Channel Islands Audio Experience

Hi Viggen. A related question for the audiophilia is: How many of you have used (or found the need for) an upstream anti-jitter device on the CI DAC? I'm getting mixed messages about what this DAC does. I've been told it does reclocking. Wouldn't that take care of jitter problems?

Hey Peter,

This is what I found on the stereotimes.com review of VDA-1 regarind "what this DAC does" regarding reclocking.

"Once you've selected optical or RF in, the unit will accept up to a 24-bit word at 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96 kHz. The signal is then fed into a Burr-Brown DIR1701 low jitter input receiver. The heart of the system is the Burr-Brown PCM1716 digital to analog converter."

In other words, the VDA-1 does not have a clock that times the transmission of bits from trans to dac.

Also, I do own the Meridian 518 de-jitter/digital remaster/preamp. The VDA-1 sounds more natural without the 518 in the chain. The 518 has the option of either emphasis or deemphasis. With deemphsis, the sound is muffled. With emphasis on, the human voice becomes very very real. However, everything else becomes thin and cibilant.

In previous systems, the 518 adds a bit of smoothness and deeper bass when it is in the chain. However, that is only with deemphasis. I've never been able to use the emphasis function with any other dac since none of my previous dacs had over 20bit resolution. And, the 518 instruction says you need atleast 18bit resolution for the remastering functions to work.

So, in a long about way, the VDA-1 does not reclock or dejitter, and it sounds better without a dejitter in the chain in my system.