[pedalhead]

I have a Metrum Hex NOS dac in the house to play with (along with an Yggdrasil and a couple of nice delta-sigma dacs).

I've seen discussions around that suggest there's some benefit in feeding a NOS dac an oversampled signal (in this case from a laptop), even from NOS dac lovers. Obviously I'll be trying for myself, but I can't quite grasp the theory behind this. I understand why oversampling is done in general, but surely sending a NOS dac an oversampled signal defeats the idea of having a NOS dac in the first place?

Any thoughts? Cheers.

 

[jcx]

you could also do it the other way 'round - send a un-interpolated ZOH "staircased" waveform to a DAC at a higher sample rate than the original to see if you like NOS artifacts at 44.1

 

[castleofargh]

there clearly are benefits to oversampling to the max resolution of the NOS DAC for the signal, it's the very reason why modern DACs oversample. ^_^
so you're right it's about as good as admitting to have bought the wrong DAC in the first place.

 

[pedalhead]

  there clearly are benefits to oversampling to the max resolution of the NOS DAC for the signal, it's the very reason why modern DACs oversample. ^_^
so you're right it's about as good as admitting to have bought the wrong DAC in the first place.

 
Cheers, that's pretty much what I figured. Have to say though, distortion or not, the Hex is a nice sounding DAC, even with the few hours it currently has on it.  I'm so far preferring it to the Yggdrasil I'm comparing it against due to an increase in impact (my HE1000 benefits from this) and a slightly more natural (for want of a better word) tone.

 

[PleasantSounds]

The main benefit from oversampling is that it pushes the low-pass filtering requirements to much higher frequencies so in effect less steep filters can be deployed. This can have some audible impact on highs.