AKM makes the best DACs

I bought a DAC in late 2020 that debuted back in 2010 with an AKM DAC chip. Better than anything else overall that I’ve heard. So much so that I’ve since unhesitatingly retired all thoughts of ever looking for anything that sounds better...my own, personal endgame DAC.

I must admit that I was not expecting that from an AKM chip per se, but it was a pleasant surprise.

To be clear, I was specifically asking about ...

For converters which use an all in one chip ...

Perhaps someone should start a separate thread for DACs which use only in house electronics for the converter.

I love my Bryston DAC, which uses an AKM chip, but didn't the AKM factory burn down about a year ago?

That sounds like redesign work for audio manufacturers who have been using the previous generation of chips.

Probably not for all of them. DAC's aren't like PC CPUs which constantly need new sockets for new features.  The input streams, power supplies, and outputs are fairly consistent.  AKM would be doing itself a favor by making at least some of their  updated chips with identical footprints. 

Still, given the advances in putting more CPU/DSP capabilities on a chip I'd expect them to release some with enhance the feature set, and therefore control codes.

In non FPGA DACs, I've tended to find that AKM chips sound the most natural, but most of the AKM based DACs I've listened to tend to be more expensive than those which use ESS and Burr Brown chips so the issue of anciallary components complicates things. FPGA-based DACs are a whole other category of course.