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burr-brown vs. sabre vs. ?

just curious if any people here have experience-based impressions the differences various converter chips make, assuming they're roughly the same vintage. I'm looking to buy a digital interface for digitizing LPs; it's a more mass, consumer-driven (not high end) type of market, so features are pretty uniform at any given price point, which makes me wonder if the different chips have a 'sound'. put another way: if you were choosing an interface for audiophile purposes (my preference in 'neutral', when it comes to component choice), would you gravitate towards any particular manufacturer?
musicslug
robertsong
53 posts
 
Could you guys give some examples of NOS R2R DACS. Who makes the chip or is it a proprietary non-chip design (like Metrum or Chord, I guess). Which DAC manufacturers implement R2R?
musicslug OP
430 posts
 
thanks for the responses. as I mentioned, I'm actually looking for an 'interface' (musicians use them to convert their audio signals into digital for use with 'digital audio workstations' (like protools). in other words, this ain't 'high end'. I can't imagine any mass-market interface will use the R2R chips... the one I'm leaning towards (audient id14) uses burr-brown, and a very popular one (apogee duet) uses sabre. interestingly, some people don't like the way the apogee boosts highs and lows, which fits what Coli wrote.
robertsong
53 posts
 
I have heard that Lynx HILO makes a very good Hifi Dac as well as ADC. If I were you I would splurge for one of these used. I have no idea what brand(s) of chip it uses, but as others have said it's not the brand of chip that is of primary importance.
coli
291 posts
 
Lynx is crystal (cirrus logic), same DAC as in many sound cards.

All the DACs with the same chip when properly implemented sounds similar. So first figure out which DAC chip you like the sound of, then find an implementation with the biggest bang for the buck.
coli
291 posts
 
Robertsong: most NOS DACs today are based on old R2R chips. Outside of custom R2R NOS dac (Metrum, TotalDAC), Soekris is a recent one but no one has commercialized it yet...

Someone has managed to turn Burr-brown PCM1794a (6 bit R2R + rest in Delta sigma) into NOS mode (DDDAC1794)!!! I wish more people copy that design...
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