Introducing Rega's first DAC (Digital to Anlog Converter)
23/Feb/2011 01:19 Filed in:
New Products
When it comes to new products, the folks at Rega are know to take their time! But when a new product come out, it is no slouch either. Two years in the making, Rega’s DAC promises to breather life back into your music. Its performance is way above its price or category.
The Rega DAC is a 16/20/24-bit at 32kHz to 192kHz digital to analogue converter incorporating an enhanced version of the Rega designed circuit. Developed to be simple to set up and use, the Rega DAC is designed to optimize performance from any two channel PCM digital audio source such as a CD player PC or streaming device.
With the PC/Laptop and MAC now widely accepted as creditable mediums for storing and streaming music. The use of high quality lossless files such as WAV, FLAC and ALAC offer performance through the DAC equal to and in some cases better than red book CD.
Housed in a custom aluminium and steel case and boasting a pair of Wolfson DAC IC's, 5 user selectable digital filters, two isolated Co-axial inputs, two Toslink SPDIF inputs and an isolated USB input. The Rega DAC is designed and engineered to perform way above its class.
TechnologyThe input stage comprises a Wolfson digital receiver with a high stability low jitter clock. The receiver and PLL have their own dedicated power supplies. The DAC stage comprises of a pair of parallel-connected Wolfson WM8742 DAC's, which are driven via a buffer stage, which ensures the integrity of the data being fed to the DAC IC's similar to the arrangement used in the Isis (Rega's reference CD player). Great care has been taken to remove noise generated by the PC and other input sources. During development this was identified as a major drawback with many DAC's on the market today.
The output amplifier employs a discrete differential multiple feedback filter and output amplifier, with a high cut-off frequency for use with higher sample rates. We decided not to use a sample rate converter and process the data at the incoming sample rate which keeps the signal processing to a minimum. Jitter was minimized by synchronously clocking the digital data with our receiver PLL (removing any jitter from the input signal).
All the capacitors associated with the analogue signal path are Nichicon FG bypassed with MMK polyester capacitors, and low impedance conductive polymer capacitors are used for DAC decoupling. The power supply utilizes a toroidal transformer, fast rectifier diodes and again Nichicon FG capacitors. There is a power supply for the control micro-controller, separate from the digital & analogue audio stages. Special attention being paid to the inter IC control signals ensuring the control data noise is kept to a minimum.
Features:
- 16-20-24-bit at 32kHz to 192kHz digital to analogue conversion.
- Five user selectable digital filters.
- Two isolated Co-axial inputs, two Toslink SPDIF inputs & Isolated USB input.
- Input stage comprising of a Wolfson digital receiver with a high stability low jitter clock.
- Jitter minimised by synchronously clocking the digital data with our receiver PLL.
- A pair of parallel-connected Wolfson WM8742 DAC's, which are driven via a buffer stage, a similar configuration to that used in the Isis CD player.
- Output amplifier with a discrete differential multiple feedback filter and output amplifier.
- Housed in a brand new custom steel & aluminium case.
Silver satin metal finish
Black satin metal finish
Tags: Hi-Fi, Music System, Digital Audio, DAC, Rega
