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Is it worthwhile to upgrade an old but quality DAC?

I am most interest to seek advice from DAC experts about potentially upgrading an old DAC. I have an old but excellent DAC, Altis Reference. It provides decent sound when connecting to CEC TL0 Transport. When comparing to streaming same music or song using Oppo 105  ( accessing  Tidal Master level file using Oppo which connects to Altis), my CD  provides better quality (both set ups uses decent interconnecting cables). Since Altis DAC can only transmit CD quality resolution 44KHz, I wonder if it can be upgraded to accept higher resolution from streaming (assuming the cost of upgrading is  reasonable  comparing to  buying a new DAC with similar quality sound ). If so, any recommendation of who can do such upgrade? Thank you very much for your advice.


moses189

Showing 1 response by headphonedreams

headphonedreams
522 posts
 
You could add a reclocker in front of the dac. This might improve the sound. It won't give you 24/96 support. 

It is basically impossible to upgrade an old dac to high bit rate unless the manufacturer says they can do it. Some expensive dacs has the dac chip on a small board the could  be swapped. 

Might be better to buy a new dac.
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