ECDesigns' powerDAC-SX: a new way of driving your speakers and headphones

[matthias]

Personally, I find it nice to have a space for "customers" to discuss impressions without interference from the manufacturers.

I agree, but I think it is mandatory for the manufacturer to know what customers (existing or prospective) think or suggestions they have regarding upcoming generations of a product.

 

[matthias]

@ECdesigns
Welcome here, thank you for your feedback

 

[hopkins]

From link above to EC designs webpage
“The PowerDC-SX does not amplify, so noise can’t get amplified either.”

I was thinking about this again, in the context of discussions related to analog versus digital.

I believe this is one of the key aspects of this design, and probably explains why digital can sound so special with the powerDAC-SX.

I emphasize "can" because it is obvious that a lot of digital source material is compromised. We all know about this, and regret it: poorly produced digital releases are unfortunately too often what we have to work with.

Having spend many months now listening to the SX, it is clear that quality digital tracks can sound just as vivid as vinyl, without the drawbacks! Playing vinyl through a quality ADC to the powerDAC also demonstrates that digital is not fundamentally flawed as some consider it to be.

By the way, you don't need 50.000€ speakers to figure this out...but I digress.

The idea that digital is not "natural" ( or as Peter Qvotrup explains: "life is analog") has no theoretical foundations. It is purely "folklore". We cannot demonstrate that sampling sound is inherently flawed.

What is now well established, however, is that digital playback has some challenges that are specific to the conversion process (from D to A) and are not present in a fully analog system (on the other hand, analog obviously has its own challenges as well). The main challenge here is "noise".

Very low level electrical signals switching on and off hundreds of thousands of times per second are subject to "noise", "errors", and when the resulting analog signal is amplified and used to control our speakers, the results are unpredictable.

What ECDesigns has come up with is a completely different way of handling digital audio, which aims at minimizing, at all steps of the process, the potential for signal degradation. There is no traditional amplification, and I would even say that there is no traditional digital to analog conversion either.

I think it is worth spending time trying to understand this. In my humble opinion, it's a game-changer

 

[hopkins]

Here's a video review by the same person who wrote the written review I mentioned before: