Upsampling DACs

Ok, thanks. I appreciate your comments here. :D

Dave_72,
as you already know that, in audio, price of a component has nothing to do with its performance. Case in point - the very 1st post in this thread by Ketcham.

If you have a lot of discretionary income (like some people replying in this thread) you can sure look at the Vitus & the Aesthetix & the other high-priced brands.

One upsampling DAC that is getting a lot of praise these days is the Chord Hugo. The Chord Qute is a very good DAC - I've heard it at my friend's place & a close family member owns the Chord DAC64 (also a fantastic DAC).
Another choice is the Lavry DA11 ($1400) & the less expensive Lavry Blue DA824. The Lavry DACs can upto 96KHz.

I answered your question but what I really wanted to ask you was: why do want an upsampling DAC?

Yes, that is true. Well, digital is secondary to me, and LPs are king of my listening room. So, I'd rather not spend too much money on it. However, I'm looking for better sound than my stand alone cd player can provide. Which is why I inquired about the TEAC unit. Because to me, at $850, the price is right.

Ok, thanks for the recommendations. Much appreciated.

I want an upsampling DAC because from what I've heard it sounds better...

BY upsampling, I take it the OP means SELECTABLE upsampling?

If so, only the Allnic, Nagra and the Sony HAP-Z come radily to mind. The Hugo by definition upsamples all to 2048fs PCM, BUT it is NOT defeatable. Many Dacs upsample all signals to a chosen processing sweetspot like the Directstream, PBD and EMM.

Many others prefer to let software do it on the fly offline, like BADA, Lampi, iFi, Phasure NOS1, and Exasound.. who specialize in native playback or pick a certain sweetspot and the user forces input to that sweet trate.

I cant recall exactly what the Signalist Dac does...

Ketcham, where are you located?

want an upsampling DAC because from what I've heard it sounds better...
Dave_72

not a very good reply, Dave_72 - shows herd mentality.
"sounding better" is a relative term, as you already know. Are the people recommending an upsampling DAC friends of yours? Do you know these people? In that do they have similar music tastes as you do? If yes, then, you can more believe what they are saying. If no, they are just some people recommending electronics based on what they feel & hear in their system or other people's system. Those recommendations have zero reference to you because they are largely strangers to you. Something to remember in your quest for an upsampling DAC......

An upsampling DAC is, when you boil it right down, a sophisticated digital filter. Every company making an upsampling DAC has its own flavour of this digital filter. In process of upsampling, the digital data gets stuffed with extra zeros/logic0 (digital data is a logic1/logic0 stream, as you know) at the higher sampling rate. Zeros have to be stuffed because you cannot create new data.

For example: say, you are sampling at 48KHz & you have a data stream that looks like 1, 1, 1, 1 occurring once every 1/48KHz seconds. Now you want to upsample this data stream i.e. increase the clock rate to, say, 192KHz. I.E. you want to increase the data rate 4X.
Well, the original data has a data rate of 48KHz & so new data occurs every 1/48KHz seconds. How can you make new data occur every 1/192KHz seconds i.e. 4X faster? How can you create new data 4X faster in a data stream that has 48KHz rate? The answer is you can stuff the original data with zeros in between the original data. So, the new data will look like: 1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1.
Now when you read each bit of data (be it 0 or 1) you will have to run your clock 4X faster i.e. at 192KHz. But the 0 is of your making & 1 existed in the original music stream.
Can you imagine listening to this zero stuffed data stream? it's going to sound horrible. So, you have to smooth it out so that when you look at the average of the waveform the newly inserted zeros will meld into the original music. This smoothing function is the digital filter & there are many, many algorithms to smooth the zero-stuffed data stream. Each of these sophisticated algorithms has a sonic signature of its own - some you will like & others you will not.
So, when you say upsampling DACs sound better, it's anybody's guess what better means to you. Hopefully better means the same thing to you as the people who recommended upsampling DACs to you! Otherwise, you could be a very unhappy listener - spent your hard-earned money & still not happy with the sonics....
See, if you can get a home audition or a 14-day/30-day money back.