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Older is better - D/A chip?

I had three audio nuts over my house yesterday for a component shoot out. I have a highly modded Jolida JD100 tube cd player with Mullard tubes. We then swapped in an old Magnavox player running a TDA1540 chip. This player has been recapped, extensively modded, and the oversampling processor removed. Well, we were all blown away. It was clearly more open, detailed......had more decay versus my Jolida or a Sony 5400. I just assumed the more current chip sets would sound better. What an eye opener.
pdspecl
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Elberoth - the Metrum Octave is a great piece. Many of my customers have one, but they also tell me that many of them cannot playback 176.4 or 192. Does yours?

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
ngjockey
1,042 posts
 
Some of the newer DACs have addressed the pre/post-ringing in the impulse response with minimum phase and apodizing filters. Ayre, with the Wolfram chip, documents that well. SACD also got that much improved. Another star goes to the dithered digital volume control of Audiolab, Amarra and probably others, which often depend on upsampling.

Helped play around with DIY NOS DACs (stacking was the trend back then) with friends and while many people that listened thought it was better, I thought it was "romantic" sounding and less than honest although it was impossible to explain how. Haven't heard much of the commercial NOS products.
elberoth2's avatar
elberoth2
1,219 posts
 
Yes, I'm the lucky one - mine does 192kHz, no problem. Waiting for the HEX now.
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