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Which DAC in which player

post #1 of 7
10/9/09 at 2:40am
Thread Starter 
There has been a lot of talk about portable players and their onboard DAC and to some extent also their output stage. When it comes to the iPod there are two DACs being metioned, cirrus logic and wolfson and the only DAC I have come into contact with in higher end audio before is burr brown. So I am curious, what is the DAC in other popular DAPs?
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post #2 of 7
10/9/09 at 8:37am
Thread Starter 
I just saw that hifiman has a burr-Brown pcm1704 and the nice sounding opa627. I've once owned a cdp from music hall with 1738 and opa627 which wasn't standard. It sounded ok but harsh and thin compared to my opera 2.2. Don't know which DAC and opa was in that, just that it also had tubes in the output stage also
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post #3 of 7
10/9/09 at 11:01am
Wolfson: many players from Cowon, iriver, Samsung, Toshiba/Zune, the Rio Karma, many Chinese brands (Meizu, Teclast, RAmos, et al.)

TI: a number of Creative players like the Zen Vision:M, the Cowon X5, earlier SanDisk players

Austria Microsystems: Sansa Clip and Fuze

Sigmatel: essentially dead, but older players from Cowon, Samsung, Rio, the Trekstor Vibez, many Chinese players

Cirrus Logic: a few earlier players from Cowon & iriver, many recent Chinese players based on a single platform (CC1600)

iPod: deserves a separate category for sheer market share...have used Sigmatel, Wolfson, and Cirrus Logic
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post #4 of 7
10/9/09 at 5:02pm
this is a nice topic...

So you're saying that the 'legendary' X5, and my good'old ZV:M used a ittiration of a Burr-Brown DAC?!
It would explain why I loved my ZV:M so much


Rgds
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post #5 of 7
10/10/09 at 3:10pm
Even my good old NOKIA N91 8gb uses a texas instruments chip inside as far as i know. maybe thats why it sounds so damn good. i couldnt be happier with a cellphone-dap.
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post #6 of 7
12/7/09 at 12:08am
sorry to revive this but.......

so Wolfson and TI are better usually than Cirrus Logic right?

and

Does someone have a list of what chipset that each model of the ipod has?
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post #7 of 7
12/7/09 at 4:40am
The short answer is Wolfson until Gen 6; Gen 6 uses Cirrus.

So says Gordon Rankin of Wavelength Audio and he ought to know.

What DAC does an ipod use? | Computer Audiophile
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