In article , Tat Chan wrote:
IIRC the Alpha 5 used the geriatic Philips TDA1541 multibit DACs, and
the newer Arcams use Wolfson DACs. Surely DAC technology has advanced
heaps in the last 20 years or so?

Indeed. The spec sheets (not the whole story, I know) show that
inexpensive DAC chips [1] over the last few "generations" have been able
to get theoretical performance in 16-bit mode. In 24-bit mode they
get somewhere in the 18-20 bits range. And this at higher and higher
sample rates (192 ksample/s is now a common capability). I don't know
much about the TDA1541, though, for comparison.

Probably it's the anti-alias filtering which has improved more. However I
haven't looked in detail at the recent generations of integrated filters
in the better DAC chips to check this. Interpolation ("upsampling")
and digital filtering seem to be almost universal as a means to give
the filter more space in the frequency domain for pass-band to stop-band
transition.

Innovations like dynamic element matching have quickly made their
way into the mainstream and the typical high-end DAC of today
has a fast 5-bit or 6-bit DEM DAC at its core. See, for example,
http://www.ednasia.com/oct04/coverstory.html

[1] Less than 5 USD in moderate quantity.

--
John Phillips