doggiehowser
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2008
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In the past there was a lot more room to the design choices around the surrounding circuitry so yes a Naim Implementation of a BurrBrown chipset could sound very different from another manufacturers implementation of the same chipset because of filtering tech ahead of the chipset. In a way that’s kinda why the Pro iDSD sounds imho as good as it does vs another implementation of the same chip and why different Naim streamers sound similar even with different BurrBrown chipsets.
but the newer chipsets like Sabre32 and AKM44xx do a lot more of the processing and filtering internally and there is a very noticeable Sabre32 flavor across different implementations. You can refine the sound with better analog stages and power supplies but I can’t get rid of the House sound.
The best 9038 implementation I’ve heard was on the Ayre streamer but you can still hear that signature on the Oppo 205.
Granted it is my preference and I’m always reluctant to rank DACs because of that reason. There are days when I prefer my Atom CD5S with its old school R2R PCM1704s over my DSD DACs like my EMM Labs, Playback Designs or PS Audio. Especially with certain recordings.
Also with DACs like the DSJ or any DAC that can be reprogrammed such as with dcs, I would always indicate the firmware or OS revision on them when commenting on them
The DSJ with RedCloud is a huge step up over the Huron OS. And I’ve preferred the older Yale over Huron.
but the newer chipsets like Sabre32 and AKM44xx do a lot more of the processing and filtering internally and there is a very noticeable Sabre32 flavor across different implementations. You can refine the sound with better analog stages and power supplies but I can’t get rid of the House sound.
The best 9038 implementation I’ve heard was on the Ayre streamer but you can still hear that signature on the Oppo 205.
Granted it is my preference and I’m always reluctant to rank DACs because of that reason. There are days when I prefer my Atom CD5S with its old school R2R PCM1704s over my DSD DACs like my EMM Labs, Playback Designs or PS Audio. Especially with certain recordings.
Also with DACs like the DSJ or any DAC that can be reprogrammed such as with dcs, I would always indicate the firmware or OS revision on them when commenting on them
The DSJ with RedCloud is a huge step up over the Huron OS. And I’ve preferred the older Yale over Huron.