The problem here being that 'resolve' is a buzzword designed to pray on the angst of audiophiles. In reality there's no bits gone missing.
It's a bit like people who think synthesized ascorbic acid is poisonous. It's not. It's chemically identical to the stuff found in nature.
Ok Killingbeans, then I’m thoroughly confused.
I just spent time “researching” this on amirm’s thread on Sigma Delta dac’s, and right there and here is his quote:
“ but the levels within the 4-bit DAC must be accurate to 16 bits if we desire a 16-bit result. Trimming and digital compensation are used in commercial multi-bit DS DACs to provide the required precision.”
I read that to mean that, indeed SD dac’s DO throw away bits from the 16 bit signal, only to Reproduce them by TRIMMING AND DIGITAL COMPENSATION, ie SYNTHESIZING what the original bits were.
This is NOT the same as decoding those original bits! It’s a synthesis of those bits and that is TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.
A ladder dac, even though it’s inherently noisier, does indeed decodes all 16 discreet bits of the digital signal.
A SD dac does not, that’s what I just read, the SD part, in amirms thread on sd dac’s which I just quoted above, not my words, his.
A visual analogy is useful here, take two pictures and put them up on a hd monitor split screen.
One the original picture of a human being, next to it a CG created version of that same picture, do they look the same?
Of course the don’t, they CAN’T. The real picture looks, well, real. The CG version of it has all the characteristics of the picture but it clearly looks fake, as in not real, or analog. It clearly looks like a Computerized version of a real photograph of a human being.
This same EXACT analogy can be transferred over to the different dac technologuse and how they do things.
But from what I just read HERE, SD dac’s DO indeed throw away bits from the original stream.
Not really trying to argue or threadcrap, just again trying to illuminate for you curious here what some people find intriguing about ladder dac’s, nothing more nothing less. So please nobody take offense as none is intended.
And, yes, I am doing research here.
Love the discussion!
Beave