Arcam R-DAC Resolves the Quality Issues of PC Music (Sound & Vision: The Bristol Show 2010)

June 17, 2010

Highlights

Arcam were the first in the world to introduce the concept of an outboard DAC and were very successful in the late 80’s and early 90’s and with the advent of the PC and external music storage once again the need for a quality external DAC is prevalent.

The R-DAC comes in a clean design die-cast case with both SPDIF co-axial and optical inputs. It is fairly unique however by also supporting a USB input. There are many different USB devices and supported music servers on the market and with quality in mind, the Arcam unit uses; Asynchronous Transfer Protocol, whereby the master clock on the R-DAC calls off the data from the PC or device when needed, ensuring accurate signal reproduction. When decoded with the onboard Wolfson 96kHz/24bit DAC and high quality audio stage the resulting quality of sound is second to none.

Many devices on the market do not use this method, thereby decoding signals with high jitter and data error resulting in poor sound.

Work is underway on an upgrade for wireless reception, consisting of a wireless card fitted in the R-DAC and a proprietary Arcam dongle that will transmit music from the PC in 44.1kHz/16bit quality.

The product hopes to ship in May 2010


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