Current State Of Digital

[RAYSIMMONS]

Today my Cal Labs Icon cd player died....So now i need to start thinking about a new digital frontend. I'd like to get some opinions as to what sounds good(subjective i know)NOS dac,24/96,upsampling,sacd etc. What do you guys listen to? And how does it compare to vinyl?


Thanks,
Ray

[Brett]

Sony XB940 SACD
On SACD, sometimes it's in the same league as my analog. Plus I have nearly 1000x the number of LPs.

SOTA digital is such a moving target, and still not that great to my ears (what I've heard anyway), that I haven't bothered with throwing a lot of money at something I might not even be able to get spares for in a few years. I also find the difference between pvarious players, DACs and transports to be much smaller than eqivalent money spent in similar analog products.

[Jocko Homo]

Those that are can ignore this..............

Outboard DACs have jitter problems. Can be overcome. S/PDIF is dumb, but AES/EBU is much worse.

Non- o/s is a joke. But if you use lousy filter chips, and noisy clocks, it might work fine for you.

24-bits is the way to go, but you need to pay close atention to the clocks, and I think op-amps stink for I/V stages.

Resistors do work for I/Vs, but require amplification, which adds noise. And most DAC chips do not like DC on their output. Most will tolerate some, but sound better with none.

Jocko

[Peter Daniel]

Originally posted by Jocko Homo
.

Non- o/s is a joke. But if you use lousy filter chips, and noisy clocks, it might work fine for you.

You are aware that Fred was very excited about Scott Nixon non-oversampling DAC. Did you listen to it too?

[Lupulroz]

"Non o/s is a joke"
I totally disagree with that. I had many tests with/without os. The more o/s, the more "digital sound". Non-os sound closer to analog IMHO.

[Jocko Homo]

You aren't paying attention to anything I have been saying about clocks if you think o/s sounds bad.

Jocko

[Jocko Homo]

The Current State of Digital.

Not how to regress back to 1985.

Jocko

[RAYSIMMONS]

Actually i was inquiring as to what is the current state of digital play back in terms of sound quality, not technology. I am looking for opinions on what individuals like and dont like and why. Hopefully with this information and listening i can make an informed decision on the direction of my next digital front end.

Ray.

[RAYSIMMONS]

Any other opinions?

[Pedja]

Yet 1985 all CDPs were os. A bit earlier there were non-os machines, but all of them had horrible analog filters. Stacking of enormous quantity of the poles is not anything I would think about if I have plans to have a good sound. But, as always, engineers followed theories they accessed. Finally, that’s why they are paid for.

Originally posted by Jocko Homo
Those that are can ignore this..............

Can? Yes, probably, but why would we?

So I know your biases, now I’ll tell you mine.

Os can sound good, but the same level of quality (and with more music) can be achieved with ridiculously small amount of money invested to non-os. Assuming DIY. And assuming decent rest of the system.

Jocko, really, did you listen…? And wadaya say? I mean, how about the sound?

Pedja