“What DAC do you use?” Many times, I have heard this question, as if the answer will somehow reveal a magic door into Bel Canto’s musical soul. The simple answer, “for the past 15 years or so our ultimate DAC choice has been the PCM1792A”, doesn’t really explain much except that this venerable DAC device continues to reveal depths of performance that I would not have guessed possible those many years ago. Fifteen years later it still offers numbers that are state of the art, 130dB dynamic range, distortion below 0.001% and a current output that biases the external analog stages with a constant current for best analog linearity, thermal stability and transient dynamic range. I have tested many newer DAC devices and have yet to find anything that betters the 1792, including current in vogue discrete multi-bit designs and variations on integrated and discrete delta-sigma or single-bit DACs. Our many years of using this part in our products have led us to the unique High Dynamic Resolution DAC solution embodied by our BLACK System and extending to both BLACK EX and the new E1X lines.

Bel Canto’s unique system and circuit architecture optimizes true system dynamic range through the use of our Asynchronous Multi-Input Processor front end to receive and condition both analog and digital sources, the AMIP passes this optimized signal on to our High Dynamic Resolution II DAC core that extracts full analog performance from the DAC stage by placing it within a highly optimized environment. The ultimate system performance preserves the original recorded information, insuring low dynamic noise and distortion and High Dynamic Resolution at the loudspeaker. We have found that this architecture preserves recorded information better than traditional systems where there is a source, a DAC or CD player or phono preamp, going to an analog preamplifier then on to an analog power amplifier. We shorten this old, traditional approach to the system signal chain, eliminating numerous analog stages: switches, controls, power supplies, and cables. The resulting Bel Canto AMIP/HDRII based system brings the listener closer to the original recorded event and the music’s emotional impact.

This performance capability was brought home recently when I was comparing some of the excellent Cardas Clear power cord line. The added noise rejection ability of the top power cord was made remarkably apparent listening to, of all things, an MQA remaster of the extended version of The Doors “Light My Fire”. With the already excellent Clear power cords used for the MPS1 units in my system replaced by the Clear Beyond XL cords the presence of the band in the room was even more palpable and the strong emotion that Jim Morrison exudes was even more evident. My wife commented that the lesser cables did not quite bring the raw emotional power that this track achieves when reproduced with the lower dynamic noise floor that the XL cables bring to the system. This clearly demonstrated the increased level of involvement that High Dynamic Resolution and a reduced system noise floor can bring to the audio experience.

By getting the best from the PCM1792A DAC and exploring fundamental system architecture innovations as well as improvements to the system environment we achieve a level of musical communication and involvement that only a High Dynamic Resolution system can provide.