COVERING all ground, that’s what Cary Audio is ensuring with its new digital-to-audio converters, the DAC-100 and DAC-100t. The difference? One is solid state and the other is vacuum tube… the “t” should have given it away, right?
That apart, both DACs run along the same lines, incorporating a cutting-edge USB section that uses Streamlength technology (from Wavelength) – basically, this is an asynchronous process, the timing of the digital stream handled by the units’ onboard XMOS processor to banish jitter.
Both the DAC-100 and DAC-100t are compatible with native high-resolution music files of up to 24-bit/192kHz, over the single USB, two coaxial and two Toslink inputs.
Of course, the analogue section is where both differ – while the DAC-100 uses four solid-state high-speed monolithic non-feedback buffers, the DAC-100t has two premium 6922 tubes (just the thing for tube rollers in their quest for that specific sound).
Separate power supplies for digital and analogue sections, and RCA and XLR balanced outputs are among other common features of both units, which begin shipping in June.
