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High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.

Something that came as a surprise to me is how good DAC's have gotten over the past 5-10 years.

Before then, there was a consistent, marked improvement going from Redbook (44.1/16) to 96/24 or higher.

The modern DAC, the best of them, no longer do this. The Redbook playback is so good high resolution is almost not needed. Anyone else notice this?
erik_squires
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cleeds
2,065 posts
 
assetmgrsc
... I am old enough to remember that Phillips invented digital audio ...
Denon was recording digital audio back the the '70s, years before Phillips.
phantom_av
27 posts
 
I agree Digital has improved so much and is constantly improving. Gone are those days paying 50K for a DCS or MSB DAC to attain sonic nirvana, Dacs priced modestly under 20Ks are leading the game.
mzkmxcv
558 posts
 
@phantom_av 
 
Even $400 and below are now transparent. Well, the caveat is transparent when masked with music, like THD at 10kHz needs to be like -40dB to be audible, but even -50dB would be audible when using a sine wave. 
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
4,966 posts
 
Apparently nearly 2500 requests for just 300 units......

Yes, it reached it's 300 orders very quick, a mate bought 3 of them, they were supposed to be delivered this month but got delayed a month. They look to be the bargain of the century.

Cheers George 
bri14mac
6 posts
 


The Benchmark DAC3 L and Chord Qutest are both more transparent. Now, you may not like hearing what your music sounds like, you may want distortion or coloration, in that case I would look at tube DACs or some poor measuring DACs from Audio-GD or similar. But if you want to hear the music as recorded, the DAC3 L and Qutest are the best for the ~$2000 price range.
nickecb, i agree with mzkmxcv on these two DACs on my short list as well -- so are the Mytek Brooklyn and iFi Audio Pro iDSD.  Depending on unit/config some are slightly above the $2k range but probably still worth a listen.
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