When Will the DAC Singularity Be Reached?

There is a broad misunderstanding that is encouraged by the manufacturer that the Peachtree GaN1 is a "digital amp".  There is no such thing.  Inside the PT amp, there is a DAC.  My guess is it is a common chip and if you open it up you'll find all the markings polished off of it.  The GaN-FET is a different type of class D amp--an analog amp.  They have just put everything together in an integrated and marketed it as something it is not.

So no, that isn't going to make DACs obsolete, it just moved them inside.

Jerry

That wasn't my understanding of how class D works.  Yes the digital signal is being converted to an analog signal but at the amplifier section not at the input section.  A DAC converts digital to analog but a class D amp to my understanding does the same thing but with gain.  So typically a digital signal implementing a DAC converts it twice using a Class D amplifier.  Digital to analog then a ADC in the amp converts into what the Amp can read and then outputs analog.

According to PeachTree

• Coaxial S/PDIF input with native support up to 24-bit/192kHz 
• DAC-less design 

I'm not an engineer or do I play one on TV but I believe (which can easily be full of whatever is in that bucket)  That it truly is a DAC-less design.

here is a youtube reviewer who pretty much specializes in reviewing affordable dacs, reviewing one that is much more expensive

among the talking heads on yt covering hifi gear, this fellow is one of the better ones -- articulate, honest, no nonsense, relatively complete in his disclosure and approach

https://youtu.be/ncZdxm0khTg

danager

... Or will the need for DACs be simply eliminated. I predict that DACs will eventually be used only in the esoteric realm ...

Unless there’s a return to the analog era - which is extremely unlikely - there will be a need to convert digital to analog. So, no, I don’t see a future without DACs.

A DAC converts digital to analog but a class D amp to my understanding does the same thing but with gain.

Most DACs have gain. I’ve never seen a class D amp that could apply Reed-Solomon error correction or follow any of the other digital transmission protocols, unless they had a built-in DAC, of course.

@danager Don't take this personally since, as I said above, the manufacturers are encouraging this misconception.  

But physics and engineering don't support the existence of a digital amplifier. 

indeed you don't need to buy a DAC, since they have incorporated it.  They call this "DACless".  

marketing...much more believable than physics.

Wouldn't it be a great world if we could increase power by manipulating a digital file.  our hard drives would power our house. 

jerry