What could have happened here? So far, I would set up three hypotheses. 1) The DAC200 Signature performs exactly as it should. Atoll designed and tweaked it only by ears and finds that it sounds accordingly to what they wanted to. Then, I wonder why they are publishing any performance specs at all. By the way, all of them are plain wrong. THD+N, SNR and DR certainly are. In fact, even output voltage is: they say "2.25Vrms", while we get 4.66V with XLR and 2.34V through RCA. 2) They wanted to design a device, performing as advertised, but they simply have no clue about how to engineer it. Pity, then, not to mention at that price... 3) This particular unit I have my hands on is faulty. Honestly, I do not buy it, but... Then, I wonder how such a thing would have happened. How a 1800€ DAC would be able to leave the factory without any care for quality control? I do see in their published Manufacturing Process that they seem to check the quality control by... listening? I have no issue with that, but, would you guys at Atoll care to also measure? Definitely you should1
1) Probably just threw in the parts, prayed that it worked, sound actually came out on all I/Os and done was rev 1.0 for shipping. The specs were extracted from the main DSP and/or in the hopes that no one will check measure their stuff - and if someone did they could photoshop a measurement image. At least that's what I would do if I didn't give a damn.
2) That ... would be kind of cute considering it's an older company with a name. They should have at least one person being able to read IC documentations and make measurements.
3) I doubt it, either there would be no sound coming out on some I/Os or it is as working as designed. Can't imagine the 9028 PRO being NOT picky about it's inputs and control cirtcuitry.
My recommendation would be that those companies get at least one QA measurement device and everything would be fine. Maybe not just for QA but for the whole factory.
Btw, super cool review.
Edit: Dunno if I made a wrong connection in my mind, but when I see big resistors like those being used for DIY projects on breaboard I also usually see bad performance in some or all sections. Is that right or can those be also very clean?
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