Apple’s New DAC Patent Promises Flawless Sound Quality

[dkinric]

Curious how this improves already audibly transparent conversion? Perhaps makes it smaller, easier, cheaper...

Apple's New DAC Patent Promises Flawless Sound Quality on All Apple Devices by Eliminating One Thing

Apple might have just solved a decades-old DAC problem with this new technology.

www.headphonesty.com

 

[tmtomh]

Curious how this improves already audibly transparent conversion? Perhaps makes it smaller, easier, cheaper...

Apple's New DAC Patent Promises Flawless Sound Quality on All Apple Devices by Eliminating One Thing

Apple might have just solved a decades-old DAC problem with this new technology.

www.headphonesty.com

I'll leave it to our expert members to explain this to all of us. That said, my first impression is twofold:

(1) This appears as if it might be a method to improve measured accuracy of DACs such that this accuracy can be achieved with smaller and/or less expensive/less complex hardware than at present;

(2) The claims for revealing new layers of sound or making one feel like one is in the theater are silly on their face; and more fundamentally it's the same old question: are the distortions this innovation claims to reduce audible in the first place? If not, then we're back to item #1, which is the possibility that this technology could perhaps enable the production of smaller, simpler, more power-efficient and less expensive DAC implementations that can reach basic transparency in their performance.

But of course I could be complete wrong about all of this!

 

[voodooless]

It seems they are trying to make a more linear DAC. Given that even the cheap chips offer better than -120 dB linearity, I’m wondering what there is to gain? As @tmtomh already mentions, it may just be a way of doing a similar thing with way less energy and chip resources, meaning that those small dongles can be made even better. I however suspect that the DAC part of these isn’t the hardest part, but rather the headphone amp that has to generate enough current and voltage to drive most headphones.

 

[NTK]

Is there any indication that this invention is useful for audio DAC? From what I can gather from the second paragraph, it seems it is intended for high speed RF applications. Anyone know of any "fractal DAC" being used in audio?

 

[Petrushka]

It seems they are trying to make a more linear DAC. Given that even the cheap chips offer better than -120 dB linearity, I’m wondering what there is to gain? As @tmtomh already mentions, it may just be a way of doing a similar thing with way less energy and chip resources, meaning that those small dongles can be made even better. I however suspect that the DAC part of these isn’t the hardest part, but rather the headphone amp that has to generate enough current and voltage to drive most headphones.

Lower cost and lower power consumption?

 

[tmtomh]

Is there any indication that this invention is useful for audio DAC? From what I can gather from the second paragraph, it seems it is intended for high speed RF applications. Anyone know of any "fractal DAC" being used in audio?

View attachment 382205

That's a very good point, and would make more sense.

 

[MCH]

Is this even audio related??

 

[voodooless]

Is this even audio related??
View attachment 382208

… if it’s a Bluetooth radio

 

[Multicore]

… if it’s a Bluetooth radio

Figure 3 shows DAC before the TX and antenna so that wouldn't be converting digital audio.

 

[voodooless]

Figure 3 shows DAC before the TX and antenna so that wouldn't be converting digital audio.

But that wasn’t the question if it’s a DAC for a Bluetooth radio, it can be used to stream audio over it, therefore it’s audio related.

 

[Multicore]

I briefly looked at the text of the patent and found nothing about sound or audio or flawlessness. The text of Andy G.'s article is more reasonable than its headline and first diagram.

 

[voodooless]

first diagram

Stair steps

 

[Keith_W]

What this means is that they will start suing all other DAC manufacturers because Apple invented DAC's.

 

[Somafunk]

Stair steps

That’s what I thought, poor Monty

 

[oleg87]

So much complete horseshit written so confidently; this article *has* to be AI generated.

 

[tmtomh]

So much complete horseshit written so confidently; this article *has* to be AI generated.

Could be. My first impression was that it was written by a human who clearly doesn't understand the terms and concepts they're typing.

 

[posvibes]

Make the AI robots' voices seem even more lifelike?

 

[EERecordist]

It is an RF DAC, so the article is misleading. Digital radios use a DAC to transmit. The RF waveform is computed before the DAC, sent to the DAC, then the analog output of the DAC is sent to a power amp, then the antenna.

The Apple patent is https://patents.google.com/patent/U...ting+fill+order+systems+and+methods"&sort=new

DACs are built on resistors. Here is a discussion of DAC chips for the curious: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/dacs-die-pictures/100/

 

[mikemag]

I found this link the easiest to download to read at a later time, it is 28 pages

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/attachments/appledac-us12040816-pdf.1339646/

 

[restorer-john]

Could be. My first impression was that it was written by a human who clearly doesn't understand the terms and concepts they're typing.

I thought it was an April 1st prank myself.