REGA - DAC

The Rega DAC Makes Your Digital Sources Sound Like Analog

Rega is known for making some of the most musical digital gear available. From the Apollo to the mighty ISIS, Rega CD players are always at the top of the recommended lists, because they make digital sound so good. Rega has finally channeled their digital know-how into a stand-alone DAC, known only as, the DAC. Featuring Coax, Digital and USB inputs, the DAC makes the most of any digital source.

As usual, Rega blazed their own path with the DAC, using high-resolution chipsets, outrageous build quality and their own ears to create a digital device that has all the soul of an analog source yet is fully compatible with the 21st century. Listening to the DAC is a revelation, it hits all the right notes, with a correctness of timbre unusual in any digital device at this price. In fact, one might even say, Rega spent all their time getting the DAC to sound right and work properly, so all you have to do is enjoy!

Digital Goodies
The DAC is a fully 24Bit design, based on the Wolfson WM8742 chip, which Rega also uses in their Saturn CD Player. The DAC features four digital inputs, all fully isolated; there's a pair of optical and a pair of coax inputs, each of which is capabable of processes data rates up to 24/192. The DAC is non-upsampling and processes each stream at its native rate. The DAC also has an exceptional USB input, allowing your computer to finally sound its best. For ultimate connectivity, the DAC also sports one each of a coax and optical digital output.

USB DAC
Based on Rega's reference level ISIS CD player's USB architecture, the USB input gets its own clock and power supply. The USB input on the DAC is 16/44.1 and although there are other DACs out there sporting higher USB rates, very few of them sound as good as the DAC does via USB, because this DAC is shockingly quiet and isn't plagued by the timing errors so common in USB DACs.

USB Noise Elimination
Rega paid special attention to the electrical isolation of the USB input. The goal was total elimination of noise from the PC's switching power supply. Rega's efforts so greatly reduced noise and background hash, the DAC sounds like it's running on batteries instead of AC.

Selectable Digital Filters
The DAC has the rather unique capability of allowing the user to select which of five digital filters they'd like to use with their music. Since some recordings or systems will sound better with a different filter, this ability creates myriad ways of listening to any recording. Filters include: linear phase, half band, soft knee and min/max apodizing filters usually found in more expensive DAC concepts. These five filters can be applied to 44.1 signals or to higher resolution signals as well.

Rega Build Quality
Built to a surprisingly high level of technology, the DAC is built with some of the finest ingredients available. A low-noise toroidal transformer feeds a variety of discrete dedicated power supplies; the USB section, receiver, PLL and oscillator each have their own dedicated power supplies. The clock oscillator is actually the same one used in Rega's glorious ISIS CD Player. The Rega DAC uses high-speed rectifier diodes and high audio grade capacitors. Rega chose polyester capacitors for the analog signal path, a big step up from generic polystyrene caps. They also use low-impedance conductive polymer capacitors for decoupling the DAC. This level of build quality is rarely found, much less at this price and is usually reserved strictly for reference level components.

Non-Oversampling DAC
Rega believes in simplicity and purity of signal and the only way to implement oversampling is to add DSP to the signal path. For this reason the DAC does not over-sample, upsample or upconvert the incoming data.

Chassis Size
Rega chose a half-width, full-depth chassis size for the DAC, a form factor which will be seen on more and more Rega components. Unlike the modestly sized Rega chassis of yore, this new chassis allows more room for the circuitry, complete with proper spacing between power supply and delicate analog circuitry. One great advantage of this new size chassis is the elimination of the dreaded wall-wart power supply. All of the DAC's power circuitry is built-in, simply connect the power cord and you're ready to go. Want to use a better AC cord with the DAC? You'll need the Dedicated Audio Cloverleaf to IEC adapter.

DAC: Wolfson WM8742
Frequency Response (100KI load):
   Low data rate 44.1/48KHz Filter 2: 10Hz -0.05dB to 20KHz -0.1dB
   Medium data rate 88.2/96KHz Filter 2: 10Hz -0.05dB to 30KHz -1dB
   High data rate 176.4/192KHz Filter 2: 10Hz -0.05dB to 41KHz -1dB
Total Harmonic Distortion (24bit 96KHz): 0.006% @ 1KHz
Signal To Noise Ratio: -105dB (relative to maximum output level with a 100Hz to 22KHz bandwidth)
Maximum output level: 2.175V into 100KI load
Bit resolution: 16 to 24bit (USB is limited to 16bit)
Supported data rates: 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192KHz
Digital inputs:
   USB Isolated (16bit 32/44.1/48KHz)
   Input 1 Optical/Toslink (24bit 32/44.1/48/88.2/96/176.4/192KHz)
   Input 2 Optical /Toslink (24bit 32/44.1/48/88.2/96/176.4/192KHz)
   Input 3 Isolated 75I Co-axial (24bit 32/44.1/48/88.2/96/176.4/192KHz)
   Input 4 Isolated 75I Co-axial (24bit32/44.1/48/88.2/96/176.4/192KHz)
Digital output (via receiver & PLL) - SPDIF:
   Optical Toslink Isolated 75I
   Co-axial/SPDIF
Power: 230v/115v/7.6W
Dimensions (WHD): 8.5"x3.1"x10.6"
Weight: 8.8 lbs.

Rega DAC Manual (PDF, 249 KB)

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