digital-to-analog converters

High Resolution Technologies makes some of the very best and most affordable digital-to-analog converters on the market. The company's newest model, the MicroStreamer, is a tiny thing, just 2.5 inches by 1.2 inches by 0.4 inch, and since it's USB-powered it doesn't have a power supply or require batteries. It works as an external sound card for computers, tablets, and some smartphones. It's also a high-quality headphone amplifier. It was designed in the U.S., and the little guy's circuitboard's components are mounted in Southern California. The aluminum case is made … Read more

The AudioQuest DragonFly is a USB-powered (it doesn't use batteries or an external power supply) digital-to-analog converter. I usually need some time to get a handle on the sound of a component, but within minutes of plugging in the tiny $249 DAC I knew exactly what made it so special. It sounds clear and clean, so there's less standing between the music and my ears.

The DragonFly is a bona fide audio component, designed by Gordon Rankin, a man known in audiophile circles as a great tube electronics engineer, but Rankin is also a computer audio guy. He's one of the few DAC designers with equal depth of knowledge in analog and digital audio technology.… Read more

I've frequently raved about Woo Audio's all-tube headphone amplifiers in this blog, so I was surprised to see that the company's new WDS-1 digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is a solid-state design. Woo still offers the full line of made-in-New-York-City headphone amplifiers, with prices starting at $495.

There's also a new matching WPT-1 CD transport. Build quality is superb; these components have the sort of detailing you see on high-end gear that sells for two or three times the price of Woo's products. Each unit is 9 inches wide and 13 inches deep so they can be … Read more

If you think a lot of audio has become far too complex, check out the Halide Design digital-to analog converters (DACs). They're plain black boxes, without even a single LED, display, control, button, or connector jack (the DACs come with permanently attached USB and RCA cables).

The elegant simplicity of the Halide Design DACs is a brilliant alternative to most of today's overly complex gear. They have just one function--zeros and ones go in at one end--and analog signals come out the other end. The little Halide black boxes are the best-sounding DACs I've heard on my … Read more

I wasn't expecting much from the Hifiman Express HM-101; it's just a $39 outboard USB digital-to-analog converter and headphone amplifier. Well, this tiny USB-powered (it doesn't need batteries or an AC power supply) device definitely pumped up the sound of my Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones! They sounded significantly better with the Express than they did plugged directly into my Mac Mini's headphone jack. Sure, the Mac's sound is perfectly acceptable--until you compare it to something better.

The Express is a lot better.

Before we go any further, the Express isn't just for headphones, it also has a line-out 3.5mm jack you can run to a set of desktop-powered speakers, like myAudioengine 2s. DAC resolution isn't specified, but it's probably 16-bit/48-kHz.

Switching over from the computer's headphone jack to the Express, the first thing I noticed was that the Express could play a lot louder. That's great, but when playing drummer Ginger Baker's "Going Back Home" CD at equal volume levels from the computer and the Express, the Express unleashed more of the drummer's hard-hitting dynamics. The computer squashed his sound, especially Baker's mighty bass drum. Wow, the little thing delivers. If anything, the Express errs on the side of too much bass fullness, which isn't such a bad thing.… Read more

A great headphone amplifier is one that makes headphones sound better than you thought they were. Judged by that standard, the Centrance DACport will be an awesome upgrade for buyers who have already invested in high-quality headphones.

This component, which was made in the U.S., is downright elegant in its simplicity. There's no power adapter or batteries; the Centrance DACport ($400) runs off your laptop or home computer's USB port, and it doesn't care if it's running Mac, PC, Linux, or iOS. The DACport has a 1/4-inch (6.3 mm) headphone jack at one … Read more

Every sound you hear in real life that doesn't come out of a speaker is analog. Analog audio is, simply put, an analogous record of sound, and an LP's groove is a literal imprint of the music's soundwaves. Analog magnetic tape is just as analog, but the waveform is recorded to the orientations of the iron oxide particles bonded to the tape. Tape or LP, analog recordings store audio signals as a continuous wave in or on the media and therefore have theoretically infinite resolution.

Digital audio recording converts the original sound into a sequence of numbers; sampled to convert the analog signal to a digital representation. Sampling is the division of the signal into discrete intervals (CD's sample rate is 44.1 thousands of samples per second). CDs have a 16-bit resolution and DVD-Audio discs can be encoded with a maximum of 24-bit resolution. DVD-A's have greater bit depth results in finer gradations of sound compared with CDs and MP3s, and is subjectively on par with analog recordings. Analog-to-digital processing is performed by a converter in the recording studio; and must be converted from digital-to-analog to be listened to.

If I lost you with all that talk about sampling and conversions, let's just say the prime difference between analog and digital is that analog recordings are continuous in time, and digital is sampled at distinct intervals. What happens between samples? Not much. Analog is always "on," digital is either on or off. Analog recording's theoretically infinite resolution refers to its continuity, compared with digital's on/off sampled nature.

If digital audio sounds a lot more complicated than analog, that's because it is. But digital recording offers very significant advantages over analog recording; it has inherently lower noise, perfect duplication capabilities, and superior speed accuracy (lower wow and flutter).

Most of the digital audio advances since the early days in the 1970s come from today's superior A/D and D/A converters. Digital audio has never sounded better than it does now.

The same can be said about analog: the best LPs, played back on a good turntable sound more like real, live music played by human beings than digital recordings ever do. That's my subjective opinion. On a more objective basis I'd say digital eliminates, or lowers analog-type distortions (noise, speed variations, and so on), but it suffers from far from perfect analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion processes. To many, but not all, audiophiles and recording engineers, the best digital still sounds sterile, cold, and lacks natural warmth.… Read more

I'm seeing fewer and fewer CD players at consumer electronics trade shows; most demonstrations play music from higher-than-CD-resolution digital files or LPs! No wonder CDs are used in less than 10 percent of the demos. So it seems like the CD, even for high-end audiophiles, will soon be an endangered species.

The Bryston BDP-1 High-Resolution Digital Music Player was designed to give audiophiles easy access to music files from USB storage devices. It's purely a player and therefore doesn't have a built-in hard-drive, streamer, or a CD player/ripper. The BDP-1 must be used with a digital-to-analog converter, and I'm sure most buyers will team the player with the company's stellar BDA-1 DAC.

Bryston is based in Peterborough, Ontario, just northeast of Toronto, and sells its products through more than 150 dealers in North America and in 60 countries worldwide.

The Linux-based BDP-1 is a standalone music player, though it can be used with a computer, iPhone, or iPad. The BDP-1's graphic interface operates under open-source software protocols, ensuring compatibility with the widest possible range of devices. Output connectivity options include AES-EBU (balanced) and BNC (spdif) jacks, with electronic isolation of audio components from computers. The BDP-1 supports 16 and 24 bit files with sample rates of 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 176.4 kHz and 192 kHz.… Read more

Reading about the sound of high-end headphones on my blog is one thing, but there aren't too many places where you can actually compare the sound of top-of-the-line headphones before you buy a pair.

That's why Ken Ball started 32 Ohm Audio. The shop has about 100 headphone models on hand from AKG, Beyerdynamic, Denon, Grado, JH Audio, Koss, Monster, Skullcandy, Sennheiser, Ultrasone, and so on, as well as a large assortment of headphone amplifiers and digital-to-analog converters you can try out. Or you can just plug the headphones directly into your iPod or Zune to try them. You can't do that online, and face it, there's no substitute for an ears-on headphone audition.

It seems as if I'm always getting e-mails from readers asking about the difference in sound quality between decent set of $100 'phones and a top of the line $1,000 Grado or Sennheiser. I understand the dilemma, but all I can do is report what I hear. I'm thrilled there's at least one place where people can go hear them with their own ears. The store also sells custom-molded in-ear headphones from JH Audio, which 32 Ohm Audio can demonstrate before you buy--the shop work with a local audiologist who makes custom ear molds.

Don't get the wrong idea, most of 32 Ohm Audio's customers aren't buying $1,000 headphones, but because of the store, they know they exist. Ken Ball says the Grado SR 80i ($95) is, "Dollar for dollar, the best sounding headphone you can buy, they're amazing."

Headphone comfort is another area that's subjective, there's no substitute for putting a pair on your ears, and listening to a song or two to see how they feel. Sure, they might feel fine at first, but give 'em some time before you commit to buying them.  I'm sensitive to headphones that make my ears sweat, as the B&W P1's do for me. However, the P1 doesn't have that effect on everyone, so you can't know in advance how it's going to work for you.

It's also great to hear how a high-end headphone amplifier can transform the sound of a headphone--it's not a small change. The same applies to digital converters; at 32 Ohm Audio you can hear the difference. Bring your laptop in and have 32 Ohm set you up with a first-class headphone rig. … Read more