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Is there any point in keeping "Vintage DACs"?????

Wolverine

Wolverine

AK Subscriber
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I own a couple of older DAC's (Adcom GDA-700 and MSB Link III) that I think had some fans in their time. They are are in older systems that are powered by early Adcom amps and a Adcom 565 preamp and Sherbourn PT-7000 preamp. My knowledge of DAC's is very limited but I read a lot about the type of chips that are in them being a big factor in their sound/performance. Given the age of my DAC's and chip advancements has time passed them by that I would benefit from a new DAC? Would a new DAC be an improvement even if I play with my older gear?
 
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I'd like to try one to compare it with my Parasound D/AC-1000 with the BB PCM63P chips. The Adcom has balanced outputs that I can take advantage of. If all your listening to is Redbook CD than your not going to do much better.

BillWojo
 
Thanks everyone for your input. The Adcom is paired with a Denon 2910 as the transport and I do use it primarily for Redbook CD and the occasional HDCD title. I'm pretty happy with it but as I mentioned I am pretty inexperienced with DAC's so I just don't know what is out there.
 
Those were very good but not great DACs for their time. I think you could do better for $3-400 now. Some years ago, I did hear some mods to the Adcom that improved it quite a bit, but I think you'd be better off buying new than investing in a DAC that old. On the other hand, if you're enjoying it, nothing wrong with that - it's easy to keep wanting something better all the time.
 
Frank Sol said:
believe the Adcom has a 20 bit Burr-Brown chip

that chip had many fans in the day
Click to expand...
The PCM1702 still has a lot of fans,even these days.
Like me...
lokerola said:
Hard to say about your DACs. I have an older Parasound DAC 1100 that I won't give up. It sounds lovely to me.
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Agree,I currently have two D/AC-1000 and I wont give mine up for any modern DACs,even those costing some serious coin.
Now if money were'nt a concern would I have some modern DACs in addition to the vintage ones ? Yeah sure why not ???
But I would'nt let go of the vintage ones I have currently to do so.
BillWojo said:
I'd like to try one to compare it with my Parasound D/AC-1000 with the BB PCM63P chips. The Adcom has balanced outputs that I can take advantage of. If all your listening to is Redbook CD than your not going to do much better.
BillWojo
Click to expand...
Or you could just find a Parasound D/AC-1500 it has 4x PCM63 instead of 2x in the D/AC-1000 and thus has balanced outputs.
And that way you could still do the audiotuning 24/96 mods if you wanted to play higher resolution material.
But I get where you're coming from,it's more a PCM63 vs. PCM1702 sorta thing maybe.
Wolverine said:
Thanks everyone for your input. The Adcom is paired with a Denon 2910 as the transport and I do use it primarily for Redbook CD and the occasional HDCD title. I'm pretty happy with it but as I mentioned I am pretty inexperienced with DAC's so I just don't know what is out there.
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These Adocm DACs respond very nicely to some op-amp rolling for improved SQ gains.
If the board is'nt socketed it would require adding some DIPP sockets to do so but that's typically NBD.
Then you can even go full on discrete with some Burson -or- Sparkos discrete op-amp modules.

But to be completely honest,I hope folks DO keep getting rid of their vintage DACs like the GDA-600 & GDA-700.
That way there will always be a decent supply for guys like me who are'nt chasing the "latest thing" in DACs.

Some of these DAC chips have lots of fans among DAC makers too.
Mike Moffat (of Schiit) has stated over @ head-fi that he feels the PCM63 was the best DAC chip ever made.
He even went on to say that he liked that one even better than the PCM1702/PCM1704.
And you can bet $$$ that King-Wa would still be making DAC's with these chips if he could still get a steady supply of them.
Heck just about all the DAC co.s would be offering DACs w/these chips if they were readily available and plentiful.

So I would'nt sell them short just because some feel that they're "old tech"...

JMO ~ YMMV

Bret P.
 
Bret, I have been keeping an eye out for a D/AC 1500 ever since I picked up my Audio Research pre with balanced inputs.
I fully agree if PCM63 chips were still available that they would still be used in the higher end DAC market. Even when they were in production they wern't cheap.
I wish someone had done a diy upgrade path for these old Parasound units. I really think there is even more potential locked up in them.

BillWojo
 
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Frank Sol said:
believe the Adcom has a 20 bit Burr-Brown chip

that chip had many fans in the day
Click to expand...

Per the Stereophile review of a couple of years ago;

The decoded digital data signal is then applied to the Pacific Microsonics HDCD decoder chip, the output of which feeds a pair of 20-bit Burr-Brown PCM1702 D/A chips. The Adcom's output stage features class-A–biased, direct-coupled, proprietary op-amps that achieve low levels of noise and distortion.
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/adcom-gda-700-da-processor#i41FQgmSK6Lzhxmh.99
 
Have an old Yamaha ddp-1 that works in test mode as a coax dac. Believe it has BB DACs and sounds very good. Its a full size component as well which is nice. I will keep it around.
 
Wolverine said:
I own a couple of older DAC's (Adcom GDA-700 and MSB Link III) that I think had some fans in their time. They are are in older systems that are powered by early Adcom amps and a Adcom 565 preamp and Sherbourn PT-7000 preamp. My knowledge of DAC's is very limited but I read a lot about the type of chips that are in them being a big factor in their sound/performance. Given the age of my DAC's and chip advancements has time passed them by that I would benefit from a new DAC? Would a new DAC be an improvement even if I play with my older gear?
Click to expand...

Technically, yes. Practically, who knows. Those DACs were honest devices close to being state of the art back in their days. The state of the art has progressed since then but your ears may not care, plus there is lots of snake oil DACs out there these days catering to "audiophiles" that color the sound. For an apples to apples comparison get a cheap modern DAC with good confirmed technical performance like Schiit Modi 3 for $100 and decide for yourself, and you can return it if you don't like it and not be out for much $$.
 
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The Adcom is a fabulous D/A converter. It's measured performance in the Stereophile review is beyond criticism.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/adcom-gda-700-da-processor-measurements

"Overall, the GDA-700 had superlative technical performance. The high channel separation, terrific linearity, excellent noise modulation, and good jitter performance are impressive for a $1000 processor."

I certainly wouldn't be replacing it in a hurry.
 
restorer-john said:
The Adcom is a fabulous D/A converter. It's measured performance in the Stereophile review is beyond criticism.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/adcom-gda-700-da-processor-measurements

"Overall, the GDA-700 had superlative technical performance. The high channel separation, terrific linearity, excellent noise modulation, and good jitter performance are impressive for a $1000 processor."

I certainly wouldn't be replacing it in a hurry.
Click to expand...

For some reason THD isn't captured, but given the IMD results it should be pretty low. Still the spec of 0.009% is a magnitude worse than what a decent $100 DAC can do today.
 
I'd say the biggest limitations in older designs was the bit count, so might be best to upgrade if you're into hi-res media.

That said, I have one of those older DACs (Maverick TubeMagic) that tops out at 96/24, but that's fine for me. As mentioned, there's a whole lot going inside the typical DAC that can make or break the design, and I'm well pleased with what I'm hearing here ... here here!
 
restorer-john said:
The Adcom is a fabulous D/A converter. It's measured performance in the Stereophile review is beyond criticism.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/adcom-gda-700-da-processor-measurements

"Overall, the GDA-700 had superlative technical performance. The high channel separation, terrific linearity, excellent noise modulation, and good jitter performance are impressive for a $1000 processor."

I certainly wouldn't be replacing it in a hurry.
Click to expand...

I do like the 700 and was familiar with the Stereophile review prior to making the decision to buy it from a fellow AK'er. It also seems that based on its resale value it still has a following. As I mentioned in my first post I am not that familiar with DAC's and was not sure how technology has impacted older DAC's but based on your response and others I starting to think that the technological advancements in DAC's is not as big a factor in their performance as I may have thought.
 
Wolverine said:
I do like the 700 and was familiar with the Stereophile review prior to making the decision to buy it from a fellow AK'er. It also seems that based on its resale value it still has a following. As I mentioned in my first post I am not that familiar with DAC's and was not sure how technology has impacted older DAC's but based on your response and others I starting to think that the technological advancements in DAC's is not as big a factor in their performance as I may have thought.
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Define performance. The advances were made and (well-designed) modern DACs technically deliver a magnitude better performance than 90s gear. It is however on such a small scale of detail that depending on the resolution of your system and your ears it may not matter.
 
gvl said:
Define performance. The advances were made and (well-designed) modern DACs technically deliver a magnitude better performance than 90s gear. It is however on such a small scale of detail that depending on the resolution of your system and your ears it may not matter.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I anticipated that in my original post where I mentioned for example that the 700 is used with a older Adcom amp/Preamp combo and older speakers so would upgrading the DAC be a waste.

In other words putting a V-8 in the back of a Conestoga wagon being pulled by a team of horses is not going to improve performance.... :D
 
I don't think it would be a waste, if you set your expectations right and choose the DAC wisely.
 
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