Downside to R2R Ladder DACs?


A sales person I generally trust told me to steer clear of used R2R DACs, since their reliance on high precision resistors causes them to sound best when new, and degrade fairly quickly. It seems reasonable; have others had any experience with this?
128x128cheeg

Showing 1 response by lemonhaze

@cheeg, that salesman you trust is untrustworthy.  Move on.

I have an ancient Wadia 15 that only plays redbook. Uses the famous Burr Brown PCM63 and sounds wonderful. If there has/had been drifting it still managed to outperform a bunch of DACs in our local shootout. One of these was the well known Yggdrasil which although very detailed did not provide the boogie and foot tapping. The decision was unanimous, all preferred, on redbook only, the Wadia to that Schiit  :)

So drifting resistors or drifting clouds or whatever, the message is use your ears.

I think in future when my wife wants to know which DAC we'll be using, I can say "play it through the 'drifter' my dear.