Audio Electronics Lightning USB DAC

The Audio Electronics by Cary Audio Lightning DAC was made in the USA and designed to provide high-quality music reproduction from today’s digital sources. All digital audio information needs to be turned back into analog to be handled by the amplifier and speakers/headphones so we can listen to it. Whether from a computer, handheld music players, cable or satellite boxes, disc players, or streaming from cloud-based storage, digital data streams suffer from distortions caused by jitter (timing errors in processing the digital information) and the poor quality of built-in digital converters. An outboard digital to analog converter (DAC) is the solution to these problems.

As in all products designed by Cary Audio’s engineers, the Audio Electronics Lightning DAC starts with a custom-built power transformer and a high-current power supply. We know the power supply section is responsible for much of the performance and sound quality, so we take a great deal of care to provide Faraday shielding to reduce noise, and fully regulate it for best response and power delivery. The audio output section, responsible for providing the actual musical signals, is based on proven Cary Audio designs for the best sound quality. It is buffered and features its own regulated power supply to isolate it from the digital section, operates in Class A, and is able to drive a wide variety of impedances to better match with other associated equipment.

The digital bitstream is handled by a new front end designed in conjunction with one of the industry’s acknowledged digital leaders. A Wolfson WM8805 chipset is used as the input receiver for the two SP/DIF digital audio inputs, as chosen by many of the finest DACs in the world. XMOS USB processing does asynchronous processing of USB computer based music, stripping away the computer’s timing and replacing it with a much more accurate master clock for a more stable bitstream. It is able to handle multiple 24 bit/192kHz channels with extremely low latency, all at 500 MIPS.

Once the digital bitstream is managed it is sent to the digital to analog conversion section, comprised of two ESS Sabre ES9023 24/192 DAC chipsets. These circuits accurately recreate the analog musical signals and send them to the Audio Electronics buffered analog output stage, and then out the gold-plated RCA outputs to the audio system. All of these processes are designed to have no compromises in sound quality, and provide the very best musical reproduction in its price class.

$1,295

This product will begin shipping April 2013.

Source: Cary Audio