No DAC is perfect. All modern Delta Sigma DACs are actually bit perfect in operation however the noise floor (or resolution) on the very best is about 21 bits. So nothing does 24 bit even remotely perfectly so far. Most good quality delta sigma will be close to bit perfect at 16 bits. However be wary of R-2R DACs as many are only 18 bit or often less (16 bit). For example, the Schiit DACs perform truncation to 24 bit digital data - these are grossly NOT bit perfect because of this throwing away of the least significant bits of data - worse still the truncation operation introduces high amouts of added quantization noise distortion. Definitely about as far from bit perfect as you can get in a modern DAC.
The other factor in many DACs is the final brick wall filter - this causes the final analog result to be slightly different depending on the filter design.
A good DAC and it’s ADC equivalent can be looped more than 10 times with no audible differences.
A bit perfect DAC and its ADC could in theory be looped infinitely and the sound would be identical - so far none exists.
DSD or PCM are just different formats. Mathematically they can be an equally accurate representation of the original musical analog waveform. It is just mathematics - 16 or 24 bit at low sample rate or DSD 1 bit representation at very high frequency. DSD has inherently a huge amount of high frequency noise which must be removed and contains no added audible benefit. Since PCM is what all studios use it is undoubtedly the closest and best distribution format to remain faithful to the product coming from the studios and the mastering process.
The other factor in many DACs is the final brick wall filter - this causes the final analog result to be slightly different depending on the filter design.
A good DAC and it’s ADC equivalent can be looped more than 10 times with no audible differences.
A bit perfect DAC and its ADC could in theory be looped infinitely and the sound would be identical - so far none exists.
DSD or PCM are just different formats. Mathematically they can be an equally accurate representation of the original musical analog waveform. It is just mathematics - 16 or 24 bit at low sample rate or DSD 1 bit representation at very high frequency. DSD has inherently a huge amount of high frequency noise which must be removed and contains no added audible benefit. Since PCM is what all studios use it is undoubtedly the closest and best distribution format to remain faithful to the product coming from the studios and the mastering process.