Dac Technology Mature?

Of all the components in a high-end audio system, IMO the DACs are the ones currently enjoying the most improvements.

Certainly, as time marches on, amps, preamps, speakers, etc. are improving, but IMO those technologies are pretty much "mature".

One thing I've come to appreciate is how much improvement a DAC exhibits with the quality of the AC power it's being fed.  The more I learn about DACs, the more I appreciate how much the timing of the bits is important to the quality of the analog signal it outputs.  I believe the better DACs will have better handling of the timing of those bits (more attention to the internal clock designs), and therefore produce better sound.

frozentundra OP 08-04-2018 11:07pm
105 posts

Gents;. And Ladies!

You are all wrong....

Then why ask for input if you could answer your own question & were not well disposed to alternate points of view? We could have all been spending our time on something more useful like reading a book or doing housework..

@ejr1953 I agree with you that dacs have greatly improved over the years, but not because of radical improvements in dac chips. More so for the reasons I eluded to earlier. Component and material quality, psu’s, upsamplers, clock accuracy, boards, tolerances etc have all improved over time, as has manufacturing equipment (incl: computers).

DAC technology will continue to improve but the big question is will our ears continue to hear the micro improvements? I know my carpenters ears will not. I'm fine with a Grant Fidelity tube dac. 
Though my friend has a Lumin D1 and I was very impressed. 

MickeyB;

Good Point
I know my ears will not keep up.

A bunch of interesting points in the discussions

jeff