DACport development blog

This is what I will be bringing back with me from China. The shining new chassis are done. They will be used to build DACports this weekend. Last day in China today, returning to US on Thursday.

Back in 1998, while working for a large microphone company I co-chaired an AES working group on Digitally-interfaced microphones (the standard has been published as AES-42). One of the members of our diverse, international group was Julian Dunn, a brilliant engineer from UK who wrote a lot about jitter measurement and specification. I got to work with Julian during several AES meetings until his untimely passing several years ago. His papers are still online, but they are not very easy to comprehend, so here is a summary of the issue:

Jitter is the most important and the least understood parameter in the quality of digital to analog converters. Everything else is already state of the art. Jitter refers to clock instability. The less stable the clock, the more jitter, the more mushy the audio quality. To the human ear, jitter makes audio detail less sharp, like a photo that’s out of focus.

Ok, so everyone doesn’t have an expensive jitter analyser at home. But fortunately, we have a good analyser built-in right into our heads and that’s our ear. There is an easy way to compare audio DACs by just listening for particular instruments in the mix. The instruments typically used for this purpose are the cabasa and the triangle. Both feature wide spectral content and therefore are most affected by jitter.

So now, if you are comparing two DAC products, pick a familiar music track that has those instruments on it and listen for how they reproduce. It will be very easy to tell the difference between the products. I say this because we know that CEntrance DACport will give you excellent results, comparable to products costing 10 times as much. Now it’s up to you to make the test.

Today is the day when Americans are traditionally getting together to give
thanks. This country has come a long way since 1621 when the first pilgrims survived the tough winter, which gave birth to the Thanksgiving holiday…

Today we thank the people who have supported us over the years. Without you we will not have a reason to move forward. We exist to bring new products to life and make living better for our customers. DACport is awaiting new chassis and PCBs. Next week we are planning to make some exciting announcements, so stay tuned…