A bit late to this thread, but maybe one day someone will be searching about EAD as I was a few years ago.
I have an EAD 7000 mark 3 and it is superb. Note: I am about to put it on the market. However,
that's NOT why I'm writing this. I am sharing my research and love of this dac. Only my interest in hi res has led me to consider selling the EAD. For redbook, this EAD bests everything I've heard including my new Buffalo Sabre 32. Below are some random bits I collected from the internet. Maybe I can compile a complete set of notes at some point.
[size=12.0pt]The EAD 7000/9000's are still more than competetive today IMHO.[/size]
[size=12.0pt]Having listened to many DAC's over the last couple of years, including ML Dacs and the DCS pieces, the EAD's were again IMHO in the same league.[/size]
The EAD 9000 (modified by Boelen) is by far the best DAC period!! If fact, I will challenge anyone living in the Los Angeles area to come to my house and put up or shut up!!
Better than the Benchmark
I've used EAD in the past and was always impressed with it's musicality,good stuff...
I tried out even the Musical Fidelityunit that Sterophile went all gooey about, and the EAD was much better.
Seems to be a lot of comments echoed by HIFICRITIC: "The current generation of DACs might have a great measured specifications, but they don't necessarily reproduce music as well as earlier technologies with less impressive measures performance. '24' bit DACs generally have excellent linearity, a low noise floor and the ability to draw power off low voltage supplies that make them useful in some applications, but musically I feel that they all gravitate toward blandness." He adds "the really good audio DACs in my opinion are all multi-bit types. Alas, few are now in production, and those few are expensive which means that you only find them in high priced players."
If it is not an MKIII then it does not have the Digital flywheel.That [size=20.0pt]was added only to the MKIII versions of all their dacs.[/size]
"EADs DSP-7000 Series III represents a pain staking clean-up when compared with it's predecessor, the Series II model. At the core of this clean-up is what EAD calls Digital Flywheel Reclocking Cicuitry. "The electronic equivalent of a massive rotating flywheel" says an EAD explanation. "Digital Flywheel smooths out the instantaneous time-base fluctuations (or "jitter"), achieving a 10-fold jitter reduction from EADs already advanced Series II reclocking circuitry." "I would say EADs meticulous battening of the digital hatches, combined with the HDCD chip itself, has turned a sonically shadowed DA converter (Series II) into one of the most musical sounding components to be found at any price (Series III).
[size=12.0pt]To my mind there has been a general and continuing downward shift in the sound quality extracted from DACs over the past 20 years. DACs are produced by semiconductor manufactures and require large volumes to make operations economic as most of these will find their way into cheap products, there is little incentive to create good sounding components.
The DACs available for the HIFI designer will also be found in computer sound cards, personal digital stereos and televisions. As a result many modern examples have lost their audiophile verve, as the semiconductor manufactures prefer to make cheaper and lower powered devices better adapted to their principal, high volume customer's needs.
These mass produced low-bit converters do deliver excellent measured performance, but often seem unable to deliver the goods when real high fidelity sound reproduction is required."[/size]
[size=12.0pt]PCM digital reached its peak in the mid to late 1990s with the last of the great conventional "ladder" DAC chips.[/size][size=12.0pt] The newest Delta Sigma stuff can't compare, IMO. [/size]
Feel free to PM me if you want my collected "notes" from the internet re: EAD 7000.
