Understanding DAC's


Hey,

So I am trying to understand something about DAC's and once again it is probably due to being a novice.

Now, I understand the basic duty of a DAC, convert digital audio/signal to an analog one. I get that part, that's easy.

Initially when I first discovered DAC's (or I should say, starting paying more attention to them), my impression was besides converting to an analog signal, a DAC should be able to playback high res music. That's why I got one and I was specifically after DSD playback after I discovered there was such a thing.

So, in my mind I figured all DAC's will have this feature, to be able to decode DSD.

But as I started researching them, I discovered many high end DAC's do not do DSD duty and to me, it just doesn't make sense. They are probably already decoding upto 24/192 or higher for PCM, so why not DSD?

And secondly, these higher end DAC's that only do PCM, are they making that PCM file sound that much better then say a $1000 or lower Dac?

Here is just one random DAC, Mojo Mystique v3, it's about $7555 and as far as I can tell, no DSD capability.

Maybe it's just me. I don't see the sense in getting an expensive DAC and not having DSD Capability.

I have DSD on mine and have purchased a few DSD albums and they sound so much better then CD quality or 24/192 even.

I get that some might not care to listen to DSD but on the manufacturer side, I wonder some do not include those features.
128x128jay73
The vast majority of digital music out there is Redbook quality PCM.
High Res material above Redbook quality only make up a small sliver, and formats such as DSD and MQA make up an even smaller sliver of what is out there. That is why some manufacturers only do PCM, or choose not to support MQA.
Thanks for your input Jazzman, I guess that does make sense.

I hope more quality DSD Albums become available. 

I recently bought the album, Temptations on DSD and if I had any doubt in the capability of DSD, then this album restored it back. Sounds so good.

I can only imagine how it would sound on a system that is way above mine.
DSD recordings make up probably less than 0.1% of all music recordings out there, that’s why.

I personally have 3 DSD albums, and play only 1 regularly. There's no DSD streaming that I know of, possibly because DSD music takes a lot more data than the PCM counterparts.