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Does your question mean you have a NOS DAC and want to upgrade

Posted by 13th Duke of Wymbourne (A) on November 16, 2023 at 19:09:20

In Reply to: What improvement can be expected with NOS DAC upgrades? posted by chuck55 on November 15, 2023 at 19:45:18:

or are you asking about how NOS compares to sigma-delta?

From a technical standpoint the difference is that NOS has no filtering whereas oversampling DACs include a filter. I've never heard a NOS DAC but many like them. They are certainly not more technically accurate than an oversampling type - there is no filter to remove the aliases and they have a small high frequency roll-off (that is usually compensated by a small boost in the oversampling filter design). NOS DACs have to be a 'flash-type' converter than converts the whole 16 bit, or 24 bit word in one go, whereas oversampling types usually work at lower amplitude resolution (less bits) but make it up by converting them more often and averaging (i.e. low pass filtering) to regain the full resolution.
Is there something inherently better about NOS - I can't see that unless it is related to better phase response because no filter (though the signal will still get low pass filtered somewhere further down the chain by amplifiers and speakers)? Or, it is because the aliases aren't removed and the flash-type DACs are less linear an add a bit more distortion and people like those additions?

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