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RE: Delta Sigma .vs R2R Ladder

My 2 cents..

I have Audio-GD Master 11 (PCM-1704) and LKS-DA004 (ES9038pro). Also a bunch of lesser dacs including 48 chip DDDAC, tube output ES9018, etc

Comparing them in PCM mode, the Master 11 and LKS are quite similar in many ways. Ultimately the Master 11 wins by being more musical. But some could prefer the LKS presentation. I get the same result whether the dacs are fed raw PCM or upsampled to 192 or 384 using HQP

(The DDDAC loses by quite some margin, mostly lacking the information retrieval and dynamics and top-end of the better DACs.)

However, if you use HQPlayer to upsample to DSD512 (which takes quite some CPU power), then the LKS just destroys the rest, including the Master 11. Totally not subtle.

With DSD512 the LKS sounds like an analog rig compared to the other dacs, with the "digital crap" being made obvious. There's a much more stable image with more 'space around the instruments', a richness that digital rarely has. It's hard to find anything that the Audio-GD does better in this mode (OK it's a better preamp..)

I find this quite an amazing result. Same source file, same DAC chip, very different sound.

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