A question on some older CD players and the Ultra Analog DAC used in them


A couple of the best sounds I had in my system were from a Wadia and a Classe CD players that were using an Ultra Analog DAC.

Is/are Ultra Analog still in business? It would seem that in digital playback the digital to analog conversion is a first step down the road of music to listen to from a digital source. Is/are there any competition in the DAC chip part of the business? As most of us know, competition is a major key to better products in nearly every consumer field. Thanks, J   ,

 the chip may be the    Ultra Analog 20400 r2r DAC, but I am not sure about the DAC/chip number. 
whatjd
Be very, very careful it can become a pretty paperweight very fast !
My brothers 20 bit version can only be used as a preamp, or drive.
My 24 bit version has had 3 out of 4 dac chips changed already, and they are really hard to get now.
Those Ultra Analog dacs where also used in first generation Krell KPS 25 cd players, and almost all went bad. Later Krell started using BurrBrown 1704 24 bit dacs, that also gets killed by the excessive heat inside these machines none  of those dacs are available any more.
IIRC, it was trimmed/balanced ADs but I can no longer recall the exact ones.  If I get to my archives, it might be there.

This is what was inside, but it said the dac chip has it's ID sanded off.
Could have been paralleled PCM56 or 63's or AD ones from that era.
http://audiogo.ru/spisok-dakov-na-ultraanalog-20400/

Cheers George
 

IIRC, the UA DACs were modules based on Analog Devices DAC chips.

As for competition in the DAC market, there was then and there is now.