@georgehifi - I’m afraid you need to learn more about DACs. The only DAC that would play the bits back as they’re stored on a compact disc is an R-2R with no oversampling. None of the Schiit DACs fit this description for 16 bit / 44.1 kHz program material as they use an oversampling filter, either 4x or 8x. That means 75% - 87.5% of the samples fed to the DAC chip (which, incidentally, isn’t even a straightforward resistor ladder) are interpolated.
Most of the R-2R DACs which do not use oversampling also do not use a reconstruction filter, which introduces its own set of sonic aberrations.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sigma-delta quantitatively or qualitatively.
Most of the R-2R DACs which do not use oversampling also do not use a reconstruction filter, which introduces its own set of sonic aberrations.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sigma-delta quantitatively or qualitatively.