seanadams Wrote: > Modded or not, why do you believe this [high end external DAC to be > better than SB3 analog out] is so?
A good high end DAC is going to have a few advantages over the SB3. First and foremost, there is an opportunity to design a more sophisticated analog output; even from just a materials quality perspective, this is possible. Beyond that, power supply quality, physical isolation of circuits etc are things that a high end DAC can offer that the SB3 cannot. As far as the digital performance of the DAC, there is probably less room for improvement...jitter and RF/EM protection are the main culprits, and the SB3 has pretty good performance there. However, Burr-Brown does have different "quality classes" for their DAC chips (eg. "K" series are sampled and tested to perform at the top 10% of a manufacturing batch), and especially for 24-bit DAC chips, the accuracy of the last 6-8 bits are often suspect in their accuracy. This is not to say that the SB3 does not offer quality analog output, but if Slim Devices asked its engineers to develop a high end DAC, I'm pretty sure that they would be able to come up with something that outperformed the SB3's analog output. (disclaimer: I am not an engineer, but this post reflects some of the discussions I've had with some high end digital engineers)... -- PhilNYC Sonic Spirits Inc. http://www.sonicspirits.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PhilNYC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=837 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17948 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
