seanadams Wrote: > Having dismantled a DAC-1 I can tell you it is a perfectly vanilla > implementation of ASRC using a standard ADI chip, and it does perform > as advertised WRT to jitter rejection - this feature is _inherent_ in > asynchronous sample rate conversion. > > ASRC effectively moves the source of jitter from the s/pdif input DAC's > internal clock. That's fine but it's not necessarily an improvement - > the latest standard s/pdif receiver chips from Crystal, ADI, TI all > have very good jitter attenuation - in fact a good PLL design will > inherently act as filter to clean up the recovered clock however bad it > is. > > However, ASRC while it obviously eliminates jitter in the source > signal, does god knows what to the data coming through. > > That said, the Benchmark's DAC and amplification stages appear to be > carefully engineered, and measured performance here is great. > Unfortunately real performance is harder to market, but ELIMINATES > JITTER sells. ;)
I bought the Benchmark DAC on the basis of the sound, rather than the jitter attenuation. My previous CD player cost over $10k so buying a "good" transport wasn't going to be an issue. It turned out that, for once, the hype is correct and it does sound fabulous. Not warm, not scratchy, not dull, not bright... just right! I now use it with a very old Meridian CD player and a very new SB3 :) Steinar's link was interesting and suggests that ASRCs are inherently superior to dual PLL designs, provided that the implementation is done carefully. Certainly the Benchmark is great value for money compared to the audiophile competition I have heard (standalone CD players and transport/DACs). I haven't yet had enough experience of using it with my SB3 to be definitive about proclaiming the end of CD players as we know it - but I have spent the last two days reripping 200 of my CDs into FLAC, so perhaps that says enough... Andrew -- Andrew B. ========================================================= SB3-> Benchmark DAC1 -> EAR864 valve pre -> ATC SCM50ASL active speakers... nice! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew B.'s Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2619 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18439 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
