Audio Note QUEST Silver Signature Low Gain Owner's Manual download pdf (Page 4)

The Digital-Analog Converter Option

Home DAC & Upgrades

The Home DAC

The Home DAC starts to become a very serious digital to analog converter: not only

does it use the ﬂagship Cirrus Logic CS4398 DAC, it also uses the spendy---but oh so

sweet sounding---Burr-Brown OPA627 op-amps in class “A” bias as the output de-

vices. The result is the kind of liquid clarity found in multi-thousand dollar high-end

CD players.

To go along with the previously mentioned class “A” biased OPA627s, only metal thin

ﬁlm resistors and polyphenylenesulﬁde (poly ﬁlm) capacitors are used in the audio

circuits. Three low-noise, ul-

tra-low dropout power supply

regulators isolate the various

digital, analog, and mixed sig-

nal circuits. This DAC is also

available in a balanced ver-

sion for the Balanced Home

Amp with two complete con-

verter sections, one for the

normal and one for the inverted

audio signal.

8. Coaxial Input The coaxial input is your typical coaxial connector. We rec-

ommend using a 75 ohm digital cable when using the coaxial input.

9. Digital Input Selector When using the DAC, the digital input selector

allows you to choose which digital input you would like to listen to.

10. USB Input The USB input gets its signal from a computer: laptop or

desktop; PC, Mac, or Unix.

11. Source Selector When using the DAC, you will need to choose whether

you are using a digital input or an analog input. The source selector switch al-

lows you to have both digital and analog sources connected at the same time,

and you may change between the two with a simple ﬂip of this switch.

12. Optical Input The optical input is your typical Toslink connector. You

get this input signal from the optical output of your player. Not so many porta-

ble audio players have optical outputs anymore, but many portable DVD play-

ers and some hard disk drive players do. Of course, you can get this signal from

many pieces of home audio equipment.

11.

source selector

12.

optical input

coaxial input

digital input selector

When purchasing the Home Amp, you have the option of including a DAC. If

you did not purchase the DAC option with your amp initially, you can have

this upgrade performed at a later date.

When music is stored on a CD, digital audio tape, or hard drive, it is stored as

a series of numbers. Each number represents the voltage of the audio signal

at a particular point in time. String 44,000 voltage points together and you get

one second of music signal. (The audio geeks in the crowd will point out that

96,000 and 192,000 numbers per second are also common sampling rates.)

The job of a DAC (digital to analog converter) is to convert the string of numbers

into an analog signal that can be ampliﬁed to drive your headphones.

10.

USB input

Home DAC

What is a Digital to Analog Converter?

The Max DAC Upgrade

The Max DAC is a work of digital upsampling art in gold and black. These four layer

gold coated, double copper circuit boards are covered edge to edge with the best parts

money can buy, and right in the middle of it an Analog Devices AD1896 192 kHz Stereo

Asynchronous Sample Rate Converter. WHAT!? Simply a screaming gizmo that upcon-

verts any digital signal into an ultra high speed, high resolution digital signal without

relying on the incoming clock, and then down converts it into the slower 192 kHz word

stream while interpolating (to get rid of the “digital” haze) and reclocking (to get rid of

jitter) before sending the data off to the DACs. The result?

This DAC is good. Sure, a $10,000 CD player is better, but just. Tweaky ground plane

adjustments are made for stability and speed on that gold coated circuit board we

mentioned earlier. Quality components don’t end there, though, only metal thin ﬁlm

resistors and polyphenylenesulﬁde (poly ﬁlm) capacitors are used in the audio circuits.

Three low-noise, ultra-low

dropout power supply regula-

tors isolate the various digi-

tal, analog, and mixed signal

circuits. The Balanced Max

DAC features two complete

converter sections, one for

the normal and one for the

inverted audio signal.

Max DAC

Upon purchase of your Home amp, You can choose the Home DAC Module or

upgrade to the Max DAC.

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Audio Note QUEST Silver Signature Low Gain Owner's Manual Page 4

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