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, and as a result, their musical enjoyment has dramatically suffered. We designed the dac25.2 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 dac25.2 has 4 digital inputs which can accept any coax (s/pdif), optical, XLR, or USB digital input from an iPod transport, computer, media server, Sonos, Squeezebox, CD/DVD in stereo transport, or music hall’s own cd25.2 compact disc player, and it will output two channel stereo analog.

The dac25.2 features the latest Texas Instruments (formerly Burr-Brown) PCM1796 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 dac25.2 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 PCM1796 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 dac25.2 also features a large, high current oversize power supply. A headphone output is provided for convenient personal listening.

Specifications

THD+N: <0.04% Tube out (1KHz)

<0.0015% Balanced out (1KHz)

Output level: 2.0V

Frequency response: 2Hz~20KHz +/-0.2dB

SNR: >110dB

Power dissipation: <30W

Dynamic range: > 120dB (24 bit)

> 96dB (16bit)

Crosstalk: <-110dB

Operating temperature: 0 ~ 40℃

Headphone output level: 4V max

Headphone output resistance: 0.3 ohm

Power supply: AC115V/60Hz - 230V/50Hz

Physical

Dimensions: W x D x H (8.5 x 13.5 x 3.75 in.)

Weight: 10 lbs. packed