DAC da Rega Escolhido como o Melhor do Ano Pela Hi-Fi Choice

A publicação inglesa Hi-Fi Choice escolheu o DAC da Rega como o Melhor de 2011.

O Rega DAC vem fazendo um enorme sucesso no meio hi-end, e não é para menos. Comparado com modelos custando bem mais caro do que ele, o Rega vem ganhando enormes elogios. As publicações Hi-Fi Choice, What Hi-Fi, Stereophile e outras vêm dando destaque ao modelo, e as avaliações de usuários surpreendem.

Desta vez a Hi-Fi Choice foi quem selecionou o modelo dentre outros bem mais caros, como o Benchmark, o Eletrocompaniet PD1 e outros, custando até mais que 10 vezes o preço do Rega DAC, hoje vendido a 498 libras no mercado inglês.
Além de ser escolhido o melhor DAC do ano, ainda levou o destaque de finalista do Produto do Ano. Prêmios respeitáveis para aquele que é o primeiro DAC deste respeitado fabricante. Destaque para a sua construção bem acabada e robusta,  e desempenho de altíssimo nível.

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É por grandes lançamentos como este Rega DAC, o M1DAC da Musical Fidelity, o rDAC da Arcam e o recém lançado Audiolab M-DAC (Produto do ano pela What Hi-Fi), todos numa faixa de preço bem inferior aos modelos de “grife”, que incentivamos o uso de DACs. A grande versatilidade faz desses aparelhos os companheiros ideais para um CD player menos sofisticado, elevando-o a um patamar bem superior.

Especificações Técnicas (em inglês):

Dimensions (hwd, cm)	8x22x27
Memory	No
Finishes	2
RCA out	1
RCA in	0
XLR out	0
Optical digital out	1
XLR in	0
Transport	No
Integrated	No
Coaxial digital out	1
Coaxial digital in	2
CD Text	No
Optical digital in	2
DAC	Yes
Display off	No
Multidisc	No
Headphone	0

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Apresentação original do fabricante com suas principais características:

DAC

Maximise the potential of your digital audio.

 

The Rega DAC is a 16/20/24-bit at 32kHz to 192kHz digital to analogue converter incorporating an enhanced version of the Rega designed circuit. Developed to be simple to set up and use, the Rega DAC is designed to optimise performance from any two channel PCM digital audio source such as a CD player PC or streaming device.

 

With the PC/Laptop and MAC now widely accepted as creditable mediums for storing and streaming music. The use of high quality lossless files such as WAV, FLAC and ALAC offer performance through the DAC equal to and in some cases better than red book CD.

 

Housed in a custom aluminium and steel case and boasting a pair of Wolfson DAC IC’s, 5 user selectable digital filters, two isolated Co-axial inputs, two Toslink SPDIF inputs and an isolated USB input. The Rega DAC is designed and engineered to perform way above its class.

 

Technology

 

The input stage comprises a Wolfson digital receiver with a high stability low jitter clock. The receiver and PLL have their own dedicated power supplies. The DAC stage comprises of a pair of parallel-connected Wolfson WM8742 DAC’s, which are driven via a buffer stage, which ensures the integrity of the data being fed to the DAC IC’s similar to the arrangement used in the Isis (Rega’s refrerence CD player). Great care has been taken to remove noise generated by the PC and other input sources. During development this was identified as a major drawback with many DAC’s on the market today.

 

The output amplifier employs a discrete differential multiple feedback filter and output amplifier, with a high cut-off frequency for use with higher sample rates. We decided not to use a sample rate converter and process the data at the incoming sample rate which keeps the signal processing to a minimum. Jitter was minimised by synchronously clocking the digital data with our receiver PLL (removing any jitter from the input signal).

 

All the capacitors associated with the analogue signal path are Nichicon FG bypassed with MMK polyester capacitors, and low impedance conductive polymer capacitors are used for DAC decoupling. The power supply utilizes a toroidal transformer, fast rectifier diodes and again Nichicon FG capacitors. There is a power supply for the control microcontroller, separate from the digital & analogue audio stages. Special attention being paid to the inter IC control signals ensuring the control data noise is kept to a minimum.