the quality of the dec has a lot to do with the recording process. When the sound travels thru mic preamp onto Protools, cedar, Radar, etc, there has to be a conversion to digital. If you recorded a lo-fi album on a cassette deck, your ultra high end system can only reproduce up to the quality of the original recording. Now if you are talking about adding color (warm, tone,bright, etc), that is a whole different story. The system is "adding something".

 

May I ask which one do you own (if any)?

 

The Bel Canto 2.5 or 3.5 looks like a winner for when I order The Decware tori. The 2.5 should be sufficient since it does not have analog input. The Torii has 2 inputs. I can use one for the DAC, apple tv, blue ray, cable box and the other for sacd. Then again, if I ever go H/T the 3.5's analog input would be nice for sacd the L/R pre out could go to input #2 on the Tori

 

I remember way back in the mid-nineties how a t.c. electronics M 2000 reverb box had the best sounding d/a I heard up to that time. Wonder if anyone else has heard t.c. electronics products? Have to say that I'm on board for Moore's Law—the computational improvements on both sides [for a/d converters in particular] moves the playing field. While there's no substitute for good analog circuits in D/A converters, a d/a that can do oversampling and play back high-rez files and also has really good analog stages has to sound better than a 16/44 only converter.

 

I'm planning to get the Fostex HP-A8C but I don't want to rush my purchase as interesting new DSD DACs show up each month

 

I agree with you. Of course, for some of us that can mean 16bit/44.1kHz. Ideally, though, I'd like any new DAC I bought to handle at least 24bit/192kHz. I also was not aware that DSD could go through an external DAC, one reason I never got close to the format.

 

I don't think this heaphone amp/DAC supports 5.6Mbps DSD though (according to AK4399 chip specs), so are you getting an outdated one then (from your own perspective)?

 

What do you do with DSD support?

There are currently hardly any DSD downloads available, so from a music consumer point of view, it's still irrelevant. DSD support through USB may however be interesting for people who play their own DSD recordings/transfers.

DSD support will become relevant for audiophiles when combined with HDMI inputs in the DAC, because an inexpensive SACD player (Sony Blu-ray player or Oppo) can be connected to a high quality DAC to play SACDs without PCM conversion. One DAC will handle all file and disc playback.

 

I agree with Claude. No DSD to speak of and there is a probability that this will NOT get record company support, in which case it will be dead in the water.

 

or +7000 SACD rips

 

The HP-A8C won't be the end of my journey into the world of super computer audio

 

^ What's up with previous bold statement?

 

And how many DSD128 rips?

 

I have a TC Konnekt 8 firewire interface which I use for recording vinyl and to feed my DAC from a Mac and from DVD player.

It's anti-jitter interface is licensed by Weiss for their highly regarded top of the line stuff.

It's pretty transparent but I've never had a high end ADC to compare with.

 

That depends on how many DSD128 LP rips one has.

 

^ I guess this number is pretty close to 0