What DAC technology was most advanced in CD & SACD players

[Miska]

dCS has been doing pretty expensive stuff for quite a while, and the DACs are similar discrete designs with their current ones which are evolution from the older ones.

 

EMM Labs / Meitner are also quite expensive are and are AFAIK discrete designs. Same goes for Playback Designs. And for both, newer hardware are evolution of the technology they've been using for quite a while.

 

Esoteric/TEAC has been using COTS DAC chips AFAIK, so nothing extraordinary there.

 

From my own current hardware, my 5.1 channel Sony SACD player pickup head has died by itself without use in the storage over the years. So that player is not operational anymore. It has Sony's own big custom DSD processor chip and custom Burr-Brown DAC chips. Now I still have a stereo Pioneer SACD player that works fine and IIRC uses Wolfson DAC chips (that have Direct DSD mode too), or maybe TI/BB, not 100% sure. I also had some other CD/SACD players but those have been long gone, like Marantz CD-60 which had the typical all-Philips design of the time; Philips CDM4 pickup block, SAA7220 4x digital filter and pair of TDA1541A DAC chips, followed by analog reconstruction filters built around Signetics (Philips) NE5532 opamps.

 

[Miska]

Ahh, and I still have two of my own old DAC designs from early 90's operational:

1) One with Yamaha YM3623 S/PDIF receiver, BB DF1700 8x digital filter and BB PCM1700 DAC chip, followed by analog reconstruction filter built around AD833 + OPA627 op amps.

2) Another with Crystal (now called Cirrus Logic) CS8412 S/PDIF receiver + CS4328 DAC chip ("the" 1-bit 64x fs delta-sigma DAC chip)

 

I used these with S/PDIF output from the Marantz CD-60.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Kal Rubinson said:

I built one like that but with BB PCM63 DAC chips.  Not terrible.

 

I have one of such too still, but it is not operational anymore. I've taken out the S/PDIF receiver and digital filter chips for something else. I've been every now and then tempted to connect XMOS USB interface straight to the PCM63P DAC chips (to the DF1700 pin holes) and use HQPlayer as digital filter for it. I've shortly tried once with wire hassle, but needs to be done properly to have decent jitter performance.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, Allan F said:

 Not necessarily so. Separate CD/SACD transports combined with stand alone DACs were quite popular in the high end back in the day. Mark Levinson produced both, as did Theta Digital.

 

Yes, I remember many many DACs from 90's. At that time pretty much all CD spinners had either optical or coaxial S/PDIF output and many had both like the Marantz CD-60 for example. And external DAC was popular way to improve sound without changing the physical drive.

 

Audio Alchemy was one of the first I remember. QED made less expensive DACs based on Philips Bitstream (1-bit) chips. And of course Wadia was another popular one.

 

DACs have had huge second coming with computer audio and streaming services.

 

Audio Alchemy Digital Decoding Engine (aka DDE), seems to be based on Philips Bitstream chipset:

 

Audio Alchemy Dac In The Box (same receiver chip I used, but Yamaha YM3434 8x digital filter and Analog Devices AD1860 DAC chips):

 

 

P.S. Looking at the datasheet, that Yamaha digital filter seems to be better than what can be found inside many modern DAC chips. Just like the old Burr-Brown DF170x too:

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/df1704.pdf

Beats, IMO, for example ESS ES9038.

[Miska]

6 hours ago, tmtomh said:

Actually, the DAC wasn't the main cost driver in most cases, especially for very expensive, high-end equipment. The real expense was in the analogue section and power supply, and to a degree in the disc transport mechanism and chassis materials.

 

Usually those end up costing more, but of course overall performance depends on all components...

 

6 hours ago, tmtomh said:

I'm not saying the DAC was not part of the cost - but my understanding is that it was a surprisingly small part of it. If you look at CD players from, say, the mid to late '80s, you'll see some insanely expensive audiophile machines that used the same Philips DACs that were in bog-standard consumer units costing just a few hundred dollars.

 

That hasn't changed since at all...