We significantly upgraded the award winning dac25.2 to the dac25.3. The upgrade was to the USB input which now accepts 24bit/96kHz signals. The dac25.3 is natively compatible with Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 and Mac OS X.
Today an increasing number of music lovers are buying storing and listening to music through their computer, media server, or personal music player (iPod). Many are also digitally distributing their music using a sonos, squeezebox, or one of a host of digital music distribution systems available on the market. This is a great way to explore and appreciate music but generally it’s done at the expense of sound quality. Until now music lovers have been forced to rely on the inferior digital to analog converters (DACs) and sounds cards contained in those devices. As a result, their musical enjoyment has dramatically suffered. We designed the dac25.3 to directly address this problem and to significantly improve the sound quality of the music played on these systems.
By uniting a state of the art digital to analog converter with a tube output we produce the clarity and precision of a 24bit DAC with the warm rich open sound people love of tubes. The dac25.3 has 4 digital inputs which can accept any coax (s/pdif), optical, XLR (AES/EBU), or USB digital input from an iPod transport, computer, media server, sonos, squeezebox, CD/DVD in stereo transport, or music hall’s own cd35.2 compact disc player, and it will output two channel stereo analog.
The dac25.3 features the latest texas instruments (formerly burr-brown) PCM 1796 24bit/192kHz, advanced segment, stereo audio digital to analog converter. This processor features 123dB dynamic range an 8 x oversampling digital filter and just 0.0005% thd. The dac25.3 upsamples to either 96kHz or 192kHz which is user selectable on the front panel. To achieve the best sound we use an advanced asynchronous reclocking and anti jitter control system upstream of the PCM 1796 DAC. For this system we are using the philips 74HC574 in conjunction with the ti SRC4192 asynchronous sample rate converter whose master clock is a high precision active crystal oscillator. The dac25.3 also features a large r-core high current oversize power transformer. A headphone output is provided for convenient personal listening.
usb input accepts 24bit/96kHz signalelectro-harmonix 6922 tube single-ended (rca) outputsolid-state differential balanced outputti PCM 1796 24bit/192kHz DACti SRC 4192 asynchronous sample rate converterhigh precision active crystal oscillator master clockuser selectable 96kHz or 192kHz upsamplingasynchronous reclocking and anti jitter control system8 x oversampling digital filter4 digital inputs: coax (s/pdif), optical, XLR (AES/EBU), or USB2 gold plated outputs; single ended (RCA), balanced (XLR)headphone output with adjustable analog volume controllarge high current oversize r-core power transformerthick brushed aluminum fascia and solid chassis110v/220v voltage selectable transformerdetachable power cord