Mister Pig
Pigamus Maximus
I have to say I have had a long and enjoyable run with my Audio Magic Kukama DAC. It functions well, and would make someone a great component. But I have been thinking awhile about replacing it, and seeing what is possible.
I came across some info on the PS Audio Direct Stream DAC while I was searching some other stuff. It seems I have somehow slid into PS Audio appreciation, as I now have a P10 AC Regenerator, the BHK 250 Signature amp, and have ordered the BHK pre amp. I never intended this to work out this way, but its my opinion that you get a whole lot of quality sound for the money spent, and while not cheap, the gear is not at the "are you insane" price level.
But the DAC is really intruiging for a couple of reasons, such as :
*I stole all the following text from reviews so I didn't try to write it and screw up the meaning. Plus I am a lazy pig.
1: does not have a traditional DAC chip built within; instead it uses a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) which is an integrated circuit board that is programmed to serve whatever function it is commanded, including non-audio applications such as medical instruments and defence, distributed monetary systems and security systems.
2. There is no conventional analog output stage. The output of the DSD engine is fed directly into high-speed, high-voltage, high-current symmetrical video amplifiers and from there into the passive output filter. Rather than use an active output section, a balanced wideband transformer (which is part of the low-pass filter) drives either balanced or unbalanced interconnect cables.
3. All incoming data, PCM and DSD, are upsampled to 30 bits running at ten times the standard DSD rate and then back down again to double DSD for noise-shaping. The ten-times DSD sampling rate was the lowest common rate attainable through integer upsampling of 176.4 and 192kHz PCM files. An internal volume control maintains complete precision. Except for the sigma-delta modulation process itself there is no rounding; a full 50 bits are used. Consequently, there is no degradation from using the digital volume control. After the volume control, the signal is converted to DSD and downsampled to double-speed DSD (often referred to as DSD128). The double-speed DSD rate allows the low-pass filter to begin rolling off at 80kHz. A higher output rate would would have increased jitter.
I am not going to claim to understand all the subtle nuances to this design. To be honest all my digital library up until now is just 16 bit redbook. With this I will look to purchase high rez software, but really I would be a newb in this arena.
But once the BHK pre amp gets here and is integrated into the system, I think I will take a close look at buying one of these.
Cheers
Mister Pig
I came across some info on the PS Audio Direct Stream DAC while I was searching some other stuff. It seems I have somehow slid into PS Audio appreciation, as I now have a P10 AC Regenerator, the BHK 250 Signature amp, and have ordered the BHK pre amp. I never intended this to work out this way, but its my opinion that you get a whole lot of quality sound for the money spent, and while not cheap, the gear is not at the "are you insane" price level.
But the DAC is really intruiging for a couple of reasons, such as :
*I stole all the following text from reviews so I didn't try to write it and screw up the meaning. Plus I am a lazy pig.
1: does not have a traditional DAC chip built within; instead it uses a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) which is an integrated circuit board that is programmed to serve whatever function it is commanded, including non-audio applications such as medical instruments and defence, distributed monetary systems and security systems.
2. There is no conventional analog output stage. The output of the DSD engine is fed directly into high-speed, high-voltage, high-current symmetrical video amplifiers and from there into the passive output filter. Rather than use an active output section, a balanced wideband transformer (which is part of the low-pass filter) drives either balanced or unbalanced interconnect cables.
3. All incoming data, PCM and DSD, are upsampled to 30 bits running at ten times the standard DSD rate and then back down again to double DSD for noise-shaping. The ten-times DSD sampling rate was the lowest common rate attainable through integer upsampling of 176.4 and 192kHz PCM files. An internal volume control maintains complete precision. Except for the sigma-delta modulation process itself there is no rounding; a full 50 bits are used. Consequently, there is no degradation from using the digital volume control. After the volume control, the signal is converted to DSD and downsampled to double-speed DSD (often referred to as DSD128). The double-speed DSD rate allows the low-pass filter to begin rolling off at 80kHz. A higher output rate would would have increased jitter.
I am not going to claim to understand all the subtle nuances to this design. To be honest all my digital library up until now is just 16 bit redbook. With this I will look to purchase high rez software, but really I would be a newb in this arena.
But once the BHK pre amp gets here and is integrated into the system, I think I will take a close look at buying one of these.
Cheers
Mister Pig
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