Any info about what's inside Naim DAC?

It runs off a 12V battery

I'll be interested in what interfaces it has as 'the DAC transforms computer sound' according to the Naim Summer sounds blurb.

James

It just dawned on me that the front USB may not be for music playing so interfaces may just be dig in on the back. Heard they were working on jitter solutions and will have a rather unique DAC as it's foundation. This was from last fall and things can change a lot in that amount of time so none of this is certain on my part. I wont go on with what may be incorrect info.

Could Naim give us any technical information about the DAC?
Why don't they use the commnity for providing more information about new products, I think this will increase interest both in the site and the new products.

I think that it is about time that Naim gives us some official information about the new DAC since a lot of us are waiting for it. Due to the long wait I am about to buy the new Ayre QB 9 DAC with asyncronous USB input which seems to be a good solution regarding low jitter. I hope the Naim DAC has got something comparable since I would love to hook up a PC or Mac to the DAC without the need for an expensive sound card.

That's exactly what I think,
The long wait without info just makes other alternatives more attractive. The QB-9 looks very promising, there is a very complete White Paper about it explaining what the asynchronous technology is about. I would like to see the same with the forthcoming Naim DAC,

Naim could take advantage of using this community more actively for promoting new products.

Very true - It might have stopped a few of us going a different route. Still i'm looking forward to seeing and hearing what Naim come up with. I'm sure its going to have some unique features and engineering, but the competition it'll face is pretty stiff.

James

I think the DICE solution that Weiss and TC use is better as it goes beyond the asynchronus aspects. Perhaps they're close enough. It can be had in a TC for $300 and used with any DAC. There's a lot to these things beyond the interface also. Of course it's hard to appreciate those other things if the interface is bad but PS, actual DAC and analog circuits are just as important. Like anything else. These will be governed by the weakest link.

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
Its on tour next week for all to see.

This week for me Stu

Looking forward to hearing your first impressions of the DAC Gary. Should be an interesting few weeks (8th July for me)

James

Good things come to those who wait.

quote:

Good things come to those who wait.

And to those that haven't

While the white paper comes...

I was finding out about this DSP thing, it looks very promising since I found a company (audio-gd) which claims to reduce jitter nearly to zero thanks to a DSP hardware implementation in their DACs.

More concretely, they use a "Two-channel Digital Interpolation Filter and data in-phase processor for digital audio. Data and Master-clock in-phase processing are without jitters"

Could Naim be using a similar approach?

Could be a similar approach to PSD Audio's new DAC, where the digital conversion to/from I2S is handled in a new way. I seem to remember there are some new Wolfson chips that did something clever in this department

quote:

Originally posted by goldfinch:
That's exactly what I think,
The long wait without info just makes other alternatives more attractive. The QB-9 looks very promising, there is a very complete White Paper about it explaining what the asynchronous technology is about. I would like to see the same with the forthcoming Naim DAC,

Naim could take advantage of using this community more actively for promoting new products.

Still I don't know why one still launches a 96/24 DAC?
192/24 music is already there and it can't be processed by this one.

I would no longer go for a 96/24 DAC
-
Aleg

Very credible people have written plausible arguments as to why 24/96 is not sonically better than 24/192, and in fact that with today's chips, performance may actually be worse at the higher rate. Benchmark, for instance, run their DAC at 110 because that's it's optimum performance, so 192 is downsampled.

And then there is the test that showed that audiophiles and sound engineers could not tell the difference between hi-rez and the same signal downconverted to 16/44, FWIW.

^^ Links please? ^^

quote:

Originally posted by Eric Barry:
Very credible people have written plausible arguments as to why 24/96 is not sonically better than 24/192, and in fact that with today's chips, performance may actually be worse at the higher rate. Benchmark, for instance, run their DAC at 110 because that's it's optimum performance, so 192 is downsampled.

And then there is the test that showed that audiophiles and sound engineers could not tell the difference between hi-rez and the same signal downconverted to 16/44, FWIW.

That may indeed be the case.

It just mean it in a technical sense, not 'audiological'. If a DAC cannot downsample (and I own one ), then it cannot process the stream and I have to downsample the music on my PC before I can use it.

So it is just a matter of convenience.

If more and more 192/24 music will appear, e.g. on BluRay discs like the one I have, I will have to do more and more downsampling myself. And when the technology is there, why not use the up-to-date chips that can process 192/24?

-
Aleg

I've done the comparison on dubbed analog material, 192 and 96 were both clearly better than 44. I actually slightly preferred the 96 to 192 but it may have just been that setup though all was recorded and played back on the same kit without any resampling. The question becomes, if you prefer the sound of a particular 24/96 DAC to any 192/96 DAC and feel the end result is still better with 192 material, do you use it? Why should we care as long as it works and we don't yet know how they're utilizing the 1704. They can be configured for 192. I just don't know why they would bother if it doesn't enhance real world performance. We'll know soon enough but which DAC chip they use certainly wouldn't hold me back as long as it works. There's always Cambridge 740 CDPs, they'll do 384 with dig in. Future proof and all that.

Check the Lavry Engineering website--I believe there is a white paper.

Well there is one thing I can tell a mile off, and that is LP replay.

Rolling around at sea with regard to pitch.

And a whole load of mechanical noise just waiting to cover important musical aspects in quiet music!

I never liked LP as a medium, and would never return to it now, as to get it to sound nearly so fine as decent digital transfers costs many thousands.

Plus you have so much wasted space housing all that deadful card-board and vinyl, with the associated artwork of so often dubious quality compared to the music ...

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by Eric Barry:
Check the Lavry Engineering website--I believe there is a white paper.

Read it at some point but in my listening 96 was still a bit better than 88. Again, it could be kit related and I see no good reason for a difference at those rates. You'll notice that Nagra's best recorder has a 96 limit but their cheaper one does 192. Tells you something about their feelings on the matter.

RE: 96k vs 192k

Last weekend (4th/5th July) there was held a Symposium on Computer Audio at the Fantasy Studios in Berkely, California. (See the computer Audiophile Forums for more information) One of their demonstrations was playing back a 96k and 176.4k version of the same piece - source was a high end analogue master tape. The overwhelming response reported is that the 176.4k version was vastly superior. The Lavry white paper does make scientific sense, but then a lot of things in audio circles makes scientific sense but is shown in the real world to act differently.

Having said that, as was pointed out before ... we've not been able to make detailed comparisons with the Naim DAC and different sources so it maybe that the limit isn't an issue. Lets wait for the end results and the details before making a judgement.

Eloise

The 'reference recordings' 176.4 files are superb recordings , just wish there was a larger choice of music available.

Higher sample rates can sound better depending on DAC design but it's probably not because of sample rate. It's easier to filter higher frequencies so in certain DACs this would be an advantage but perhaps not in others. A given DAC may upsample a 96k file but play a 176 native which would eliminate the filter differences but bring processing into the equation and also effect the comparison.

I agree that there's nothing wrong with these higher res files. When we did a comparison it was with the exact same analog master, same A2D, same Dac etc. and through a 500 setup. I'd have been happy with either but thought the 96 a bit more solid and the 192 a hair more open but in a soft sort of presentation that I didn't care for. More open and a bit softer than the source doesn't cut it for me. Now this was one comparison with one set of kit as was the Berkeley audition so it's no absolute but with as much as I know needs to be right in a dig stream, this will not be the weak link in playback.

An example would be something like the Music Hall DAC. I prefer it with the input left native but it's next best upsampling to 192 and worst upsampling to 96. This has nothing to do with the quality of the 44k signal coming in but with how the DAC handles these operations.

In other words, it's all about implementation.

Kinda reminds me of tape. Metal was "better"--but only if your tape deck was better on Type IV than Type II.