Vinnie,
I'm in the market for a DAC in the $2K - $3K price range. The Isabellina is one of many quality units available at this price-point. Since one of my primary concerns is the ability to handle Hi-Rez files, can you explain how you approached this in your design? What are the technical limitations of the Isabellina? Will it handle a 24/96 or higher bit-stream at full resolution?
Thanks,
Bob
Hi Bob,
Welcome to Audiocircle and the RWA forum!
Regarding "hi-res," you can feed the Isabellina DAC a digital signal that was sampled higher than 44.1kHz. For example, even if the music was sampled at 96k or 192k, it will lock onto it and use that sampling frequency. It does not oversample, however, so if you send in 44.1k, you get 44.1k out (not some integer multiple of this sampling frequency). With regards to word lengths, if the files were 18, 20 or 24 bits, it will truncate to 16 bits. So it always plays back in 16 bits but the sampling frequency depends on the music file. In other words, upsampling transports can interface with the Isabellina converter.
We use a 16-bit, non-oversampling dac approach. On paper, there are other dacs on the market that boast more impressive specs (e.g. 24bit, with better SNR) - however, this does not necessarily equate to better sound.
As mentioned on the Isabellina website, our design goal is to recreate music from digital media that closely matches the finest sonic qualities of analog sources such as the richness of tone, extraordinary timing/pacing, and an effortless presentation of the music.
Here is a link to a thread on our forum that contains user feedback of the Isabellina, and I chime in a few times as well:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=58678.0Page 3 of the 6moons review of our Isabella preamp (with built-in Isabellina dac) also discusses sonic attributes of the Isabellina dac:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/redwine10/isabella_3.html (scroll approx. half way down...)
Best regards,
Vinnie
