The Extremist DAC

Which digital formats should my DAC handle ?

16/44 CD

I have over 800 CDs (814 as of August 04,2003 as my database tells me). I will not buy these again in whatever better format comes out in the future. Most of them would not be reissued anyway. So obviously getting the best possible sound out of 16/44 is the highest priority for me.

It has become common practice to bash the CD format and to curse it with the whole responsibility of the shitty sound we have today. It seems to be viewed, at best, like a necessary evil.

There seems to be some truth in this, as 16/44 appears to be insuficient to encode everything the human ear can perceive :

I have read articles, based on listening tests, which show that ultrasonic frequencies above 20k do improve sound quality. Therefore, a higher sampling rate would benefit. It would also relax the requirements on the ADC/DAC anti-aliasing filters. These filters, especially brick-wall types, always carry an uneasy feeling because of the ringing.
A higher sampling rate encode phase information a lot better for the highs.
If the music is recorded without too much clipping, loud parts use most of the available bits, but quiet parts end up being encoded on too few bits, typically 8 or less. Dithering helps a lot here, but more bits would be better.

However, I am persuaded that most of the cursed "CD sound" is not due to the format itself, but to how it is used.

Some CDs are plainly badly mastered. I won't repeat what is told in this article.
Most CD players and DACs are so badly designed they do not even come close to the potential this format has. I believe this is a bold statement to make, maybe I am sounding a bit pretentious. Who am I, after all, a tweaker from nowhere, criticizing the work of competent audio designers from major brand names. Read the rest of this DAC article and think about it for yourself.

The most important design goal for this DAC will thus be to get the most out of 16/44 digital audio.

24/96

This is the logical extension of 16/44 PCM. On paper it has to sound a lot better. From what I read it seems to. I have never heard, in person, a proper comparison though.

But I am still certain that properly implemented 16/44 can beat sloppily implemented 24/96 anytime.

So should my DAC be compatible with 24/96 ? Only if it is easy to do and does not disrupt the primary design goal of 16/44. If my prototype turns out well, I can still rebuild it with a more advanced DAC chip (with more bits). It is a lot easier to remake an existing design than to re-design everything from scratch.

That, combined with the fact that I own no 24/96 recording, made me choose not to exclude the 16 bits chips from the list.

I still think 24/96 is the future, but it has not settled enough for me to build something for it yet.

SACD/DSD

The great hype coming out from the Sony cult. Many worship it. I'm going to be blunt in saying I believe this is all bullshit. Read the next page for my take on this subject.

Conclusion

I will design a DAC for 16/44, but with 24/96 in mind. The design patterns should be recyclable in a 24/96 DAC easily simply by changing the chip and clock rate.

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