My Shanling M8 has dual AKM99 dacs, and they are implemented superbly.
AKM makes the best DACs
OK, before you flame a reply to my heading please read this section.
It is a terrible idea to judge a DAC based on the chip. I don't think consumer's should ever do that. I think there is a lot that goes into a good external DAC unit and the converter chip is just one of many factors that go into the final sound.
Having said that, it turns out I tend to like the sound of DACs with AKM chips over most others. A long time ago I would have said the same about Burr Brown.
For converters which use an all in one chip what is the brand you find yourfself more likely to like the sound of vs. not?
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I have the Wyred for sound 10th anniversary dac, and it has the ESS sabre 9038 pro chip and this is one of the most analog sounding DACS that I have had in my system, one of the reviewers put it up against his VPI turntable with a $5,000 cartridge and he says this DAC was every bit as analog sounding as his turntable and I agree.
That DAC is one I'm considering down the road. I'd be curious to learn which other DACS you compared it to, as I don't do vinyl. |
@tomic601 pretty much nailed it IMO. Difficult to just judge a dac chip, the whole package matters. And I've seen atrocious power supply noise leakage from mega buck dacs which are completely inexcusable. The whole package matters and as such I don't think certain dac chips are better than others, but the AKM "velvet sound" for example do tend to target a "type" of sound, and if you are a fan of that then that'll sound good to you. similarly, a NOS dac will have sinc roll-off at the high frequency range and you can be a fan of that, or you can shift the signal by software (up-sample) to ensure the roll off doesn't happen at our listening range (which I do). Deta-Sigmas get a bad rep but I don't think a well designed d-s dac will sound bad. |
AKM have the new chip numbers now: AK4490R and AK4493S |
- 105 posts total