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Any benefit to dual chip DACs?

Draculr

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There are a lot of higher end DACs that use separate DAC chips for each channel. I was wondering if this forum had any opinions as to the benefits (or potential issues) with that setup over a single chip operating on both channels?
 

garbulky

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There are a lot of higher end DACs that use separate DAC chips for each channel. I was wondering if this forum had any opinions as to the benefits (or potential issues) with that setup over a single chip operating on both channels?
There are implementations where each dac chip or channel is run off its own transformer like with this Audio GD unit shown below.
Master-15.JPG
 

watchnerd

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There are a lot of higher end DACs that use separate DAC chips for each channel. I was wondering if this forum had any opinions as to the benefits (or potential issues) with that setup over a single chip operating on both channels?

It's basically a marketing tactic to be able to claim 'dual mono', sometimes back to the power supplies.

Is 'dual mono' always superior? Not at all. Implementation matters.

Sometimes you'll even see 4 chips used in differential schemes.
 
OP
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Draculr

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Yea that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Assuming it's implemented correctly, what are the advantages to doing it? I'm guessing if it's not implemented correctly there could be all kinds of phase issues too right?
 

watchnerd

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Yea that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Assuming it's implemented correctly, what are the advantages to doing it? I'm guessing if it's not implemented correctly there could be all kinds of phase issues too right?

It's one way to get better channel separation / reduced cross talk and *maybe* slightly better dynamics if it's easier to fit 2 modest power supplies into the chassis than 1 bigger one. But's not the only way to get good separation and there are plenty of DACs with good channel separation measurements that don't use a dual chip approach.

And, yeah, you can jack it up, too. A poorly implemented 2 chip design is probably worse, or at least easier to do wrong, than a 1 chip design. 1 chip design you can use the reference architecture, if nothing else.
 

watchnerd

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Yea that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Assuming it's implemented correctly, what are the advantages to doing it? I'm guessing if it's not implemented correctly there could be all kinds of phase issues too right?

Oh, and the Audio GD designs tested here are some pretty good examples of doing a bad job of it.
 

bunkbail

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Khadas tone board is an implementation of ES9038Q2M in stereo mode yet it's performance is at least on par or better than a dual mono config like the Topping D50.
 

garbulky

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Have you read the Audio GD test results here?

You might want to think twice about that....
Yeah I've read one of them. II didn't see the second device review though. I'm still interested in them.
 

bunkbail

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Yeah I've read one of them. II didn't see the second device review though. I'm still interested in them.
FWIW, I've heard the HE-1 (with MUSES8920 opamps as DC servo) in a local store here, it's extremely clean sounding unlike most Audio-gd amps which have some color to them. I would be very surprised if the HE-1 doesn't measure well but you never know.
 

garbulky

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FWIW, I've heard the HE-1 (with MUSES8920 opamps as DC servo) in a local store here, it's extremely clean sounding unlike most Audio-gd amps which have some color to them. I would be very surprised if the HE-1 doesn't measure well but you never know.
Nice! So what do you mean by "with muse8920 opamps as dc servo)?
 

garbulky

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The Schiit Gungnir Delta sigma version uses dual AKM DACs. The Gungnir multibit version uses four AD multibit chips and so does the SChiit Ygdrassil. What makes these a bit different is that each one of those multibit chips are quite expensive - about $400 for 4.
 

bunkbail

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Nice! So what do you mean by "with muse8920 opamps as dc servo)?
AFAIK stock HE-1 comes with OPA2134 opamps, it's just that the HE-1 I was listening to had MUSES8920s in it. I don't know what difference the opamp swap makes though.
 
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