T+A HiFi - DAC 200 - Official Discussion Thread
May 27, 2024 at 4:57 AM Post #496 of 497
What chip is used in this DAC?
PCM side is built around eight BB1795 chips and DSD is their own design. DSD side is IMO the crown jewel of DAC200.
 
May 27, 2024 at 8:34 AM Post #497 of 497
What chip is used in this DAC?
Take a look at this reply by @GoldenSound, who also did a fantastic review (with good critique) of the T+A D200.
Not quite.

The PCM1795 DAC uses Burr Brown's 'advance segment' architecture.
The simplest way to explain this is that the top 6 bits are converted 'as is', but the lower 18 bits are converted using a 1-bit delta sigma modulator that modulates to the level of 1 LSB (least significant bit) of the top portion.

I've got a bit more of an in depth explanation about two thirds through this post on the Teac UD501 which uses the same chip and also has the same filter bypass option:
https://goldensound.audio/2021/12/02/teac-ud501-dac-review-measurements/

Though worth noting the DAC200 avoids some of the issues present in that unit, particularly when running with the unit in 'NOS'.

The chip does NOT modulate to 1-bit entirely, it's a multibit conversion just a bit of a hybrid approach.
Most DACs will modulate the entire signal to 5-bit usually, whereas this separates the 6 MSB (most significant bits) and the lower 18 LSB (least significant bits) and handles them separately

With PCM, the 1-bit DSD converter is not used.
With DSD, the data is fed un-altered to the 1-bit DSD converter and the PCM1795 chip is not in use. They are entirely separate DACs / signal paths.
 
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