AKM makes the best DACs

Thanks for the pics!  Kind of funny that seems like a 2 year old thread.

Good news,  @mahler123 !

Disagree with the thread title. Erik is usually not one of the closed minded types ;-)

I really have no idea why anyone would lump FPGA based DACs together.

The entire basis for an FPGA is that you have hardware that can be changed via code, so despite say PS Audio and Chord (I think) using an FPGA, since the construction of the DAC in the FPGA is proprietary I would have no reason to expect them to be at all similar.  Unless of course, they were sharing the chip maker and the underlying code libraries to build their DACs which is possible.

To be clear, I’m not actually asking anyone to make a value judgement about a specific piece of gear based on the internals. I want to go the other way.

I want to ask you, dear readers and listeners, what has your _experience_ been when evaluating DAC’s ? What have you generally experienced?

We can argue all we want to about how to judge gear, but we cannot invalidate listener's experiences.

When I meant to talk about single chip DAC's I meant units using mass produced IC's which are sold to multiple vendors, so even if a unit uses 2 x stereo DAC chips it still qualifies.

Discrete R2R, or a ring DAC really don't except as comparison points.

Hi @Carlsbad,

Field Programmable Gate Arrays are really cool, but because they are uniquely programmable by each manufacturer we can't really make any general comments about them. Is there a particular brand which uses them you like?

Hi @mwatsme 

These are some pretty cool designs.  I've seen up to 8 channels on a single DAC chip, and all of them run in parallel.  The answer is all channels get the same input and the output is averaged. I think I've even seen them run in differential mode.  That is, 4 channels do + and 4 do -

In all cases the idea is that any manufacturing errors get averaged out. If you not only run in parallel but also differential you get even a better chance of reducing errors due to manufacturing.

To not take a off center system sound, and then add in an AKM, and say it is perfect. Or other dacs of similar nature and type.

I literally don't know what this means.

Our OP first says, "It is a terrible idea to judge a DAC based on the chip. I don’t think consumers should ever do that." And then he goes on to do exactly that

Hi @melm,

What you are missing in your argument is the sequence of events.  I think it's a bad idea to go looking for DAC's with a certain chip set and relying on that to decide whether to buy it.  This is not something I've ever done or recommended.  I am not  recommending the purchase of any DAC based on the components.

I'm doing the opposite.  In thinking of the DACs I've liked or ended up purchasing I  realized that for the most part in the last 10 years or so they have been based on AKM chips.

The order here matters a great deal in the statement.

He hasn’t heard most others.

Well, I haven't heard every DAC, that's for sure.  Don't get upset I didn't say ESS.  That doesn't mean yours isn't a very fine exemplar which does better than what I've heard. 

Peace.

That sounds like redesign work for audio manufacturers who have been using the previous generation of chips.

Probably not for all of them. DAC's aren't like PC CPUs which constantly need new sockets for new features.  The input streams, power supplies, and outputs are fairly consistent.  AKM would be doing itself a favor by making at least some of their  updated chips with identical footprints. 

Still, given the advances in putting more CPU/DSP capabilities on a chip I'd expect them to release some with enhance the feature set, and therefore control codes.

To be clear, I was specifically asking about ...

For converters which use an all in one chip ...

Perhaps someone should start a separate thread for DACs which use only in house electronics for the converter.