Who makes the best DAC chips?

Hello,

I am in the market for a DAC. And like most computer hardware, only a
few manufacturers make DAC chips. Many people design different output
stages for the DACs but even the best designed output stage is only
as good as the source feeding it. So I got to wondering: who makes the
best DAC chips?

This DAC would be for regular CD format, not SACD.

Thanks and regards,

Dean

<rassclaht2@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:fvr5610kmm@news5.newsguy.com
> Hello,
>
> I am in the market for a DAC. And like most computer
> hardware, only a few manufacturers make DAC chips. Many
> people design different output stages for the DACs but
> even the best designed output stage is only as good as
> the source feeding it. So I got to wondering: who makes
> the best DAC chips?

> This DAC would be for regular CD format, not SACD.

It's a competitive battle, with the major players being Crystal, AKM, and
TI. However released a SOTA chip last is probably the winner, this week.
;-)

Good DAC chips for 16/44 are just about at the jelly bean level. Most
recent optical players I look inside are using AKM chips that convert as
high as 24/192, but have about 96 dB dynamic range, so that means that they
do a good job with CDs, and technically degrade the higher resolution
formats, as if it makes any sonic difference.

On Tue, 6 May 2008 19:46:25 -0700, rassclaht2@gmail.com wrote
(in article <fvr5610kmm@news5.newsguy.com>):

> Hello,
>
> I am in the market for a DAC. And like most computer hardware, only a
> few manufacturers make DAC chips. Many people design different output
> stages for the DACs but even the best designed output stage is only
> as good as the source feeding it. So I got to wondering: who makes the
> best DAC chips?
>
> This DAC would be for regular CD format, not SACD.
>
> Thanks and regards,
>
> Dean

Burr-Brown is highly touted, but I don't think it makes much difference. A
DAC is a pretty specific chip type and it does only one thing - that is to
say that it either converts a a 16, 20, or 24-bit stream of digital "words"
into a stair-step waveform approximating the original quantized waveform or
it doesn't. You actually need the entire enchilada (the entire sound board or
outboard box) to make any qualitative analysis.