Digital to Analog Audio Conversion
Interview with Paul McGowan
Why is it advantageous to use a separate D to A converter?
The most obvious advantage is sound quality. This is really a question about separates vs. all-in-one solutions; a subject near and dear to my heart over the last 38 years. Separates are almost always superior to integrated units because the designers can focus all the hardware and software resources on executing one task perfectly. If we take the example of a receiver, integrated, or multi-use product, the internal D to A converter (DAC) in these units shares a common power supply, has rarely been optimized for high-end performance and lives in a very noisy environment not particularly conducive to high performance.
A separate and dedicated DAC, on the other hand, has all the attention of the design team lavished upon it with but one single goal in mind: performance. Properly designed, a separate DAC like the PerfectWave series from PS Audio has separate isolated power supplies, fully discrete class A analog circuitry, low noise well shielded environment and so on. Rarely are these types of features possible in a multi-task piece of kit like a receiver because there's simply neither the physical space nor the budget to accommodate that.
Read the complete article at HomeToys.com
Interview with Paul McGowan
Why is it advantageous to use a separate D to A converter?
The most obvious advantage is sound quality. This is really a question about separates vs. all-in-one solutions; a subject near and dear to my heart over the last 38 years. Separates are almost always superior to integrated units because the designers can focus all the hardware and software resources on executing one task perfectly. If we take the example of a receiver, integrated, or multi-use product, the internal D to A converter (DAC) in these units shares a common power supply, has rarely been optimized for high-end performance and lives in a very noisy environment not particularly conducive to high performance.
A separate and dedicated DAC, on the other hand, has all the attention of the design team lavished upon it with but one single goal in mind: performance. Properly designed, a separate DAC like the PerfectWave series from PS Audio has separate isolated power supplies, fully discrete class A analog circuitry, low noise well shielded environment and so on. Rarely are these types of features possible in a multi-task piece of kit like a receiver because there's simply neither the physical space nor the budget to accommodate that.
Read the complete article at HomeToys.com
