Primer on dacs
- Thread starter Gregadd
- Start date
@Gregadd Here ya go:
Arguably the definitive text on the subject, although probably not what you are looking for.
IMO digital has finally gotten to that point where it really is getting sorted out. Texas Instruments makes some very competent DAC chips and Topping is using them in their very reasonably priced DACs. Just doing so seems to have raised the bar a bit (since I've heard them sound better than DACs costing a lot more and they measure well too); what I'm trying to say is that if/when digital is done right we won't be discussing differences in sound because there won't be any. Since that probably won't really happen (we're on some sort of sigmoid curve) the differences will get more and more slight. Which is good.
High Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic: Johnson, Howard, Graham, Martin: 9780133957242: Amazon.com: Books
High Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic [Johnson, Howard, Graham, Martin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. High Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic
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Arguably the definitive text on the subject, although probably not what you are looking for.
IMO digital has finally gotten to that point where it really is getting sorted out. Texas Instruments makes some very competent DAC chips and Topping is using them in their very reasonably priced DACs. Just doing so seems to have raised the bar a bit (since I've heard them sound better than DACs costing a lot more and they measure well too); what I'm trying to say is that if/when digital is done right we won't be discussing differences in sound because there won't be any. Since that probably won't really happen (we're on some sort of sigmoid curve) the differences will get more and more slight. Which is good.
What are your thoughts on impact of energy crises and excess of RF in the home and mobile environment listening occurs in?
Digital devices in general are on a trend towards meeting increasingly strict California standards for power usage in all states. BTLE is one development being embraced for numerous other uses that is awful for audio playback in every way. To me this seems the more immediate concern impacting entry/mid-fi DAC one might read a primer before buying. That and What's Best in solar power for high end impactful audio delivery without all the conditioners and purifiers.
DACs don't take a lot of power and if they are designed properly don't radiate RF either. IOW that's an engineering issue.
A very well written and clear explanation of digital can be found in Mark Waldrep's book "Music and Audio: A user guide to better sound". A google search can turn up links. You can purchase from AIX. Now, he is a cables don't really matter etc. kind of person. But the information in chapters 7 and 8 on PCM and DSD is really good. It is also interesting his take on DSD as a total marketing ploy from Sony. All of that stuff aside, if you read chapters 7 and 8 you will understand how PCM and DSD work and why DSD needs these insane sampling rates to sound good.
It is indeed a positive trend that digital audio is becoming better every year. It is also great that there is a robust competition within audio industry as the companies have to constantly improve their products and introduce more creative technologies to attract customers.
Your recent interests on the forum suggest awareness of proposals Nyquist is a simplification one needs to unlearn in order to address genius claiming to have evolved beyond.
Specifically, what two sides and what issue misled?
First of all Nyquist said at least twice per cycle. I need to correct that.
I do not what genuis you are referring to.
First of all it was not Nyquist alone and it was not invented for audio.
Have you examined the videos I posted?
Not sure what your post means. They Nyquist-Shannon theorem is very well established and mathematically proven. The sample rate needs to be 2 times the highest frequency that needs to be reproduced. Thus the 44.1KHz sample rate of a CD would faithfully reproduce frequencies of 22.05 KHz which is already above the threshold of even young humans. However, there is an interesting audio clip I heard several years ago where a piano note was played. In one recording the sample rate was such that the harmonics went well beyond 20KHz and the other a brick wall filter was put in. There was an obvious difference in sound quality.
One of the biggest issues early on with CD reproduction was Aliasing. If you want to understand more about why early digital sounded bad then I would focus on this and not sampling theory.
Everything else pointed directly back to the following discussion.
MQA, Worse than FLAC?
So this video appeared on you tube. MQA false claim to be lossles? MQA, Worse than FLAC? I am sure this is beyond my pale. It is quite an indictment of MQA and tidal appears guilty by association. That is assuming the author's facts are true and correctly interpreted. That is also dependent...
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