DAC-V1 Question (chips or chip?)

Depends.

Actual process of digital to analogue conversion generally is a one-chip affair though it can be split according to channels. Some components use mono DAC chips per channel but it is not that common. The top tier Naim units do that.

A DAC as a piece of hardware uses multiple components of which, in addition to the core DAC itself, there will be DSP before the DAC stage which may be provided by a single chip as in the SHARC processors used by Naim or a DSP stage made of individual discrete chips.

In terms of quality, I would not say chip count is a good measurement at all. Though mono DACs have an advantage in that the analogue output can be discretely separated inside the unit. I would not get hung up on this.

Naim DAC-V1 - Under the hood

Inside, a Burr Brown PCM1791A 24-bit/748kHz stereo voltage output DAC chip (as seen inside the NDX and SuperUniti) is found, with custom-designed digital filtering with Naim-authored code, giving 16 times oversampling. The latter is done on a SHARC ADSP21489 DSP along with a RAM buffer, and following this the analogue signal goes to a discrete Naim preamplifier gain stage using selected passive components. It will work up to 24-bit, 384kHz resolution via USB, which itself is asynchronous so the Naim DAC-V1 provides the clock lock.

Conventional digital inputs (one BNC, two RCA and a pair of TOSLINKs) work up to 24/192. Galvanic (optical) isolation is used between digital and analogue sections to cut out digital noise, and there’s a linear power supply with 210VA transformer, with three separate windings for digital, DAC and analogue stages.

Multiple pre-regulated linear power supplies are used, as is a six-layer PCB designed for low electromagnetic interference. Discrete audiophile film capacitors appear throughout the signal path, alongside discrete tantalum capacitors in critical power supplies and in signal path AC coupling.

Hi-Fi Choice May 2013

Dave

Pity they have not used all the capability.
According to ti website " The PCM1791A accepts PCM and DSD audio data formats".

lola20124

I think the answer is "watch this space".

Dave

Let's not guess their reasons here. Naim put a lot of effort into the DSP which is where their code runs.

I'm under the impression that it is extremely non trivial to do DSP on native DSD which is probably why they convert DSD64 to PCM internally. The other option being to feed the DAC directly without Naim optimisations. I'm sure anything they are not implementing is because they could not implement it without significant compromise to the sound.

 Could this be part of the upcoming firmware update (DSD...etc.?)  (not that you may be of liberty to say)

 Worth a try asking though