And I think this is the biggest problem in digital audio today - that it is not at all about sound quality of music playback - but which is the latest processing chip and which decodes the greatest number of bits. I have a DAC with ESS Sabre 32/192khz that sells for $500 more than either of the TDA 1543 NOS DACs. And both of these walk all over my "modern" DAC for the business of playing back music - interestingly even on my hi res computer files FLAC and 24/192khz those recordings ALSO sound vastly better on the Redbook capable NOS DAC.
But the on paper appearance the NOS DACs are a tough sell. Audio Note is one of the biggest and financially well off makers in the industry and they basically have a cost no object resource behind them. DAC Chips are dirt cheap. In fact older ones cost more and AN wanted to use the TDA 1541 as they prefer that chip to the TDA 1543 but there was no supply and it's tough to run a business if you have to go to the recycling center to get dead machines and pull the chips from them, test them and then manage any sort of supply chain. So Audio Note bought 20,000 chips of the next best thing (TDA 1543). Ditto the even better AD 1865 chip found in all of their better machines. Their Top DACs with the AD 1865 (max 18 bits) coupled with their CD Six transport has a combined price of $245,000US. And they get those sales from the folks who wasted their time with Bricasti, MSB, TotalDac, dCS, Chord, EMM Labs, etc. Granted that's a ludicrous number no matter how good it is but CD on these machines mop the floor with SACD, Vinyl (albeit not all) and computer files. Very few people though will have the opportunity to hear CD played back on that system though much less afford it so I suppose it's a bit moot.
They have researched and designed with every chip on the market. It is a choice to go with sound quality over the easy sale of a numbers games selling the highest number of bit rate, the highest number of watts, the highest weight of the turntable.
I find it somewhat intriguing that Audio Note does so very well selling DA Converters (all but the 0.1x have no USB input) and most are 5 and 6 figures. The 0.1x has been selling for 13 years - and it will be people like me with 32/192khz ESS Sabre DACs that will be trading this sort of thing in for the NOS stone age DAC because the sound is so unquestionably superior - it's not about sound then - it will be about your bias that something with a lower number and older tech could ever be superior to the new gadget. If one can get passed that bias one might have a stereo that reproduces music properly.
Anytime companies spend a lot of time blathering about diamond tweeters, bullet proof woofer materials, the latest chip selection for the DAC and spend lots of money on shiny glossy pamphlets - it means the sound in the room isn't actually convincing.
I remember way way back when all the no nothing hack reviewers were raving about the MSB Gold DAC - the latest and greatest chip technology and a reviewer compared that to an AN Kit for like 1/2 to 1/3 the price. And it wasn't pretty - and it still isn't pretty. I auditioned the $50kUS MSB and thinking wait - the DAC 3.1X (at $9k) sounds a lot lot better - because it sounds like music. Audio Note came out with NOS R2R CD replay - and they've been selling it since 1995 at some pretty hefty and not so hefty price points. They got CD right where everyone else in the entire industry got it dead wrong. 23 years later other engineers are now running around copying the AN approach. I find it satisfying because I was ranting about this as far back as 2002 when a $3k AN CD player completely embarrassed the top of the line Meridian and LINN Sondek (yes the one for over $20k). People always complain there are no negative reviews in audio - well here is a comparison
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0200/anmeetsmsb.htm
, the venerable AMTs sure are a nice tool for evaluating DACS. Hey Mojo, it's been a while. Enjoyed reading this resurrected thread, interesting, and funny. Been away demoing various DACs myself this past year to see what could be done to make our squawk box ribbons sing a little more. I too rotated through a few demo high resolution dacs including one unnamed higher $ "top DAC" with reported "best-in-industry perfect specs" resulting in ultra clean forward PA type sound, fatiguing, not very musical or engaging IMHO. No thanks. Came to similar conclusions along with a few colleagues enjoying some custom upgraded old design NOS R2R Ladder DACs with TDA1541A chips and less than perfect specs. Smooth, engaging, and very musical. BTW: look up Argus speakers, you'll appreciate and recognize another familiar old-is-new again design coming soon. Found it while messing with different DACs. Have fun.
