Resolution Audio DAC, any good? Optical to digital coax converter matter?

[saabracer23]

Hey all, a good friend of mine gave me this DAC and I can’t seem to find all that much on it. When you google “Resolution DAC” as you’d guess you just find descriptions of various DACs and their resolution. Seems to be decent, has Kimber Kable RCAs and balanced outputs. It is older being from 1992, so may be out dated? Oddly it looks like this may be the 2nd one off of the assembly line. Anyone have a clue about this?

Also, it has digital coax in. Let’s say I wanted to go digital coax to optical, digital to digital (I only have optical HDMI for digital outputs). Would it be critical to get high end one? Since it’s digital to digital less so than a DAC. Does anyone make a high quality one?

What would you all do to go optical to digital coax? Or should I not even waste the effort to use this DAC?









Thank you,
Dan

 

[Chris Brown]

Might as well try the DAC, see what you think.

I use two of these in various applications and they work fine when going from optical to coax and vise versa:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C1LNKGK

You can also get a simple adapter and turn that BNC input into a 2nd RCA input, as BNC isn't really very common on consumer gear:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006VK8IEI

 

[saabracer23]

Might as well try the DAC, see what you think.

I use two of these in various applications and they work fine when going from optical to coax and vise versa:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C1LNKGK

You can also get a simple adapter and turn that BNC input into a 2nd RCA input, as BNC isn't really very common on consumer gear:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006VK8IEI

Yeah really just trying it out is really the best thing to do. I ordered a digital to digital converter like you posted and it’s supposed to be delivered today, so I’ll get to try it out. Once my replacement Schiit Modius arrives I can compare the two.

I was just really hoping there was someone that might be able to give a little bit of insight on this DAC. It’s from before the days of everything being plastered all over the internet. I’m curious how nice it really was back when it was released. I’m wondering how many are out there considering that I have number 2.

Dan

 

[gvl]

Looks like a cool vintage DAC. The Ultra Analog DAC module was a top shelf part at the time. The CS8412 digital input receiver I think is limited to 16 bit resolution, so it's not really meant for hi-res if you care. Balanced outputs is a sign this was not a cheap unit back then. This type of DACs tend to be sensitive to incoming jitter, so it could benefit from a quality external optical to coax SPDIF reclocker, but they tend to be around $100, and for that money you could just get a modern DAC that will perform better and have more functions.