Just dropped my review of the BorderPatrol SE-i DAC

[sailor]

go here to read

Review of SE-i DAC

[Chris]

Paul, great review, and photos.

I was curious about your views concerning the bit depth resolution of this DAC. The SE-i DAC uses the Phillips TDA 1543 R-2R chip that is a 16 bit chip. While you can play high resolution music files, anything over 44k/16b is downsampled/truncated to CD resolution (this DAC chip truncates data with a bit depth greater than 16 - Stereophile). Playing 96k/24b and higher resolution music files would seem to be a waste as their resolution is thrown away?

John Atkinson concluded his measurements with this comment:

The BorderPatrol Digital to Analogue Converter SE's measured performance is dominated by its use of the underperforming TDA1543 DAC chip. Google indicates that the current price of this chip is between $4 and $6, depending on the quantity purchased; I would have expected a D/A processor costing $1850 to have used a better resistor-ladder chip.

Paul, I would love to see a followup comparison review with a DAC using something like the ESS Sabre 9038Pro or AK4499EQ with full 32 bit resolution.

Candidates for this comparison:

Topping D90 $700
Soncoz SGD1 $470
SMSL M500 $400
Benchmark DAC3 DX $2200

ASR Performance Chart

Anyone interested in more information on this DAC can read the Stereophile review here:

Dac SE review

Archimago Blog talks about Border Patrol DAC

Another summary of the DAC Chip