High resolution digital is dead. The best DAC's killed it.


Something that came as a surprise to me is how good DAC's have gotten over the past 5-10 years.

Before then, there was a consistent, marked improvement going from Redbook (44.1/16) to 96/24 or higher.

The modern DAC, the best of them, no longer do this. The Redbook playback is so good high resolution is almost not needed. Anyone else notice this?
erik_squires
Interesting thread. I found my destination digital with the Aries Cerat Kassandra DAC. No up sampling, no filter, and using 16 x AD1865 NK chips. Huge power supplies, tube out (10v) I/V transformers, and huge output transformers. It weights 67 kilos but soundly beats all others I had at home inc:

Hilo interesante. Encontré mi destino digital con el DAC de Aries Cerat Kassandra. Sin muestreo, sin filtro y usando 16 chips AD1865 NK. Enormes fuentes de alimentación, transformadores I / V de salida de tubo (10 v) y enormes transformadores de salida. Pesa 67 kilos, pero supera a todos los demás que tenía en casa: 

1. Ch Precision C1
2. Chord DAVE
3. Lampizator Golden Gate
4. Naim CD555
5. Audio Note DAC 5 Signature

Check out:
https://ariesceratespana.com

There are 3 models of Kassandra DACs, between about $25k and $90K.  Which one did you choose?  
I couldn’t agree more with the OP. The desire for high-res was to reduce the timing artifacts from older DACs.

I have the latest Beresford Caiman SEG DAC which is optimised to more accurately convert an SPDIF clock signal. The stability on Redbook is incredible. Standard Redbook choral music (Thalis Scholars) exhibits only natural harmonics and none of the harmonic timing artifacts that I’d previously assumed were on the recording.

High-res was a temporary workaround.
I'm looking forward to Steve Huffman or Stereophile stealing this thread as an article idea, again.
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