Those are so bullshit. Fuck those. Cost much higher than 4.4mm. So why in the fuck would anyone use that. We had that as an option but found it's purely impossible to use in a product.
Whoops. Cost higher than 4.4 mm, which isn't a super budget connector to begin with? Bummer. It is to be seen how things pan out in the long term when tooling costs have been paid off, they're still quite new after all.
The WM8742 is not a new design... the CS43198 used in this DAC is actually the first "high end" design from the team that they acquired from Wolfson.
Ah. Makes sense now. The datasheets for these and the related CS43130/131 alone are super extensive and clearly indicate a high level of engineering. They basically put together some SOTA modulators on a 1.8 V process with Class H analog output (something previously available in headphone amplifiers e.g. from Maxim). I always thought the current AKM mobile DACs were clever, but these designs absolutely take the cake. (Oddly enough, I found details on high-performance modulators in a 2010 TI presentation, but they themselves had not actually exploited this by the looks of it.)
Moving on, I am continuously amazed at what these DACs can do. We need to develop better measurement equipment so that we can actually quantify the imperfections.
No kidding. You actually have to switch the Audio Precision to "high performance mode" for these, which enables some extra trickery. I am not sure whether there is any ADC out there that is on the level of this DAC. There are a few in pro studio space that at least claim a 130 dB or greater dynamic range (it was first done with hybrids 20+ years ago), but with distortion
this low? I kind of have my doubts. AK5394A level was -110 dB THD+N.
It's impressive how much DACs have gotten better since 2007 when the WM8741/2 came out.
Well, yes and no. Wolfson deserve credit for bringing multibit delta-sigma converters to the masses, which was an important step. (One of those days I'll have to read up on how a converter manufacturer managed to spring up in Scotland seemingly out of the blue. Mind you, there had been a good bit of design expertise in the UK before.) ESS took the next one with the integration of ASRC. That said, DACs had gotten to a very high level of performance even before, and the really big steps had arguably already been taken:
PCM1794/1796 (2003): DR 127 dB, up to 132 dB in mono mode, THD+N 0.0004% (-108 dB)
AD1955 (2002): DR 120 dB, 123 dB in mono mode, THD+N -110 dB
PCM1738 (2000): DR 117 dB, THD+N 0.0004% (-108 dB)
CS4392 (2000): DR 114 dB, THD+N -100 dB (non-TOTL)
CS4396 (1999): DR 120 dB, THD+N -100 dB
AK4394 (1999): ditto
AD1853 (1999): SNR 117 dB, DR 116 dB (idle tones!), THD+N -104 dB (all 3 dB better in mono mode)
CS4391 (1999): DR 108 dB, THD+N -94 dB
Up to double speed only:
AK4393 (late 1998): DR 120 dB, THD+N -100 dB
CS4340 (1998): DR 100 dB, THD+N -88 dB (non-TOTL)
PCM1716 (1997): DR 106 dB, THD+N -96 dB
AK4324 (1997): DR 105 dB, THD+N -94 dB
Single speed only:
CS4390 (1997): DR 106 dB, THD+N -98 dB
CS4329 (1995): DR 105 dB (106 dB by 1998), THD+N -97 dB
AK4320 (1995): DR 100 dB, THD+N -84 dB
CS4328 (1993): DR 97 dB, THD+N -93 dB (-K) / -88 dB (-B)
DR given A-weighted.
If you wanted best dynamic range in the '90s, you'd generally come up with some contraption involving traditional multibit DACs or even hybrids. One of the Pacific Microsonics converters (don't remember whether Model One or Model Two) was reputed to be able to pull off <-120 dB of noise in loopback, way back in the mid-late '90s.
I should probably put all this together in a blog entry...