Top 5 R2R DACs 2025

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ideal DACs only exist in our minds. Um nothing
is perfect in this in this world but the idea

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existed in my mind basically that the
most uh complete ideal sounding DAC is

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the analog a DAC approximates the analog the
outcome should be exactly the same whether I

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played through tape through vinyl the the
sound is organic natural in the early very

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early days when I first got my experience
with digital it wasn’t like that at all

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my experience with CDs and it all sounded
artificial sterile, not natural, far from

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it. There’s a huge wide gap between analog and
digital, especially when I first got to know it.

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I’ve been trying different s sort of DACs. There
is. And one thing that really opened my eyes is

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was a DAC that was based on TDA 1543. First time
I heard a TDA 1543 in uh non-overs sampling mode,

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so without digital filters applied. I think
this were either four or eight TDA 1543s in

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parallel and they had no output stage. They
were just paralleled and that would as pure

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a DAC could be basically. Once I connected
this DAC and I listened through my headphones,

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I thought immediately the sound. Yeah. Though it
was not most refined sound there is, the sound

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was very much akin to playback character that
I’m I was used to when I was playing back tape

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and vinyl. It sounded so much more liquid and
lucid and so much more natural. And I thought,

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what’s the uh what what’s the secret? Why this DAC
all of a sudden sounded so much more analog than

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all these higher specified this higher spec 24bit
and whatever we had at that time. Why is it such a

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such a dramatic difference? Well, first I thought
that this is the absence of the digital filter and

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later I also understood that everything around
that DAC including that DAC makes this DAC sing.

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All this power supplies, inputs, outputs,
the materials around that, the execution,

21
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the implementation of that DAC matter so much more
than the DAC itself. Okay, so the DAC itself is

22
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just a starting point. You know, with this idea in
mind, started buying all the CD players, looking

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at them, how they sound, uh disabling digital
filters and understanding what affects those DACs

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to sing the way they sing. So that in mind in a
very controlled environment I tried different DACs

25
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and you try different DAC and the list included I
mean tried a lot of DACs including all these noise

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shaping by ESS and by ATM very old DACs like TD
1540 TD 1541 PCM 58 PCM 56 PCM 63 the AD um 1862

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and 64 and 65 five. Uh they were all tried. So
most of these DACs that were available back in the

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days, they’ve been listened to and tried out to
see what character and the presentation they have.

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Out of this uh large list of these uh DACs,
the noise shaping DACs didn’t make our list

30
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for obvious reasons. They’re just too noisy. They
sound too artificial. They don’t have the depth,

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the holography, the natural timbers. There’s
always some noise in between. They’re never

32
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clean sounding. They have, no matter what power
supplies you’re going to use, they are like class

33
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D amplifiers. And uh R2R digital filterless.
It’s like class A, which is very clean, very,

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very quiet and natural uh sounding. And then you
have the noise shaping type, which is class D.

35
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essentially it wasn’t wasn’t part of the design
I would like to pursue because in early stages

36
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I understand the digital filter does a lot
of harm not something that I would love to

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uh uh to offer a product a great analog
musical sounding product would never make

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uh to our uh list what remained is basically
the bur brown analog devices and Philips with

39
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the choice what we had between 24bit being the
highest R2R and 16 bit or 14 bit 14 bit TDA 1540

40
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the lowest somehow I always preferred the lower
bit variance. So having more bits somehow never

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translated to more musicality. As a matter of
fact, it was always the opposite. For example,

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the more modern PCM 1702 or 1704 which is 24bit
was significantly worse sounding than the PCM 63

43
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which is 20 bit. And I preferred the PCM 56 over
PCM 58 and PCM 63 for its elegant simplicity and

44
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what makes the PCM uh 56, 58 and 63 so beautiful
sounding and rich and wealth and detail despite

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the limited bit depth uh according to their
specs is the use of nickel chromium resistors

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inside inside those DACs. So we in the end we
ended up not with PCM 6 uh 63 or 58 which is

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now very rare and very difficult to find. uh
we ended up in the PCM56 that was my favorite

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um of everything that was there in terms of uh
Philips so TDA 1540 41 and 43 I think the 43 had

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already a reputation to be the the godfather of
all the digital filterless non-oversampling world

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it has a very huge following and lot of fans know
that TD543 is still like one of those Super DACs.

51
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The other DAC uh manufacturer that stood out and I
really liked the analog devices to AD AD 1865 very

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well-known 18bit R2R DAC. Unfortunately did make
didn’t make my list despite my initial liking. I

53
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uh I listened to this DAC but never really like
it the way the top end sounded on this one and the

54
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presentation. It was never as musical as to all
the Philips offering and it was never as natural

55
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sounding especially in the uh upper registers.
It’s always tended to sound more synthetic. So

56
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some sort of synthesizer sound synthetic top end
on the AD1865 uh prevented us to go actually and

57
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employing this DAC in our designs. So the the
AD1865 uh in my book is not as on the same level

58
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as say a TDA540 or TDA 1541 which are way more
analog and natural and organic sounding DACs.

59
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So basically my top R2R DACs became the ones from
uh Bur Brown though uh PCM 58 and PCM 56. So 16

60
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18 bit variants and the the Philips TDA 1543
1540 and 41. In terms of my personal favorite

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uh DACs of all time, I think it’s TDA 1540 and 41.
The qualities of TDA 1540 are very much akin to

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the TDA 1543. It’s an extremely musical sounding
DAC, very analog and musical. The problem is that

63
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TDA540 it’s much more difficult to be made to
work a standalone DAC. The interface was never

64
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I2S. So we couldn’t use it as separate device
and it needed its own um programming FGPA um

65
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interface in order to accept the incoming digital
uh formats and therefore the 43 and 41s became

66
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integral part of our DAC range. The 43 being like
stripped down version. It’s not the 41 or 40,

67
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but it is a very musical sounding DAC and
anybody who wants to start their journey into

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analog sounding DAC range TD 1543 basically our
DAC one is the entry ticket into this world. Top

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two. Number two would be my PCM56. The beauty
of the PCM 56 is that it uses nickel chromium

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resistors edged inside that DAC chip. PCM56 is a
16- bit version uh similar offering to Philips and

71
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number one would be TDA 154140 but I would say
TDA541 for its more versatility. Those designs

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that we have right now in our portfolio we have
experimented at least a decade on them already.

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So that reinforces the notion that we don’t follow
any sort of trends. We just choose a technology

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that we feel does the best and then we stay with
it and we polish it until we approach that feeling

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that everything is analog and the only way to
discover the world is by trying and experimenting.

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One can’t theoretically get something if
one have hasn’t experienced it before.