Wouldn’t they need some sort of microprocessor factory for this?
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Review and Measurements of Holo Audio May --- Probably the best discrete R2R DAC
- Thread starter WolfX-700
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OP
- Thread Starter
- #42
They just use a lot of resistors, some electronic switches, and use an FPGA to control these switches to make a DAC.
No. FPGA is a chip that you program to perform logic functions. It is like lego blocks that you put together using specialized tools and then download into the chip. FPGAs are much faster than microprocessors although much harder to program.
As to R2R DACs, they are extremely simple to build. You can build one yourself if you just search a bit online! Getting them to be low noise and distortion is much harder.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
It must be signed magnitude otherwise they could never reach this kind of linearity.
With a normal R2R topology it is not possible to get this linearity and bit depth not even with 0.001% resistors.
Chip manufacturers use different techniques or laser trimmed resistors for the MSB to 3SB to get decent linearity.
This is what makes the chips expensive as they need to be trimmed while active.
The FPGA is probably also used to toggle the right bits to achieve these results combined with small tolerance resistors.
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Newk Yuler
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Fully dual differential-balanced? With FPGA on each of the balanced channels. Cost apparently reflecting development instead of components and knowing they can get that much because it measures so well. Still not especially unrealisitic pricing IMO. Stating the obvious. Clearly the DAC to own if Hell bent on nearly perfect R2R.
Ya know, I'd invest freely in quality time with Ana de Armas without needing to know what her insides look like. (Better Blade Runner 2049 than Knives Out but she's a very fine example of magnificent design anyway.)
Ya know, I'd invest freely in quality time with Ana de Armas without needing to know what her insides look like. (Better Blade Runner 2049 than Knives Out but she's a very fine example of magnificent design anyway.)
solderdude
Grand Contributor
It's funny to see that a relatively cheap DS chip can still outperform an, as good as SOTA, Signed Magnitude R2R costing factors more.
It also has great filters as well as a NOS capability (with all its downsides).
It also has great filters as well as a NOS capability (with all its downsides).
The NOS can be handy for external filtering, e.g. HQ Player.
THr SO
I do not think that the Soekris 1541 has laughable performance (look at the measurements on SBAF), but maybe that was reserved for Audio-Gd.
Roberrto
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
This thing is seriously impressive! But not $4K impressive 
Nope. So far the only argument is that they have some unknown quality that no one has discovered how to measure yet. Personally I don't buy it.
Nope. So far the only argument is that they have some unknown quality that no one has discovered how to measure yet. Personally I don't buy it.
Nice, good job to Holo Audio for engineering an R2R DAC that finally measures with the big dogs. Very curious how folks over on those other forums will try to describe this DAC with their flowery words. A DAC with their “magical” R2R that measures well might make their heads explode.
While the engineering and aesthetic design are top notch here, I’m quite happy with my similarly measuring m500 for 10% of the price.
While the engineering and aesthetic design are top notch here, I’m quite happy with my similarly measuring m500 for 10% of the price.
Are there any ears only listening tests that support that hypothesis?
Time domain response, impulse and step response without pre-ringing. Might be interesting to make serious DBT tests.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Not that I know of. That's also one of the reasons why I'm very sceptical.
The old debate about square waves vs. music?
Totally agree
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graz_lag
Major Contributor
Me too, indeed, very happy with my Topping DX7s as DAC and Topping D10 as USB to S/PDIF bridge interface, for the audiophile amazing amount of $400 ...
Veri
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Yes I only meant audio-gd there sorry
That is really good to know that there are R2R units that can acheive what is honestly amazing performance measures for R2R.
Having said that, the comparison isn't quite the same. DACs that are traditionally thought of as being R2R use DAC chips which appears to me to be quite different from this current implementation. This implementation (as far as I can gather) doesn't even use a DAC chip. Nevertheless, it shows people that it's possible to make great measuring R2R designs.
Having said that, the comparison isn't quite the same. DACs that are traditionally thought of as being R2R use DAC chips which appears to me to be quite different from this current implementation. This implementation (as far as I can gather) doesn't even use a DAC chip. Nevertheless, it shows people that it's possible to make great measuring R2R designs.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Neither does the Airist, the Soekris, The TotalDAC nor most of the other modern takes on R2R. They all use discrete resistors.
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restorer-john
Grand Contributor
@WolfX-700 Do you think it is fair to compare this D/A converter with 192KHz source content, when all the other D/A converters tested here are at 44.1 or 48KHz?
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