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Showing results for tags 'dacs'.
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Have DACs hit the point where any competent design is pretty good given that we are on the 4th or 5th gen of DAC chip sets ? The "best sounding DAC" may be only $100 today. Can anyone who has been comparison shopping lately tell the difference ? It pains me to say it, but the SONY $35 DVD player I purchased a few years ago sounds pretty good powering my excellent quality Yamaha MX 600 amp and matching pre amp running through the same vintage Yamaha EQ with the nice florescent bouncing bars and good SN numbers. My comment to myself was and is "SONY does it again". I'm guessing that the SONY has a $5 Delta Sigma (guess) mass produced chip set. Does TI make these these? A few years ago, on the Headfi Boards, a group did a DAC bake-off Maybe 2 generations ago and found that any $500 DAC sounded pretty good, $250 if it was an EMO (Emotiva). They couldn't discern any noticeable difference. These might be today's $100 DACs with most of the cost in the housing and power supply, not to mention the cardboard box which may cost more than the DAC chip set. Engineering usually makes some improvements, and hundreds of little fixes with each generation. The mass production chip sets usually move in once the kinks are worked out; and, the custom ASICs fade away with the next set of designs. The DAC guys in Boulder Colorado use FPGA for their DAC processors so they can modify and change the software on the fly with their next set of little fixes and improvements. Might be a little faster processing than the chip sets, how fast is fast enough. Likewise, each amp represents a series of design choices and trade offs. Science, engineering, physics and art aka audio equipment. Sounds good on paper is different than sounds good. Years ago, I read a Motorcycle Bake Off article on the Superbikes All current (at the time) road-racing bike riders There were all of the technical metrics criteria; acceleration, braking, max speed, quarter mile, turns etc etc etc Japanese bikes took the top 6 or 7 slots. Ducati (F1 ? ) took I recall #7 slot. All riders were asked if they could take one bike home for free, which one would they choose ? Every rider chose the Ducati, because it was a better bike from the users point of view. The 1,2,3 finishes at many races bore this out. At 160 mph in a turn, you are betting your life on the bike in every turn. Last fall, I took a friend shopping for a pistol, his first He had a finite budget. The country store salesman in his late 20s was unusually knowledgeable. There was also the more seasoned and knowledgeable 50 something country guy. My friend and I had settled on a name brand 2nd tier import in the $500 range. I asked the 20 something salesman which one "he would bet his life on", he put the import back in the case and pulled out a slightly less expensive US made model, "this one" Any version of the Heresy, is another example of this phenomenon they sound good compared to anything for home use volumes. Every time I turn on my 1s, I remark to myself they sound great !
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Hello y’all, Im looking at the Cary DMS 500 to upgrade my Project S2 Digital and wanting to make the plunge. I just wanted to get a feel for what any of your opinions are that own this unit. Im pairing it with an Adcom 5802 750 Pre and the Cf4’s. I’ve read really great things on the DMS and haven’t really found too much negative feedback on it. Thanks so much for any and all info ~ appreciate it fellas.
