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T+A new flagship streaming dsd1024 dac


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@OE333, thank you for posting the details of T+As very impressive new DAC here, your contribution to the forums is appreciated!  As you appear to be a direct representative of T+A, please add something to your signature indicating your relationship to the company.  Again, I am very happy to be able to have you post here, and share details of the product!

 

I suspect that this DAC will offer extremely high sound quality, and am impressed at the details of the engineering.  Many here on theses forums have longed for a DAC which could support high DSD rates over a direct Ethernet input, and it appears that T+A has done a very good job of isolating the Ethernet processing section from the D/A section and analog output circuitry.  As the rest of the engineering of this product appears to be very well implemented, can you also confirm a completely separate power supply for the Ethernet input section (with it's own transformer secondary?)

Again, I am very impressed with the details if this new DAC and suspect that those who can afford it will be very, very happy! 

SO/ROON/HQPe: DSD 512-Sonore opticalModuleDeluxe-Signature Rendu optical with Well Tempered Clock--DIY DSC-2 DAC with SC Pure Clock--DIY Purifi Amplifier-Focus Audio FS888 speakers-JL E 112 sub-Nordost Tyr USB, DIY EventHorizon AC cables, Iconoclast XLR & speaker cables, Synergistic Purple Fuses, Spacetime system clarifiers.  ISOAcoustics Oreas footers.                                                       

                                                                                           SONORE computer audio

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  • 10 months later...

Mike's implementation is via a standard DAC chip (AKM).  I am more interested in the DSC-1 style approach of the discrete moving average FIR filter, a version of which is apparently employed by T+A.  Versions of this DSD conversion approach appear in a number of different commercial DACs now: Playback Designs, maybe Mola Mola, maybe Meitner, Star Pulse, Holo Audio, etc.

 

But most of the commercial options are "full featured" DACs, which allow for PCM input and onboard oversampling and lots of DSP operations.  I really would prefer no processing in the DAC (excepting a USB or Ethernet receiver, completely isolated for the rest of the dAC with its own power supply).  How about just a simple single bit converter with no onboard processing, designed just to accept DSD 256 (and up) input, with a really good output stage and onboard analog volume control.

SO/ROON/HQPe: DSD 512-Sonore opticalModuleDeluxe-Signature Rendu optical with Well Tempered Clock--DIY DSC-2 DAC with SC Pure Clock--DIY Purifi Amplifier-Focus Audio FS888 speakers-JL E 112 sub-Nordost Tyr USB, DIY EventHorizon AC cables, Iconoclast XLR & speaker cables, Synergistic Purple Fuses, Spacetime system clarifiers.  ISOAcoustics Oreas footers.                                                       

                                                                                           SONORE computer audio

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@Ben-M, Believe me, i have considered it.  Although I agree it would, be niche, there are definite advantages to leaving the processing outside the DAC.  For example, PS Audio will doing this with their new two box solution, they will be putting all the processing in the first box, then isolating it from the second by optical connection, where the second box has only the discrete converter stage and output stage.  But of course that results in a very expensive DAC.

 

The more affordable solution is to just build the single bit DAC and sell it, and require DSD 256 (and up) input.  While it is a little tweaky, one need not get involved with things like HQPlayer to take advantage of this approach anymore: ROON does fine oversampling to DSD 256, for example, and it is simple, and well accepted by many audiophiles.  This approach is much more affordable, and has the potential to offer improved performance over "full featured" DACs.

 

Let's face it, DACs such as the ones this thread is about are not mass market products anyway, the only folks even considering buying something like this are folks deeply invested in their systems: I do not think it is that much to ask for these types of audiophiles to open the DSP engine of ROON, click on couple of settings, and output DSD 256 to a DAC...

SO/ROON/HQPe: DSD 512-Sonore opticalModuleDeluxe-Signature Rendu optical with Well Tempered Clock--DIY DSC-2 DAC with SC Pure Clock--DIY Purifi Amplifier-Focus Audio FS888 speakers-JL E 112 sub-Nordost Tyr USB, DIY EventHorizon AC cables, Iconoclast XLR & speaker cables, Synergistic Purple Fuses, Spacetime system clarifiers.  ISOAcoustics Oreas footers.                                                       

                                                                                           SONORE computer audio

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1.  A lot of my experience is suggesting that DSD 512 has no additional performance over 256, and comes with a few issues: it is harder for the average audiophile to reliably deliver 512 than 256.  In most cases 512 requires a higher speed clock, which means more jitter, as for any given clock quality, jitter goes up as speed increases.  But these are things which would be worked through during the development phase.  Jussi has shown that Holo Audio DSD DACs tend to perform better at 256 than at 512.  Additionally, it is currently impossible to run HQP4 and the EC modulators at anything higher than 256.  Bigger numbers are not always better.  Kits are a bad idea in my estimation, they offer no guarantee that the builder will do it right, so no guarantee of final outcome, and are a support nightmare.

 

2.  DIY DSC type DACs are available, but there are plenty of customers who do not have time, the inclination, or the ability to DIY.  There is no competition for commercial products from the DIY scene, despite some companies concerns!  Also, DIY of a DSC style DAC basically requires assembling different modules together, kind of a Lego approach, which is not the way to build the best possible performing component.  A purpose designed complete component has many advantages.

 

3.  As far as manufacturing goes, anything I would want would be made in the US.  And doing it right would be the goal, not doing it cheaply.  So the end product would not be a bargain basement made in China style DAC.  The input receiver has to be a bit modular anyway, so one could offer the customer a choice of either USB or optical Ethernet interfaces.  I am not in favor of 5 figure DACs, so i would hope to be able to do it for ~$8K or so retail.  Much less than that is probably not possible without making a lot of compromises in sound quality.  This is a very popular price point for high performance DACs, and should be marketable at that price.

SO/ROON/HQPe: DSD 512-Sonore opticalModuleDeluxe-Signature Rendu optical with Well Tempered Clock--DIY DSC-2 DAC with SC Pure Clock--DIY Purifi Amplifier-Focus Audio FS888 speakers-JL E 112 sub-Nordost Tyr USB, DIY EventHorizon AC cables, Iconoclast XLR & speaker cables, Synergistic Purple Fuses, Spacetime system clarifiers.  ISOAcoustics Oreas footers.                                                       

                                                                                           SONORE computer audio

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20 minutes ago, jabbr said:


Hmmm ... the May? Maybe not so, really?

 

The May has DSD1024 in and they say probably DSD2048, so I expect it would perform optimally at DSD512 but if there are measurements which suggest otherwise then I’d love to see. 

no tests of this exist to my knowledge, Jussi has found this to be the case with the Holo DACs which he has tested as I recall.  He can certainly clear this up if I am mistaken in my memory!

SO/ROON/HQPe: DSD 512-Sonore opticalModuleDeluxe-Signature Rendu optical with Well Tempered Clock--DIY DSC-2 DAC with SC Pure Clock--DIY Purifi Amplifier-Focus Audio FS888 speakers-JL E 112 sub-Nordost Tyr USB, DIY EventHorizon AC cables, Iconoclast XLR & speaker cables, Synergistic Purple Fuses, Spacetime system clarifiers.  ISOAcoustics Oreas footers.                                                       

                                                                                           SONORE computer audio

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  • 2 months later...
1 hour ago, Miska said:

Depending on device model, it has NAA support that at least used to work up to DSD1024.

 

Awesome!  I was not aware of that given the SR limitations posted by others for DLNA/RAAT.  Then I suspect that T+A likely designed their own Ethernet implementation.  Given the attention to detail the used on the rest of this component, perhaps the Ethernet input is actually quite good...  Very few commercial DACs appear to support NAA, I know the T+A folks are fans of HQPlayer, and it is really nice to see a (another) commercial manufacturer implementing NAA.  Thanks for pointing this out Jussi.

 

Are you aware of other commercial DACs offering NAA support?

SO/ROON/HQPe: DSD 512-Sonore opticalModuleDeluxe-Signature Rendu optical with Well Tempered Clock--DIY DSC-2 DAC with SC Pure Clock--DIY Purifi Amplifier-Focus Audio FS888 speakers-JL E 112 sub-Nordost Tyr USB, DIY EventHorizon AC cables, Iconoclast XLR & speaker cables, Synergistic Purple Fuses, Spacetime system clarifiers.  ISOAcoustics Oreas footers.                                                       

                                                                                           SONORE computer audio

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