[sdiy] DACs on-board 12 vs external 16 vs 24 bit

[Neil Johnson]

cheater00 wrote:
>
> On 12 Nov 2013 12:39, "Neil Johnson" <neil.johnson71 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> cheater00 wrote:
>> > I seriously doubt 24-bit D-A is within the reach of any synth
>> > designer. Or even 22-bit. Not even Yamaha would bother.
>>
>> SY55 has 22-bit DACs:
>>
>>
>> http://usa.yamaha.com/products/music-production/synthesizers/sy55/?mode=model
>
> Do you believe it would measure as that? Yamaha is likely just following the
> arms race of bit depth with that number, rationalizing it with some BS
> reasons rather than real performance. Jackson's Thriller was recorded with
> less bit depth IIRC. Nice numbers are nice but disrwgard them if they're a
> selling point marketed towards people who cannot check them.

It has a PCM56 linear 16-bit DAC plus a YM3029 floating point
converter which scales the output of the DAC according to the exponent
value.  So you do get something like 22 bit dynamic range but
certainly not the same as a linear 22-bit converter.

Neil
--
http://www.njohnson.co.uk