On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 18:57:37 +0100, Chris Isbell
wrote:

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 11:32:30 GMT, (Stewart
Pinkerton) wrote:

If you actually understood how DACs work, you'd be aware that:

1) A separate DAC is a *very* bad idea.

2) A *good* DAC will minimise any incoming jitter to the extent that
all properly functioning transports will produce an audibly identical
output signal from the DAC.

Could you possibly explain why a separate DAC is a very bad idea,
please? (I have just purchased one!)

Jitter. The CD system was never intended to have separate transports
and DACs, so the embedded clock in the S/PDIF datasteam is not robust,
and is prone to adding jitter. Not a problem for a well-designed DAC,
but far too many so-called 'high end' DACS have input receivers which
are quite stunningly incompetent at suppressing jitter.

In a standalone player, a single low-noise free-running master clock
placed close to the DAC chip controls the entire system, leading to
lower jitter than is possible from a separate DAC with it's PLL clock.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering