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How Long will todays external dacs be relevant?

Bassmantweed

Bassmantweed

Super Member
My current DacMagic has the following Specs:

  • Digital input word widths supported: 16-24bit (16 bit for USB)
  • Digital input sampling frequencies supported: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz (44.1kHz, 48kHz for USB)
  • Audio output up-sampling: Fixed 24bit 192kHz

CD's -which I will assume for the sake of this post are the best mass produced source we can get right now. (Please keep vinyl as this is a Digital question)

Most cd's have a 44.1 kHz at 16 Bit

Does this mean in theory that my dac is capable of handling almost twice the quality of a cd. (ie. 24 bit 192kHz)

I am not a techie but this seems to lead me to belive my DAC will be relevant for quite some time or until there is a drastic leap forward in technology?
 
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SACDs are the best mass-produced digital source media, and are not compatible (AFAIK) with any add-on decoder.
 
I think your DAC will be relevant for a long time. It's true that SACD is not compatible, but redbook and 24/96 are going to be with us for a long time.
 
So it is more of a hardware issue than a technology issue. Once the components become cheap enough for PC companies to incorporate then My dac may become obsolete.

But as long as profit margins are what they are that will never happen anyway
 
DAC (bits wide and sampling rate) is only a part of the equation, there are additional processes that makes the re-creation of analog sound from digital. To mention a few: brick wall filter, anti-aliasing, error correction, dithering,... All of the steps are steadily improving. My take on digital is parallel to computer technology, is better to wait than to spend. In digital, what is state of the art today is mass market stuff in the future.
 
AngelRa said:
My take on digital is parallel to computer technology, is better to wait than to spend. In digital, what is state of the art today is mass market stuff in the future.
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I agree with this in part..... I would say that it is expensive to be on the cutting edge. That being said I do love technology and the convenience it brings so I am willing to pay a little.
 
CD sales continue to decline. I think we maybe listening to the state of the art as far as disc go.
 
Bassmantweed said:
So it is more of a hardware issue than a technology issue. Once the components become cheap enough for PC companies to incorporate then My dac may become obsolete.

But as long as profit margins are what they are that will never happen anyway
Click to expand...

The components are already cheap enough. A TOTL DAC chip may cost $6 or $7. A mid or lower end DAC chip maybe a buck or two or three.

Of course there is more to a DAC than just the DAC chip, but few, if any, of the parts inside have a higher cost per component than that aside from maybe the circuit board...afaik. There is some money in the enclosure and such, but the guts, frankly, are pretty inexpensive all in all.
 
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Bassmantweed said:
sorry meant to specify 2 Ch
Click to expand...

umm... they make two-channel SACDs, too.

The cheap little Zhaolu DAC isn't bad "as is", and with a bit of work can be made to be quite good. A highly-modified Zhaolu (by Kevin Kennedy) is the DAC I use.
http://diykits.com.hk/Zhaolu D2.5.htm

j5.jpg
 
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The problem with SACD is the "best stuff" is the native DSD stream. Nearly all DACs only work with PCM, so unless you have one of the relatively rare (afaik) DACs that handle DSD, and your SACD player actually puts out DSD instead of converting it to PCM, then while very good, isn't the best it could be. That may not be 100% technically correct, but I think that's the essence of it.
 
Bassmantweed said:
So it is more of a hardware issue than a technology issue. Once the components become cheap enough for PC companies to incorporate then My dac may become obsolete.

But as long as profit margins are what they are that will never happen anyway
Click to expand...

While on board soundcards still have far too much noise, aftermarket cards on the other hand are quite good.

Take a look at the Asus Xonar series.
 
I think Disc will continue to be made, but I do not think the disc itself will advance technologically. The way the disc is read may improve and change over time.
 
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I think streaming and mass-storage will eventually replace the humble CD, at least as the predominant source. That can certainly open the door to more outboard DAC's, especially when streaming off a computer. I listen quite a lot to the Radio Paradise stream, 128 bit AAC Plus. Incredible fidelity, for an internet stream.
 
chadnliz said:
They said the same about Vinyl in the 80's and we know how that turned out so I doubt this is any different.
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Digital is here to stay, the CD was a delivery mechanism conceived when the thought of personal compters was absurd. Why we still embrace it is simply inertia. I rip 'em as soon as I get 'em and look forward to routinely buying higher bit rate tracks online or on flash memory, etc.
 
Bassmantweed said:
My current DacMagic has the following Specs:

  • Digital input word widths supported: 16-24bit (16 bit for USB)
  • Digital input sampling frequencies supported: 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz (44.1kHz, 48kHz for USB)
  • Audio output up-sampling: Fixed 24bit 192kHz

CD's -which I will assume for the sake of this post are the best mass produced source we can get right now. (Please keep vinyl as this is a Digital question)

Most cd's have a 44.1 kHz at 16 Bit

Does this mean in theory that my dac is capable of handling almost twice the quality of a cd. (ie. 24 bit 192kHz)

I am not a techie but this seems to lead me to belive my DAC will be relevant for quite some time or until there is a drastic leap forward in technology?
Click to expand...

Any limitations on future relevance are based on the future of SPDIF. Your USB implementation only allowing 48kHz is already limited. SPDIF can handle 2-ch 24/96 PCM. Your input choices go up to 24/96 for SPDIF, however, it is not capable of 24/192 (that is the upsampled output not a supported input, but SPDIF doesn't support 24/192 anyway).

It can't handle DSD SACD, but looking into the future, that isn't really relevant. Downloadable hi-res files now and in the future will be passed out of the box as PCM (after being unpacked from whatever lossy or lossless compression they are stored in). Most hi-res downloads are 24/96, although there are a few (very few) places that sell 24/192 files as well as some 88.2kHz thrown in. You wouldn't be able to use your DAC for the 24/192, but everything else should work (as long as it's 2-ch only).

The other factor for maintaining it's relevance is how long you keep your source. CDs could disappear completely from the market, but as long as you have a working CD player and a collection, you're good.
 
jhoyt said:
I think streaming and mass-storage will eventually replace the humble CD, at least as the predominant source. That can certainly open the door to more outboard DAC's, especially when streaming off a computer. I listen quite a lot to the Radio Paradise stream, 128 bit AAC Plus. Incredible fidelity, for an internet stream.
Click to expand...

FWIW, the humble CD at 16 bit, 44.1kHz is a 1411 Kbps data stream (at least that's what Foobar says it is).
 
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