Good dac to reproduce soprano vocals?

Female vocals on particular are masked by high jitter levels. I recently developed a version of my products with S/PDIF output jitter in the 10psec range. Compared to the 50psec that I had been achieving this extremely low jitter delivers much better intelligibility, particularly of background singers. It develops a much more 3-D picture of the vocalist as well.

So, what does this mean for the DAC?

If you use the USB input driven from a computer, the master clock is in the interface, sothe jitter of this is critical. These USB interfaces are all at different performance and jitter levels. If you drive the DAC with a transport, the jitter of this transport is critical. If you drive it with AppleTV or Sonos et , then the jitter of these is critical. These are notriously bad BTW, but they can be improved with a good reclocker.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

HF - the problem with glassiness you are experiencing is due to two things:

1) the poor digital filter that the DAC imposes on that sample-rate
2) high jitter

I listen to 44.1 tracks all day long and don't get any of this glassiness or hardness. I do select a more optimum digital filter on my DAC. If you are at the Newport Beach show, come to the Atrium hotel and have a listen to my system.

I used to upsample everything to eliminate these nasties, but with the right digital filter (or no digital filter as in NOS DACs) and low jitter it is not necessary anymore.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Hf - the only show I'm exhibiting at this year is Newport Beach May31. No time for any more.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio