NOS DAC or CDP?

Clio09,

Thanks for the "heads up" about pairing a NOS DAC with the Monarchy DIP. Sounds like an affordable way of dealing with a possibe jitter issue. Also I'll do some more research on the Valab DAC. I read a few things about it, and most of it positive. Btw, do they have a distributor in the United States?

I don't do anything about jitter. Maybe that is because I am using a NOS DAC. From what I have heard, OS DACs do need jitter control, because the digital filter introduces phase instabilities. On my system OS DACs sound horribly contrived, not like real music at all.

I still am a big fan of NOS DACs even though I'm not using one right now. I don't agree with everything Muralman said about OS DACs, because again a lot is based on design. In my case my transport is slaved to my OS DAC so jitter is not really an issue.

I do agree that NOS DACs have a very organic or natural sound to them. Closest thing to analog IMO, but again if the design is done right. Audio Note and 47 Labs make some very nice NOS DACs, but they are out of the OPs budget.

From what I have heard, OS DACs do need jitter control, because the digital filter introduces phase instabilities.

Jitter comes from the digital interface connection between transport and your DAC. It is a universal problem that affects all DAC's, DSP's etc. It is unavoidable. Some DAC's use techniques to decouple the clock signal coming across on the digital interface => this can completely remove interface jitter in a good implementation such as the DAC1. (Of course the clock in the DAC itself will have some jitter itself - there is no "perfect" clock - however this internal jitter should be orders of magnitude less than what you get from any digital interface)

Phase issues occur when using brick wall filters in non-OS DAC's. The idea of an OS type DAC is to avoid the use of steep brick wall filters and the phase errors they inherently bring into the audible range.

Some people will prefer a more jittery sound - it will give more harshness and edge to the music and can help make laid back equipment sound more dynamic, exciting and revealing. (Remember that modern CD's are mostly hyper compressed to give a harsh edgy sound and some people prefer this - jitter is similar in the way it can affect the HF)

Cleaneduphippy - I'm sorry for sounding condescending. It is fuzzy issue with transport being adequate or not since it is difficult to spend over $5k for the transport or even get the loaner to listen at home. In addition differences might become more obvious only when other system elements improve in future.

Optical has much (about twice) higher jitter than coaxial and since you don't have coaxial output I thought it might be better to get jitter rejecting DAC.

Clio09 suggestion to buy Monarchy DIP is excellent one. It will solve your problem of optical only output since suppression on optical of Monarchy DIP is much higher than on coaxial and ends up with even lower jitter. Read this: http://www.monarchyaudio.com/DIP4.htm

Muralman1 - jitter produces sidebands at very low levels, (around -80dB with average transport) that are still quite audible since not related to root frequency. In music it is just noise in the background. Jitter is formed in D/A conversion and filtering has nothing to do with it. It is possible that you have good transport to start with. It would be very interesting to try this Monarchy DIP on high resolution system like yours. On my system switch from good CDP to Benchmark gave me incredible clarity and transparency. It also revealed deficiencies of my system like harsh sounding tweeters or thin sounding speaker cable.