Im interested in a Seperate DACs for some of my CD players..... I currently have a Philips CD-60 and love the TDA1541A sound..... My question is this, would it be better to go go with the new Cirrus DAC or Burr Brown or go with a TDA1541 like a single crown. My electronics friend said the TDA1541A is junk, but I dont know if hes ever heard the sound of it.
DAC questions
- Thread starter armymp11b
- Start date
Register to hide this ad
Your friend has either not heard a TDA1541A with a 4x oversampling digital filter, or he's heard one and has extremely poor taste. The TDA1541A was a breakthrough DAC chip when it first came out and still sounds very fine compared to the industry's latest offerings.
If I had a CD-60 and wanted better sound from it, I wouldn't bother to upgrade the DAC chip. I'd upgrade the op amps and add power supply capacitance instead. I did that exact mod to a Magnavox CDB-650, replacing the NE5532 op amps on the main processor board with Analog Devices AD827s and upgrading the supply caps, and the improvement in sound quality was not subtle. The stock op amps are simply not fast enough to follow the stairstep waveform at their input, so they slew-limit, erasing detail from the sound and adding harshness. The AD827s are much faster -- 300 V/uS vs. 8 V/uS for the 5532s -- so they don't slew-limit in this application.
If you want an add-on DAC instead of a mod to your CD-60, I recommend staying with oversampling multi-bit DACs or ones that use the new advanced segment DACs from Burr-Brown. I don't like most delta-sigma (1-bit) DACs; IMO, they strangle the musical dynamics and deliver a smoothed-out, boring sound. In the used market, Parasound made some very good DACs that used multi-bit Burr-Brown DACs (or UltraAnalog parts in their TOTL model). I'm not sure which DAC I'd choose if I were shopping new.
Edit: I notice that you're in the Twin Cities area. Look up Audio by Van Alstine and go audition Frank's latest DACs. The last time I heard them, I was very favorably impressed. Frank Van Alstine is a long-time fan of the multi-bit Philips DAC chips and has used the TDA1543 in many of his designs. I believe his latest designs use Wolfson parts.
Thanks for the advice....I have a Denon, Parasound and Sony ES DVD/CD and Id like to get a seperate DAC for all 3, but would be happy with one DAC and just switch out CD players. Ill look into those DACs, Ill also look into upgrading the player with what you advised. Thanks.
The TDA1547 used a completely different architecture than the TDA1541, 1541A and 1543. The 1547 was the first "Bitstream" 1-bit DAC from Philips and was generally regarded as a step downward in sound quality from the earlier 16-bit Philips DAC family. I've heard Philips players with the 1547 and preferred the sound of the earlier players with the 1541 or 1543 and the 4x oversampling digital filter. YMMV.