I am curious which outboard clock you have used with the NADAC?
You think? Here is a picture of my NADAC MC-8:
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And just for fun, here is a picture of the inside of a Bricasti M1 Dual Mono, which sells for half the price:
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Here are a few things to note:
- NADAC has a switch mode power supply that powers everything. The Bricasti has three toroidal transformers.
- The digital and analog section in the NADAC are on the same board. On the Bricasti, they are on separate boards with separate power supplies.
- The NADAC uses two Sabre ESS 9008S chips. Not the 9018S. Not the new 9028/9038. The reason - they believe that these chips sound better than the newer Sabre chips. Also, note that this 8 channel DAC (which costs $1000 more than the two channel DAC) - has TWO DAC chips. Not 8. Other DAC's at this price point are not using an off-the-shelf chip but using FPGA's (Playback Designs) or custom discrete designs (DCS, MSB, Lampi)? Even a humble Oppo BDP-105 has the ESS9018S.
- The oscillator crystal is not oven controlled.
I don't deny that the NADAC sounds good. It definitely does. But I think my Playback Designs MPS-5, with the latest firmware upgrades, sounds better. And i'll point out again - that Bricasti DAC, which costs half of the NADAC, has a much more purist design. When we are in NADAC territory, your money can buy you MSB and DCS. Both of these companies have long pedigrees in the audiophile world. With a NADAC, you get an off-the-shelf DAC chip which is a lower end model to what is fitted to an Oppo DVD player.
The last time I made a post like this, I received an email from my Merging distributor. Well, all I am doing is stating facts. It is a fact that they use the 9008S. It is a fact that other DAC's in this price bracket have a more purist design. You can, if you wish, choose to dismiss toroidal power supplies, separate Analog/Digital sections, etc etc as audiophile fluff. You can, if you wish, believe their claims that they chose the Sabre 9008S because it sounds superior to the more expensive chips in the Sabre lineup. But anybody can look at what is inside the DAC, look at what else is on the market, and draw their own conclusions.
If this is "as good as digital can get", I wonder how much better it would be if it was designed like a Bricasti M1.
Agreed...I would also not compare this up against Bricasti, Esoteric, Playback Designs, DCS, EMM, and other high-end DACs. According to reviewers and users it sounds good but to compare
what amounts to a (brilliant idea) of a Ravenna-compliant network-attached computer I/O harness with switched mode power supply fronting and patching in a computer DAC card that is
patched in with commodity Coax and USB cables is a classic apples and oranges comparison. All that stated given what others state about the sound, I could see this being put out there
as a $5,000 USD device (and might even consider buying one as the idea is brilliant), but (if I read the various material correctly), at approximately $10,000 USD I don't see how anyone
could argue it's worth that based upon what we see, and what we don't see inside the box. From a computer-engineering point of view, it's a nice, clean piece of work, but I would have
swapped out that switched-mode/wart power supply block and put in a proper linear, regulated power supply. That in and of itself alone could elevate the performance even further.
Will say at the outset that I am not looking to flame/offend anyone or their purchase or this manufacturer, only to point out some obvious design differences between this and audiophile-designed components.