Generally speaking DAC chips have "evolved" over the last ten years but mostly to make them less expensive and easier to use. I sold both Crystal Semiconductor and Burr Brown for a lot of years. The Burr Brown PCM63K (military grade) was an awesome DAC but was expensive ($50) and required a POT and other circuitry to tweak it. Burr Brown did not have a volume consumer-market mentality, they were a bunch of very talented analog designers with a quality-first and cost-be-damned approach to things. That all changed when Texas Instruments purchased Burr Brown for $8 billion roughly five years ago. TI was a volume manufacturer with very good digital designers (their TMS32x DSP's are the most widely used in the world) but they lacked analog expertise, it made sense to acquire Burr Brown (although the price tag is still bewildering to me).
TI knew that in order to compete effectively with Crystal Semiconductor they would have to make devices that were less expensive and required no additional supporting circuits to allow for a much simpler end-customer design. The key motivator was getting design-ins on true consumer electronics to drive significant manufacturing volumes. Economies of scale allow for agressive average selling prices while maintaining a healthy margin. DVD players and the like have driven DAC design for the most part. Simpler/more elegant design techniques coupled with more advanced semiconductor processes, such as 130nm or the newer 90nm, and 12" wafers have driven costs down big time.
Has this made today's DAC's better than the more esoteric monolithic chips of years back? I'd have to say that it has and it's also made good digital gear very affordable. Need a CDP for a bedroom or office system? Pick up a decent DVD player for under $150 and you're off to the races. Jeff
TI knew that in order to compete effectively with Crystal Semiconductor they would have to make devices that were less expensive and required no additional supporting circuits to allow for a much simpler end-customer design. The key motivator was getting design-ins on true consumer electronics to drive significant manufacturing volumes. Economies of scale allow for agressive average selling prices while maintaining a healthy margin. DVD players and the like have driven DAC design for the most part. Simpler/more elegant design techniques coupled with more advanced semiconductor processes, such as 130nm or the newer 90nm, and 12" wafers have driven costs down big time.
Has this made today's DAC's better than the more esoteric monolithic chips of years back? I'd have to say that it has and it's also made good digital gear very affordable. Need a CDP for a bedroom or office system? Pick up a decent DVD player for under $150 and you're off to the races. Jeff