2. digital
  3. 148015-388

Non-Oversampling (NOS) vs,

I am curious. Is a Non-Oversampling (NOS) DAC sound better than a DAC that upsamples the original signal? Or, in other words, is it better to maintain the “original signal” and not add mathematical calculated extra bits?

I also understand that a DAC’s implementation makes a huge different in the resulting sound quality and so does the analog section. I am just trying to better understand a NOS DAC vs one that upsamples.



hgeifman

Showing 2 responses by georgehifi

georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 

You just need to listen to Redbook on a "good" R2R dac/cdp that you switch from NOS to OS while listening on the fly, like you can with the Holo Spring.
NOS is far more enjoyable, it has more body to the mids, it seems to extend both the bass and the highs, you can definitely hear the decay (harmonic structure) of piano and cymbals down into silence far better than you can with OS. OS seems to chop it off, a little like Class-D amps also do for me.

Cheers George
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Depends, converting redbook the 2R2 Multibit Holo Spring dac, sounds far better on NOS than it does with OS, and you find that goes for most R2R Multibit dacs that can do it.
I'm not into Delta Sigma dacs "trying" to redbook so I won't comment on those.

Cheers George
More to discover