Mutatis mutandi...how long before even discrete DACs disappear?

[Nicholas.Bedworth]

One doesn't need to make any predictions, just observe the trends that are already well-underway. And in the 25 years of my reviewing high-end audio and video gear, how many transitions have we seen already? They seem to happen overnight, although in reality, it's 2-3 years before there's a major shift in the center of gravity. It usually takes people a while to wake up from their stupors to see that the times have changed, but the awakening tends to be pretty quick. And rude.

 

Most of us have seen the move from vinyl to CD, film to videotape, videotape to DVD, CD to files, wired to wireless, 1 MHz minicomputers computers at $100,000 to 1 GHz desktop computers at $1000 (that's a 100,000:1 price-performance improvement increase in 10 years).

 

And my apotheosis the other day came about when, just for fun, it occurred to me to try controlling a digital media server wirelessly with an Android phone. Firstly, it worked. The GUI was produced by a Web server, the Android browser went to that IP, done.

 

It dawned on me that, except for (temporarily) less total storage, the phone could do everything the $7000 media server did, and in addition, it allowed one to control the music from anywhere in the house. And the iPad USB connector works perfectly with various interfaces (you need a tiny hub in-between in some cases). The only shortcoming is the current limitation to 48 KHz sample rates, which undoubtedly could be raised without much effort.

 

Just look at the chart of how quickly Apple how chopped FireWire out of the iPod/iTouch lineup. In a couple of years, it was all over, and these devices became exclusively wireless (see above) or USB. And make up a little chart for each of the currently-selling Apple Mac computers, and watch what happens next. You can take two off the list today.

 

The obvious question is, how many of the Macs that still have FireWire have anything attached to the port? My guess, informally corroborated by my friends at Apple tech support, is under 10%. That's today. You don't need FireWire for digital audio, or video, or, really, anything anymore.

 

Companies that are successful generally don't keep making things that consumers don't need, because it runs up the bill unnecessarily and provides zero benefit. Faster, cheaper, and higher performance is the name of the game; burning real estate for obsolete interconnect isn't part of the deal for long.

 

As of 1 January 2013, let's see whether digital audio streaming is a common hand-held experience. It is already, at the leading edge. And of course the number of hand-held devices can grow much more rapidly than laptops.

 

If one has an amplifier that is controlled by digital data, one can just stream wirelessly to it, and that's it. There's no DAC, no preamplifier, no interconnect cabling. Just a screen, the files, and the digital amp. DACs are a legacy technology, here today, but probably not needed much tomorrow.

 

[Quest]

If you are talking about the masses, I'm sure wireless may be the way to go. Look at what Chord did with APT-X bluetooth on their DACs.. honestly the sound quality is pretty good, though not the best if you compare to a good CDP. This is what Sennheiser is touting in some of their headphones as well. I'm not sure what the next leap will be though.

 

Very convenient for visiting folks to plug in their playlists to my system, and for background music. Not everyone would want their PC to have to be on for music.

 

In my living room, I setup a ipod with a Audioengine wireless dongle to the stereo and my dad loves its simplicity. Again, SQ is not the best but fairly passable esp for background music.

 

As you rightly mention, the problem with tablet or phone devices as a media center is just the space limitation. My 3 ipods (for the cars and home) have selected ALAC in them at the most, but this problem may be resolved as harddisks get larger and larger every year.

 

The only way to get round this for smaller devices like ipad is if the tablet or phone is the streamer (much like how a squeezebox works), buffering and then output.

 

[Nicholas.Bedworth]

You certainly bring up a good point.

 

Brainless iPads play back bits just as well as a large and expensive laptop with an 8 core processor. They just don't do it above 48 kHz at the moment.

 

An iPad may be slow but it's still way faster than what's required for audio. And think in 2 years when the standard-issue iPad or Android tablet has, say, 512 GB or more... and unused storage can be pooled between devices over WiFi (more assuredly not FireWire).

 

Whether these will support high resolution formats remains to be seen, but the storage will be close enough.

 

 

 

[Miska]

The obvious question is, how many of the Macs that still have FireWire have anything attached to the port? My guess, informally corroborated by my friends at Apple tech support, is under 10%. That's today. You don't need FireWire for digital audio, or video, or, really, anything anymore.

 

It is mostly because 90% of the people don't care about quality.

 

That's why there are horribly badly designed interfaces like USB and HDMI out there. As well as MP3 and over-compressed and clipped digital "music". Presented by artists who cannot sing and subsequently "fixed" with autotune...

 

That's also why there's cheaply produced fast food, etc. It goes to all industry domains. Even DVB broadcasts (at least here) use so high compression ratio that all the MPEG artifacts are clearly visible (blockiness, noisy gradients etc). They just want to cram maximum number of channels into single mux, and almost nobody cares.

 

Future is mostly sad.

 

[ukiro]

I made a post in my own blog recently about the USB/firewire debate. It's here, for those who are interested.

 

I agree about the demise of FW and also USB, and I also see the phone, ipad or similar device being the controller. I've used my iphone to control my squeezebox for 2 years already!

 

Where I disagree somewhat is in the title; For the enthusiast, I believe the DAC will remain a separate component in the audio system. I see two main reasons: One, there will always be those who desire separates to be able to tweak or change single components, and Two, the demise of DAC's in the way Nicholas predicts requires digital amps, something we're not seeing enough of for another few years.

 

I'm intrigued by the NAD M2 and the Devialet D-Premier, and I even used to own a Lyngdorf TDAI2200, but what they all have in common is that their handling of analog sources leave a lot to be desired. While nearly 100% tranparent AD/DA is possible (evident from the numerous and overwhelmingly positive reviews of Metric Halo products as RIAA on this forum) no digital amp has done this well yet. It's surely a matter of time, but until we have a healthy market ripe with such products at all price levels, those of us who still have a strong affection for vinyl will be keeping a DAC the same way we keep a phono preamp. They may both go into a digital amp one day though…

 

[Part-Time Audiophile]

One of the odd things about projections based on technology is how much things can change over a short period of time.

 

10 years ago, who'd a thunk Apple would even be a going concern? Seriously! Jobs was back at the helm, but his "one big thing" wasn't terribly big -- until the iPod was introduced back in 2001, I seriously thought they were DOA. Their stock was going for a fire sale pricing of $7/share! Now, today -- name me 10 people that you know personally that don't have an iPod or iPhone.

 

But I think scifi authors usually overindulge here. Mainly because its fun. But the failure of near-future scifi is that they almost always tend to lose track of the converse -- most things simply fail to change at all.

 

Consider vacuum tubes. WTF are those still doing kicking around? Seriously? Vacuum tubes!?!?!

 

There are still no jetpacks, flying cars (despite some interesting developments on this front recently), space travel (much less colonization), blasters, AI, mutants with superpowers and/or genetically super soldiers and/or clones, mind reading, time travel, Armageddon and/or a post-Apocalyptic dystopia. From a scifi perspective, the present is pretty much a bust, despite how entertaining it might have looked 30 years ago.

 

As for audio, I think Ethernet is by no means a "sure thing". Yes, it's pretty much dominated the networking arena, but Cisco Systems has been rather less than successful in the home entertainment market. Just saying.

 

So, no, I don't think DACs will go away. Nor will computers (laptops, &c) acting as music servers. Nor will the need to connect the two. But I do think that that the varieties of digital playback (disk and file) will get much closer and the interface between them will get much smoother and/or perform far better. Specifically, I suspect that all-in-one high performance players like the Esoteric K-01/K-03 and the Ayre DX-5 will become the norm (and come much lower in price), and push stand-alone DAC implementations back to the periphery. Dan Wright of Modwright is launching a mod to his modified players in Feb '11 that will allow them to accept digital inputs (but not USB, sadly) which is interesting. So, adding digital inputs to digital players (even those that didn't have them originally) will be "the next step" in commercializing the computer audio trend, I think. And unlike Modwright, those interfaces will most probably be USB, and the high end will continue to converge on async USB. I suspect that Oppo will be doing this in the version after the 93/95 that comes out early in '11.

 

Looking further .... IMO, the Meridian/Sooloos model is terrifically interesting. But currently it's expensive, complicated, and doesn't really sound all that great. However, it's convenient (and cool) as all hell. So, if I had to wager, this would be the interface/distribution model I'd build toward. But the time frame on this isn't 5-10 years. I'd peg it more toward 30-50 years out.

 

[AudioDoctor]

but I rather like my firewire audio interface, and it works quite well thank you very much...

 

[4est]

I am also not worried. There is too many expensive Firewire devices out there for it not to be supported for quite some time in the future. Even if it is an outboard add on.

 

[Part-Time Audiophile]

4est: "...There is too many expensive Firewire devices out there for it not to be supported for quite some time in the future. Even if it is an outboard add on."

 

There used to be PC-Card interfaces in laptops for just such an outboard expansion. Not too many of those these days, unfortunately.

 

I suppose there's always the possibility of a USB-to-Firewire device, though. Or possibly an IP-addressable Ethernet-to-Firewire one.

 

;-)

 

[4est]

Many possibilities. Considering the number of professionals whom use expensive Firewire solutions, and those of us non professionals that will use them when the professionals are done, I think that it is safe to assume that there will be support devices for some time to come.

 

Lightpeak, Ethernet, e sata...

 

It is usually cheap and easy to revert engineer vs inventing the stuff in the first place.