In the decades since the digital revolution in audio, the digital-to-analogue converter has become a vital link in the hi-fi chain. DACs first arrived as standalone units for upgrading CD players, graduating to a full role once file-based replay became a thing, so that an offboard unit was required to turn the potentially hideous noise from computers into high-quality audio. Today most amplifiers have built-in digital inputs and DACs within. But for the best possible quality, a separate DAC is still very much the way to go.
These converters are reversing the digitisation performed in the recording studio, where analogue microphones are digitised at a high level for mixing and mastering (unless the studio in question is one of the few analogue hold-outs, in which case the ADC may be…
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Sound + Image (Digital) - 1 Issue, June - July 2018