High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.


Something that came as a surprise to me is how good DAC's have gotten over the past 5-10 years.

Before then, there was a consistent, marked improvement going from Redbook (44.1/16) to 96/24 or higher.

The modern DAC, the best of them, no longer do this. The Redbook playback is so good high resolution is almost not needed. Anyone else notice this?
erik_squires

Showing 1 response by audioman58

Digital has made great strides ,and many dacs have custom analog output stages as well as very well designed power supplies which were often overlooked.even the digital cables have come a long way in 10 years ,bits are notjust bits.
digital noise or artifacts better know as jitter is finally much bettter understood.
there are still a lot of Audiophiles who get sucked in with the numbers game 
such as DSD which can be very good but not much for offerings.and 48/192, when in fact most digitalis in 24/96.
all the terminology about sampling,oversampling is many times a marketing ploy.
it can make a difference if designed properly  but there are so many ways to implement  a digital design .
Unless you are a digital engineer  you just have to trust your ears.
some of the best digital I ever heard was the now rare Multibit dacs like the      BB 1704 ladder dacs which were individually tested which was why they were often used in pro audio.or even The old Phillips 15 series 16 bit non oversampling  dacs ,they we're very natural sounding ,there are also great Vacuum Tube dacs that truly add
body And naturalness to recordings . You can  spend over $100 k from DCS if you have the income to afford it. I have heard several of their lower budget stuff around  $35k which was fantastic. But as Eric stated for under $2k youcan get excellent 
digital performances,and who would have thought even 5 years ago that we would have highquality streaming ? And there is still Much more to come .digital now can not only match a good turntable  but in many ways surpass them in several areas . Welcome to the future !!