dac chip vs analog stage as to sonic impact

05-25-06: Eldartford
Tvad...Checking the APL website I notice that the DACs which they use for the update are AKM. That's what I have in my Behringer DAC2496 which may be why it sounds good.

APL previously used Crystal DACs, which sounded excellent. The AKM DACs Alex uses are the top-of-the-line offerings from AKM, and they do indeed sound superb.

I am not aware of any other moddders who change DACs, but I could be mistaken.

The DAC swap performed by APL is one of the primary reasons Alex's mods sound so good...IMO, FWIW, YMMV...

Since APL appears to be the only modder that changes the DAC in a commercial player, perhaps one should view Alex Paychev's crediting 70% of total improvement to a DAC swap as relevant strictly to his own shop's choice of CDP and chosen regime of modifications. Certainly some DACs are better than others, but the gestalt of modded machine is a combination of many factors-- starting with a decent mule player. Allen Wright chose the SCD-1/777ES as its base platform because its transport & DAC sound great with a drop-in replacement analog stage & other mods. A Modwright 777ES with std. DAC is the player of choice in a cost-no-object Magico system recently reviewed by John Atkinson. Zanden builds a superlative DAC around an old Philips TDA-1541 chip. I've built a battery powered SCD-1 around the player's std. DAC; the sound of improved player barely ressembles the sound of the stock Sony. The improvement I gained is due about 30% to the replacement analog stage, 30% to transport mods, and 40% to power mods. So this question is likely reductio ad absurdum...

Dave

gentlemen:

my main concern is the possibility that a tube sensitive analog stage may be able to improve the over all sound of a cd player or d/a when the dac hip is of dubious sound quality.

i guess only experimentation will answer this questions.

Reference Audio Modifications (RAM) does a mod to the Behringer DEQ2496 where they use transformers connected directly to the AKM DACs, thereby eliminating all the analog circuitry. They say this is their top of the line mod, and it costs accordingly.