Audiolab dac

[roob]

Looks like the John Westlake designed Audiolab dac will soon be with us. At around £400 looks like its going to set the new std.
Some details in this thread.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digit...john-w-51.html

[Spur07]

Yeah, I heard a year or so ago that JW was designing a new DAC - think it was originally going to be marketed by JW himself but has now taken the form of the Audiolab. A lot of people have been waiting for this - come round at just right the time with the new Naim DAC about to be released. Nice price point - could be a real winner.

[Themis]

It looks very interesting. I hope it will be on production soon.

[Rare Bird]

What i liked about the original Audiolab DAC was the HDCD option, HDCD was killed by the inferior SACD. HDCD was where CD was getting good so why destroy it for a fad that offers surround sound but sound inferior? suppose this is how the industry works! Bring back HDCD i say, all my King Crimson & YES CD's are HDCD

[DSJR]

This won't apply I suspect, but the original Audiolab DAC needed SIX months powered 24/7 before it came fully on song. I have no idea why, but I witnessed this twice

Andre, why not see if you can buy an original Audiolab DAC. I thought it was great once run-in....

[Rare Bird]

This won't apply I suspect, but the original Audiolab DAC needed SIX months powered 24/7 before it came fully on song. I have no idea why, but I witnessed this twice

Andre, why not see if you can buy an original Audiolab DAC. I thought it was great once run-in....

I have an old Cambridge Audio S700 Isoplat somewhere that has HDCD aswell.Don't manufacturers like Cary still include HDCD in their CD players??

[Themis]

What i liked about the original Audiolab DAC was the HDCD option, HDCD was killed by the inferior SACD. HDCD was where CD was getting good so why destroy it for a fad that offers surround sound but sound inferior? suppose this is how the industry works! Bring back HDCD i say, all my King Crimson & YES CD's are HDCD

dbPoweramp decodes HDCD CDs into 24/44.1 FLACs so that they can be listened even through a dac which doesn't support HDCD.

[Rare Bird]

dbPoweramp decodes HDCD CDs into 24/44.1 FLACs so that they can be listened even through a dac which doesn't support HDCD.

Hi Dimitri

I didnt know that, i used dbpower anyway so i'll give it a go.

[Themis]

Hi Dimitri

I didnt know that, i used dbpower anyway so i'll give it a go.

You have to install the HDCD plugin in the ripper. Enjoy.

[Alex_UK]

OOhh, that Audiolab DAC does sound interesting - and an analogue input as well, so could be used for a lot of people as a pre-amp. This caught my eye too - "A very nice feature of this DAC in USB Mode, is its ability to control the PC / MAC Media player via Remote control" - that I like the sound of! Very intriguing.