Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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I've built lots of DACs, but ...

Posted by Slider on December 15, 2007 at 13:23:24

In Reply to: RE: But ... posted by Gerry E. on December 15, 2007 at 12:40:03:

nothing as adventurous as a combo dsd/pcm player. My favorite pcm path is still the somewhat old DF1704/PCM1704 combo in slow rolloff mode, current mirror I/V stage followed by single ended resistor biased output. My DACs tend to be kind of old school, no electrolytic capacitors, only chokes and polyprops, extreme jitter rejection with isolated clocks regenerated from 1Hz digital sync, precision wirewounds, lithium referenced shunt regulators, etc, etc. I'd opt for a completely separate DSD path, very simple, stuff like Allen Wright and Alex are doing. I'd probably try and keep it in pure DSD instead of going to the multibit DACs commonly used today. Probably try and put both sections through same I/V output stage.

But the main thing is to avoid complex circuitry like opamps and any kind of global feedback, just sticking with local resistor degeneration to set gains, and definitely avoid any electrolytic caps in the analog sections. Using "standard" output sections like that shown in the SM5866 datasheet with multiple opamp stages is a sure way to limit the potential. You have to keep the D/A conversion simple in my view, but you still need to supply the D/A convertor current source output with a very low impedance, and you need an output stage with some balls. That coupled with low jitter via a totally isolated digital section (much easier to do in a player where you control all of the clocks, compared to a slaved DAC where they have to be regenerated for best results), and good pcb layout, you can get great sound.

Lots of ways to get good sound, though. You just need to find the designer and company that gets closest to the sound you like.

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Kimber Kable

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