DAC that handles intersample overs Options

[krabapple]

I was tipped off to this on an audio mailing list and thought it might be of interest here -- Benchmark has released a consumer DAC that (among other features) allows 3.5dB of headroom to account for correct reconstruction of intersample overs (peaks between samples that exceed 0dbFS, which are said to be "common in commercial releases")


http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac/dac2-hgc

High Headroom DSP - with 3.5 dB "Excess" Digital Headroom
All of the digital processing in the DAC2 HGC is designed to handle signals as high as +3.5 dBFS. Most digital systems clip signals that exceed 0 dBFS. The 0 dBFS limitation seems reasonable, as 0 dBFS is the highest sinusoidal signal level that can be represented in a digital system. However, a detailed investigation of the mathematics of PCM digital systems will reveal that inter-sample peaks may reach levels slightly higher than +3 dBFS while individual samples never exceed 0 dBFS. These inter-sample overs are common in commercial releases, and are of no consequence in a PCM system until they reach an interpolation process. But, for a variety of reasons, virtually all audio D/A converters use an interpolation process. The interpolation process is absolutely necessary to achieve 24-bit state-of-the art conversion performance. Unfortunately, inter-sample overs cause clipping in most interpolators. This clipping produces distortion products that are non-harmonic and non-musical . We believe these broadband distortion products often add a harshness or false high-frequency sparkle to digital reproduction. The DAC2 HGC avoids these problems by maintaining at least 3.5 dB of headroom in the entire conversion system. We believe this added headroom is a groundbreaking improvement.

disclaimer: i neither work for Benchmark nor own a Benchmark DAC ;> Claims about reduced 'high frequency sparkle' taken with a grain of salt.

This post has been edited by krabapple: Oct 23 2012, 16:33

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Could you give r128gain a try?

I'd love to oblige and once I've figured out what it does, how to make it do it and how to prevent it doing anything I don't want it too I will.