Dear John!
JA> Do you use a DAC and Anti Jitter Unit in your system? If so what
JA> kind and what difference did you notice. I have been reading
JA> everything I can find on DAC units and am mystified by the
JA> extraordinary difference in units and prices.
Anti Jitter Unit???? While I also agree that excessive jitter can cause
difficulties, I don't believe that one needs another device to correct
for it, if care is used i the installatin using short cable lengths,
watching like you would for low level analog signals, etc.
I used DACs and ADCs every day in my work, mostly the ones that came on
my Spectral workstation which are very clean from what I've heard so
far. A company called Apogee makes the ones that many in the industry
prefer that are quite pricy. Mine in my DAW are not cheap either at
$1300 a set of stereo channels for simultanious used in both directions.
Even in the 8 channel versions, they are about $350 a channel from
Spectral. I'm satisfied with what I have, but would enjoy comparing them
to the Apogees. I've been looking through the operations manual for the
Apogee AD-500. The main point is that these can be cheaper than some of
the "audiophile" versions, yet this is what the industry uses for
conversion.
The quality of the ADC that is originally done is very important, very
akin to the quality of the cartridge on the turntable is to any quality
considerations downline. Most consumers (unless doing digital recording)
are only concernd with DAC, which is also critical to the quality
possible on your entire system, yet, most DACs, even the built in ones,
are usually sufficient for most ears. Like anything else, spend more if
you can hear/appreciate the differences.
Bonnie *:>
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