DESCRIPTION Single-box digital-to-analog converter with iPod dock. Formats supported: all PCM-output audio codecs (AIFF, WAV, MP3, etc.). Digital inputs: supports up to 24-bit/96kHz via USB input (galvanically isolated to reduce ground noise from computer’s switch-ing power supply); up to 24/192 via optical (2) and coax (2); iPod dock. iPod dock compatibility: iPod Touch (generations 1–2), iPod Classic (80, 120, 160GB only), iPod Nano (generations 2–5). Analog output jacks: left & right RCA. Video outputs: S-video, component (from iPod dock). Output imped-ance: 10 ohms (unbalanced). Frequency range: 5Hz–100kHz. Maximum output voltage: 2V RMS. Signal/noise: 118dB, A-weighted. Power requirement: 20W.DIMENSIONS 9" (230mm) W by 3.5" (90mm) H by 10" (255mm) D. Weight: 8 lbs (3.6kg).SERIAL NUMBER OF UNIT REVIEWED iDACB0000100.PRICE $999. Approximate number of dealers: 200.MANUFACTURER Peachtree Audio, Signal Path International, Bellevue, WA. Tel: (704) 391-9337. Web: http://signalpathint.com.

Oh boy, another new DAC review. Some folks think DACs, once you get past the features, all sound pretty much the same. I mean, it’s just digital. Well, they’re right. Pretty much. Just as two new cars of a particular make, model, color, and options package both look the same, sitting there on the lot.

But if you discover a ding in the door of one of them, where most folks still see only a new car, you now see the ding. It might have

been there all along, undetected the first few times you walked around the car—maybe your buddy even had to point it out to you. It’s insignificant in the scheme of all that a new car is, but once you’ve seen it, you always see it. Now you can easily tell the two cars apart, and we both know which one you’ll drive home.

I’ve got a neighbor who owns an auto-body shop and prides himself on pristine body work and the perfect paint job. I’ll never forget the time he took a walk around my spankin’ new car and pointed out a half dozen almost imperceptible dents and blemishes in the finish. I’d had the car a month and never seen a thing, but he knew how to look at a finish. You can bet that, after that, I could easily pick out those blems.

Same thing with DACs. That small difference may be hard to hear, but once you have, it can make all the difference. And the more DACs you listen to, the better you get at noticing these details.

jon iverson

Oh boy, another new DAC review. Some folks think DACs, once

Single-box digital-to-analog converter with iPod dock. Formats supported: all

Digital inputs: supports up

input (galvanically isolated

24/192 via optical (2) and

iPod Classic (80, 120, 160GB only), iPod Nano (generations 2–5). Analog output jacks: left & right RCA.

PeachtreeiDac d/a converter

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ElEctronically rEPrintED FroM octoBEr 2011

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Whenever I plug in a new DAC, it sounds pretty much like the last DAC I had in my system. But if I work at it enough, and spend enough time walking my ears around its sound, I can usually figure out how it differs from the others—not always, but it happens more often than not. And I’ll wa-ger that, with a little effort, you can, too. Some differenc-es are so slight it takes a while to spot them, while others slap you in the face. But once you’ve heard them, you can hear them every time. Maybe I’m an audio masochist, but I like testing DACs and seeing if I can spot the dings.

At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, I came across the Peachtree iDac and was immediately drawn to its complete assortment of digital inputs (including an iPod dock),

good looks, and price: $999. But CES is no place to critically listen to something like a DAC; Stephen Mejias arranged for a review sample to be sent, so I could hear where it might place sonically among the dozen or so DACs I’ve had in my system this past year.

Features Front to Back and On TopWith their uniquely rounded case-work, solid and hefty feel, high qual-ity of fit, and glossy finishes, Peachtree Audio components are easy to spot, and the iDac is no exception—it’s so lovely,

I used Stereophile’s loan sample of the top-of-the-line audio Precision sYs2722 system to measure the Peachtree iDac (see www.ap.com and the january 2008 “as We see it,” http://tinyurl.com/4ffpve4); for

some tests, i also used my vintage audio Precision system one Dual Domain and the Miller audio research jitter ana-lyzer. as well as driving the iDac with s/PDiF data from the audio Precision analyzers, i used my iPod Classic 160GB, and a MacBook running Mac os10.6.8 and Pure Music 1.8, to play test-signal files. i indicate in the text where i found significant measured differences between the iDac’s naL and nos filters and between its Hi-Bit and Lo-Bit modes. if i don’t mention a difference, assume that there was none.

When i examined the iDac’s properties with my Mac’s audioMidi set-Up and UsB Prober utilities, i was at first confused: They said there were two iDacs connected. However, one of the alleged pair was for two-channel ana-log inputs, which are not functional on the iDac. The outputs

were identified as “Peachtree 24/96” from “Lakewest audio,” and as being capable of functioning with 24-bit data at sample rates of 32, 44.1, 48, and 96kHz, but un-fortunately not 88.2kHz. The mode of UsB operation was “isochronous adaptive,” with a 1ms polling interval.

The maximum output level at 1kHz differed slightly between Hi-Bit and Lo-Bit, at 2.117 and 1.941v, respectively. The iDac’s analog output inverted polarity under all condi-tions. The output impedance was very low, at 10.4 ohms at all audio frequencies (including 6’ of interconnect). Channel separation was superb, at >120dB below 2kHz. Fig.1 shows the iDac’s frequency response using the naL filter with s/PDiF data having sample rates of 44.1, 96, and 192kHz. (Generic, plastic-cored TosLink cables would work only up to 96kHz; i used a coaxial datalink for the 192kHz measure-ment.) The overall response follows the same ultrasonic curve, but with each of the lower-sample-rate results cutting off sharply just below half the sampling frequency. This

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Fig.2 Peachtree iDac, nos filter, frequency response at –12dBFs into 100k ohms from balanced outputs with data sampled at: 44.1kHz (left channel green, right gray), 96kHz (left cyan, right magenta), 192kHz (left blue, right red). (0.25dB/vertical div.)

Fig.1 Peachtree iDac, naL filter, frequency response at –12dBFs into 100k ohms from balanced outputs with data sampled at: 44.1kHz (left channel green, right gray), 96kHz (left cyan, right magenta), 192kHz (left blue, right red). (0.25dB/vertical div.)

The iDac sports a clean front panel with input buttons that glow blue when selected.

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rounded, and inviting that I can imagine using it as an audiophile pillow. Have you seen those wooden headrests the ancient Egyptians used to sleep on, or the ones Japanese geishas use to keep their hairdos intact? The iDac looks way more comfortable, and it would keep your ears warm. But not too warm—the iDac ran at a comfortable 94°F all day long (I took its temperature at the top of its case); by comparison, my Bench-mark DAC1 USB easily hits 105°F, even in idle. Everyone who saw the iDac in our system had to touch it. A few even stroked it with the back of a hand.

On the clean-looking, silver front panel is a row of six flat, round input buttons; slightly below and to the left and right of these are, respectively, the power button and remote sensor. Sim-ple enough, but the lighting scheme used for these demonstrates Peachtree’s attention to detail. The power button is

surrounded by a ring that glows red for off, blue for on. Select an input and it, too, turns blue. But if no digital signal is present, or the iDac can’t lock to the in-put chosen, the blue keeps circling the button like a lighthouse, until you plug something in and power it up. Nice

little touch. However, I wish I could have dimmed those blue lights—in a small bedroom, they’re bright enough to serve as nightlights—though the red standby light is fairly subdued. There is no volume control or headphone jack.

The included remote control is simple, and also controls an iPod inserted in

the iDac’s dock. The dock, on the top of the case, comes with several plastic inserts, to adapt its connector to those of most iPod models. It takes the direct digital signal from the iPod, bypassing Apple’s mediocre internal DAC. Setup was dead simple, everything worked as

advertised, and the dock is canted back at just the right angle to make it easy to read an iPod from above when the iDac is positioned at around waist height.

On the iDac’s rear panel are one pair of fixed-level stereo line outputs, com-ponent and S-video outputs (for iPod video), and pairs of optical USB and

graph was taken into 100k ohms; substituting the demand-ing 600 ohm load didn’t change the result other than the drop in level due to the interaction between the iDac’s source impedance and the different load impedances.

Changing to the nos filter gave a very different result, with each sample rate featuring an early rolloff (fig.2). With 44.1kHz data, for example, the output was –1dB at 20kHz. The benefit that results from this slightly premature rolloff is optimal time-domain performance, which can be seen by comparing the impulse responses of the iDac’s naL filter (fig.3) and nos filter (fig.4). The former has the symmetri-cal ringing typical of a linear-phase, finite-impulse-response low-pass filter; the latter has an almost perfect impulse shape, with minimal overshoot and no ringing. However, both are in inverted polarity.

i tested the Peachtree’s resolution in my usual fashion, feeding it 16- and 24-bit data representing a dithered 1kHz tone at –90dBFs while sweeping the center frequency of a 1⁄3-octave bandpass filter from 20kHz to 20Hz; the resulting

spectra, taken in Hi-Bit mode, are shown in fig.5. The trac-es peak at exactly –90dBFs, suggesting very low linearity error, with no distortion– or power-supply–related spuriae visible for 16-bit data. The increase in bit depth drops the

Fig.5 Peachtree iDac, Hi-Bit, 1⁄3-octave spectrum with noise and spuriae of dithered 1kHz tone at –90dBFs, with: 16-bit data (top), 24-bit data (middle); dithered 1kHz tone at –120dBFs with 24-bit data (bottom). (right channel dashed.)

Fig.4 Peachtree iDac, nos filter, impulse response (4ms time window).

Fig.3 Peachtree iDac, naL filter, impulse response (4ms time window).

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everyone who saw the idac in our system had to touch it. a FEw EvEN sTROkED IT wITh ThE Back OF a haND.

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coaxial digital inputs. In addition are two pushbutton switches: Hi-Bit/Lo-Bit and Filter NOS/NAL. NOS stands for “no filtering or oversam-pling,” NAL for “non- aliasing.”

According to Peachtree’s David Solo-mon, most audiophiles “don’t generally like steep filter slopes because they don’t sound very good. This means that our DAC (and any DAC that uses a gentle filter slope) is more susceptible to fil-tering aliasing distortion.” To solve this problem, Peachtree uses upsampling. “Sample rates of 96kHz or 192kHz help to attenuate aliasing but doesn’t entirely get rid of it. So Peachtree Audio devel-oped software that eliminates aliasing distortion in the sampling process.”

About Hi-Bit/Lo-Bit: The ESS 9016

Sabre chip used in the iDac is an eight-channel DAC. Each channel comprises an array of 64 individual switching ele-ments, and there are two ways to run the Sabre in two-channel mode. In Lo-Bit mode, the two-channel signal is replicat-ed four times and fed to the eight chan-nels, their outputs paralleled to yield the two-channel result. In Hi-Bit mode, the switching elements of the Sabre’s eight channels are rearranged to form two channels with 256 elements each, to ac-cept signals of higher resolution.

After playing with these options a while, I decided I preferred NOS—it sounded slightly smoother, though Peachtree says NAL measures better—and left the iDac set to NOS for all of my listening. Playing with the Hi-Bit/Lo-Bit switch was interesting: Hi-Bit moved voices forward and opened the soundstage a tad, and Lo-Bit sent them back. I ended up using Hi-Bit for most of my listening, but Lo-Bit when I wanted more control. I find it fasci-nating that you can use these sorts of

noise floor by around 18dB, implying 19-bit resolution, which is confirmed by the FFT spectra in fig.6, but it also unmasks a supply component in the left channel: 60Hz

at –132dBFs (!). The bottom pair of traces in fig.5 show the spectrum of 24-bit data representing a dithered 1kHz tone at –120dBFs; it is readily resolved by the iDac.

Linearity error with 16-bit data (not shown) was domi-nated by the recorded dither noise. With undithered data at exactly –90.31dBFs and the naL filter engaged (fig.7), the iDac’s superb resolution and low noise floor make it easy to distinguish both the three DC voltage levels described by these data and the symmetrical Gibbs Phenomenon “ringing” on the waveform tops. increasing the bit depth to 24 gives a superbly well-resolved sinewave (fig.8), despite the very low signal level.

The iDac’s output stage offered low levels of distortion, even for full-scale signals (fig.9). The second and third harmonics are almost equal in level, at a low –90dB (0.003%) each, and were hardly affected when the 100k ohm load was replaced by 600 ohms. However, a pair of sidebands is visible at 1kHz, ±290Hz. Though these are at a very low level, they shouldn’t be there at all. They disappeared with lower-level data (not shown).

Fig.8 Peachtree iDac, naL filter, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at –90.31dBFs, 16-bit data (left channel blue, right red).

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Fig.7 Peachtree iDac, naL filter, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at –90.31dBFs, 16-bit data (left channel blue, right red).

Fig.6 Peachtree iDac, Hi-Bit, FFT-derived spectrum with noise and spuriae of dithered 1kHz tone at –90dBFs, with: 16-bit data (left channel cyan, right magenta), 24-bit data (left blue, right red).

Line outputs, component and s-video outputs, and pairs of optical UsB and coaxial digital inputs.

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settings to fine-tune things like sound-staging and presence.

With so many ways to get music into the iDac, I was curious to com-pare them. In the past, I’ve found that a DAC’s various inputs sound much more similar to each other than one DAC does to another. In other words, when, say, its USB and S/PDIF are compared, a given DAC will tend to sound consistent with itself. Changing the iDac’s filter setting usually made more difference than changing the in-put. The iDac introduced a new vari-able with its iPod dock, so I attached my iPod Touch, which I’d loaded with uncompressed AIFF files from my computer. I had the same files loaded on a Meridian Sooloos music server in FLAC format via S/PDIF, and syn-chronized playback of those files with the computer via USB and the iPod. I also hooked up an Oppo Digital BDP-

83 universal Blu-ray player via optical and coax-S/PDIF.

Pitting the PeachtreeFirst up was “Trouble No More,” from the Allman Brothers Band’s Eat a Peach (CD, Capricorn/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab UDCD 513). With the iDac remote,

I could easily switch between sources, and on first listen, as the two drummers locked into their groove, I detected no differences among computer-USB, iPod, CD, and Sooloos. I moved on to the aggressive-sounding “Peaches,” from the Stranglers’ Rattus Norvegicus (CD, EMI 5 344406 2), and still couldn’t discern a pattern. Then on to Linton Kwesi Johnson and the bass-

heavy “Reggae Fi Peach.” Maybe there was better bottom end with the S/PDIF and USB input. And maybe—just maybe—I tended to like the Sooloos the best over-all, by a thin margin.

And so it went. In the end, the iDac’s various inputs sounded more similar than not, with no obvious dings. I’d have

been hard-pressed to tell them apart had I gone back to relisten a week later, so I defaulted back to the S/PDIF-Sooloos and began comparing the iDac with other DACs.

BenchmarksOn hand was my Benchmark DAC1 USB ($1295), which has been a good

With the naL filter engaged, the iDac performed well with the high-frequency intermodulation test (fig.10). all intermodulation products lie at or below –100dB (0.001%), and the aliases of the 19 and 20kHz signals at 24.1 and 25.1kHz (with 44.1kHz data) are well suppressed. The pic-ture changed with the nos filter (fig.11). not only are the aliasing products of the main signal now almost as high in level, due to the slow-rolloff filter, but the noise floor in the audioband is littered with intermodulation products. Ugh.

The optical s/PDiF connection rejected more jitter than the coaxial. The blue and red traces in fig.12 show the spectrum with the iDac fed a 24-bit version of the j-Test signal via TosLink. Though no data-related sidebands can be seen, there are significant sidebands at ±73Hz, with lower-level pairs at ±290Hz (again) and ±900Hz; all these are both of unknown origin. Changing to 16-bit j-Test data (fig.12, cyan and magenta traces), the data-related side-bands are close to the residual level, other than the pair at ±229Hz. The Miller analyzer calculated the jitter level as 470 picoseconds peak–peak.

repeating the test, but with the iDac now fed 16-bit data from my MacBook via UsB, gave 119ps p–p of jitter (fig.13, cyan and magenta traces), with the data-related

Fig.11 Peachtree iDac, nos filter, HF intermodulation spectrum, DC–24kHz, 19+20kHz at 0dBFs into 100k ohms (left channel blue, right red; linear frequency scale).

Fig.9 Peachtree iDac, spectrum of 1kHz sinewave, DC–1kHz, at 0dBFs into 100k ohms (left channel blue, right red; linear frequency scale).

Fig.10 Peachtree iDac, naL filter, HF intermodulation spectrum, DC–24kHz, 19+20kHz at 0dBFs into 100k ohms (left channel blue, right red; linear frequency scale).

the idac’s various inputs sOUNDED MORE sIMIlaR ThaN NOT.

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point of reference these last few months. I cued up “Peaches of Immor-tality,” from Gamelan Pacifica’s Trance Gong (CD, What Next? 0016)—a won-derful-sounding recording of a modern gamelan orchestra, full of challeng-ing transients and metallic percussive sounds. As I went back and forth be-tween them a few times, trying to zero in on any differences, the Benchmark presented me with soundstage clarity and control, while the Peachtree iDac had an easier, more laid-back sense of space. The two DACs had similar tonal balances overall, though there was no mistaking the Benchmark’s increased sense of focus. But flip this around—I could also say that the Peachtree sound-ed more rounded, forgiving, and invit-ing, whereas the Benchmark’s stare was colder and more honest. I’ll give this one to the Benchmark—with it, I felt I could more easily pick out the inter-

locking parts of the music, and simply preferred the extra control.

On the other hand, “Rotten Peach-

es,” from Elton John’s Madman Across the Water (ripped from CD) showcased how the Peachtree could handle an

sidebands at the residual level. These disappeared with 24-bit data (blue and red traces), but a pair of sidebands can be seen at ±1kHz, this related to the UsB polling interval, as well as some low-frequency sidebands. With 16-bit j-Test data played from my iPod Classic (fig.14), the measured jitter level was an extremely low 88ps p–p, though a sideband pair can be seen at ±3288Hz. The cen-tral peak that represents the 11.025kHz tone is also a little broadened compared with figs. 12 and 13, suggesting the presence of random low-frequency jitter.

The Peachtree iDac measures very well, especially considering its affordable price. as always, the use of a non-oversampling filter raises my eyebrows, but as the iDac also offers a conventional filter, this is not an issue. My only regret is that the iDac’s UsB input does not operate at 88.2kHz, but for such files one could always use something like Musical Fidelity’s v-Link ($169) to feed one of the Peachtree’s s/PDiF inputs. —John Atkinson

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Fig.14 Peachtree iDac, high-resolution jitter spectrum of analog output signal, 11.025kHz at –6dBFs, sampled at 44.1kHz with LsB toggled at 229Hz: 16-bit data from iPod Classic (left channel blue, right red). Center frequency of trace, 11.025kHz; frequency range, ±3.5kHz.

Fig.12 Peachtree iDac, high-resolution jitter spectrum of analog output signal, 11.025kHz at –6dBFs, sampled at 44.1kHz with LsB toggled at 229Hz: 16-bit data via 15’ TosLink s/PDiF from aP sYs2722 (left channel cyan, right magenta), 24-bit data (left blue, right red). Center frequency of trace, 11.025kHz; frequency range, ±3.5kHz.

Fig.13 Peachtree iDac, high-resolution jitter spectrum of analog output signal, 11.025kHz at –6dBFs, sampled at 44.1kHz with LsB toggled at 229Hz: 16-bit data via UsB from MacBook (left channel cyan, right magenta), 24-bit data (left blue, right red). Center frequency of trace, 11.025kHz; frequency range, ±3.5kHz.

ji's audiophile buddy, Bruce rowley, listens carefully.

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edgy human vocal with artificial studio sheen and humanize it a little. Listen-ing to this track via the Benchmark was tougher going. Though the Peachtree couldn’t perform a miracle, it did very slightly take the edge off.

Finally, I cued up the Monkees’ “Apples, Peach-es, Bananas and Pears” (ripped from CD) and let the pop goodness wash over me. It occurred to me then that the Peachtree was lining up against the Benchmark in the same way the YBA Design WD202 DAC ($879) had a year ago, but this time with a more refined sound. (See my review of the WD202 in the June 2010 issue.) With its nicer build quality, filter tweak-ing, and iPod dock, the Peachtree would be the one I’d pick for around a grand. The YBA does have a headphone jack (the iDac doesn’t), but YBA’s headphone output doesn’t sound that great, so it doesn’t count in the WD202’s favor.

The Benchmark com-parisons done, I thought something closer in price and features might be a good idea. As if on cue, my pal Bruce Rowley e-mailed to say he’d just picked up the new Rega DAC ($995) that Sam Tellig wrote about in May, and would I mind if he came down so we could check it out on my system. You see, Bruce has all tubes and Quad ESL-988 electro-static speakers in a smallish room, and I’m all solid-stated and subwoofered and bigger than life, with 11' ceilings and lots of space. Bruce was looking for a very different point of reference—but he and I used to work in the same audio store: his listening credentials are solid. “Absolutely,” I said. A few days later, we were set up.

We sat down in the sweet spot (ac-tually, Bruce sat there; I stood behind him, in Son of Sweet Spot) and started in with various tunes and various set-tings of the Rega, popping its apodiz-ing filter in and out. We heard nothing too dramatic with these choices, so I decided to get down to business, drop my obsession with peachy song titles, and put on the trusty Roxy Music track

I’ve used with most DACs here: “For Your Pleasure,” from their second album.

First the Rega, then the Benchmark, then the Rega, then the Benchmark. After a dozen plays, Bruce said, “I know what the difference is now. The Benchmark feels pre-cise and in control, the Rega warmer but a bit fuzzy.” Bingo.

Now we pitted the Peachtree against the

Rega. Again the Rega had the warm and fuzzy feeling, but the

Peachtree’s presentation felt more real—

maybe a tad short of the Benchmark, but the difference in that sense of real-ness was unmistakable. We’d seen the door ding on the Rega and now could pick it out every time. I then played some higher-rez recordings download-ed from HDtracks.com, but nothing we heard changed our initial impressions.

Where the Rega had a slightly heavier feel in the bottom end and added girth to voices (I was surprised at how notice-able this bass boost was), the Peachtree laid back to simply reveal what we both felt were more accurate portrayals of

what had been recorded. Bruce said, “The Peachtree allows me to see deeper into the music, but the Rega adds body to vocals.” You might prefer the Rega if your system needs fattening up a tad, and/or you have smaller speakers. But if you’re looking for more honest sound and features like an iPod dock, and don’t want to spend more than about $1000, I recommend the iDac.

conclusionsYou can tell by the differences in our systems that my and Bruce’s tastes in audio are nowhere near the same—yet we agreed about these DACs. For both of us, a DAC is about transparency and control, and the Peachtree iDac’s sound was the most honest of all the DACs we’ve heard that cost a grand or less.

Bruce left his Rega DAC with me; I listened to it for a week, and nothing changed my opinion of it, especially when I tested all three DACs via USB (the Rega’s weak point, to my ears).

With its excellent sound, extra in-puts, iPod dock, remote control, and attractive price, Peachtree Audio’s iDac is a solid audiophile value. Then there’s its casework, and an attention to detail, that for my sensibilities are clearly supe-rior to those of other DACs I’ve seen in the vicinity of $1000. A product well thought out and well executed. nn

assOcIaTED EQUIPMENTDIGITal sOURcEs apple MacBook Pro computer (2.66GHz intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB raM, 320GB HDD) running os 10.6.7, iTunes 10.2.2, sonic studio’s amarra Computer Music Player 2.2, songbird 1.9.3, or XLD; oppo Digital BDP-

83 universal Blu-ray player; sooloos Music server (Control 15, 3 Twinstores); apple iPod Touch (first generation); Benchmark DaC1 UsB, rega DaC digital processors.PREaMPlIFIER Marantz av7005 (Pure Direct Mode).POwER aMPlIFIERs Classé CaM 350 monoblocks.lOUDsPEakERs MartinLogan Prodigy & Descent subwoofer (2).caBlEs UsB: Cardas Clear. s/PDiF: Cardas neutral reference, XLo. Line level: Kimber Kable (various), XLo HT Pro. speaker: Kimber Kable BiFocal XL.accEssORIEs Dedicated 20a line for power amplifiers, separate dedicated 15a lines for digital & analog components. —Jon Iverson

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with its excellent sound, extra inputs, ipod dock, remote control, and attractive price, PEachTREE aUDIO’s iDac Is a sOlID aUDIOPhIlE valUE.

Peachtree Audio iDacEditor:Thanks for a great review of the Peachtree iDac, and what great timing. I got the review for comments during the last few days of my family vacation with my eight- and nine-year-olds, so I’m writing this somewhere between fishing, water parking, and scooter riding, lol. So I’ve had plenty of reasons why this silly smile can’t be wiped off my face.

We’d like to thank Jon [Iverson] for a glowing review. In this world of listen for a few minutes and write a full-blown review, it’s refreshing to know how much time, effort, and actual listening went into this review before the first word ever hit paper. It’s like the anti-hack review. Thanks for the time, Jon! And, too, for the time-consuming job John Atkinson has, with little credit for the uncompromising effort it takes to get real measurements.

In many ways, this review was similar to the discussions Jim Spainhour and I had before the iDac was built. How do we want it to sound? If nonaliasing (NAL) measures better but no filtering or oversampling (NOS) sounds better, which should we use? We liked the different settings and combos for differ-ent reasons, and sometimes in different order. At the end of the day, we decided these decisions should be firmly in the hands of the listener, so user-adjustable switches were the best choice, in our thinking. Who are we to make this determination? Different people hear differently, and simply prefer different settings. Which is the correct setting? you may ask. It’s as easy as determining what music is the best: It’s what you like. When reading a DAC review, many will just go for the better measurements. The problem with this is that you don’t “hear” measurements. We knew that if we just put it out as we liked, it would get killed in the measurement phase of any review, so we opted for the best measurements and the best sound.

Hopefully, this tells you something.As Jon did, we prefer the NOS set-

tings, even if they didn’t measure as well. If you’re one who has a Miller jitter analyzer growing between your ears, please just set to NAL and Hi-Bit and be done with it. This will give you sound similar to some of the more “respected” DACs in the industry. I chuckled a bit when I read the part where the Bench-mark was a little more detailed than the iDac, but Jon had stated earlier that he had preferred and switched the iDac to NOS. If you want to gain that extra detail back, just switch to NAL. The point is, no matter what your taste, we have you covered.

One thing we found a bit odd. The iPod dock measured lower jitter than did the S/PDIF input. This is odd in that the iPod input uses the same S/PDIF input as the rest. Having said that, isn’t it cool that we can now get better performance from an iPod than from al-most any CD player ever made? Under 100ps of jitter!

Before we started Peachtree Audio, we were selling a well-known brand from England that offered a very desir-able SACD player for $6700. Although it produced many times the jitter re-ported from our iPod dock, we couldn’t keep them in stock. I love how technol-ogy works. This is all possible because of ESS Technology’s Sabre32 32-bit DAC. Way too much to write about in this space, but if you want more detail, you can follow this link: www.esstech.com/PDF/sabrewp.pdf. It’s why we use ESS exclusively, and why we don’t worry about async. Plus, async affects only USB. We want anything you use to have crazy-low jitter, not just your computer.

The ESS is, without a doubt, the very best DAC for use in a hostile digital environment. It was very expensive and time-consuming to work with, but, as you read in Jon’s review, worth every gray hair. If you like the DAC itself, you may appreciate the effort and art around

the iDac. We still have over 450 parts that would complete the full board, including 11 regulated power supplies. Because of the inherent noise that computers and streamers put out, we transformer-couple the affected digital inputs, so that no superfluous noise ever makes it to the DAC board. We found this made one of the biggest improve-ments to the sound—even more than lowering the jitter.

As far as industrial design and getting products to market, Jim Spainhour deserves the credit. He spends hours on end in front of his drafting table to get that “perfect look and feel,” then spends more time at the factory than at home seeing that the vision is intact and no corners are being cut.

In the end, we just want to bring enjoyment to the people who want to use their computer or streaming device as a serious source component. This has been our goal since we started the company. Our mantra: Peachtree takes the technology you already own to a level never dreamed possible.

During our Music Matters seminars, which we do all over the country, we show people who own a computer or smart phone that they already have a $10,000 server. It just takes a little exper-tise to set it up properly. We show how to set it up, how to remotely control your computer, and then how to transfer the music you have anywhere in your house. We call it “The Three-Step Boogie.” Customers are floored to learn they already own most of the equipment they need to make this happen. If you have a Peachtree dealer in your hometown, the staff has been trained or is in the process of being trained in how this works. As always, call or write if we can be of as-sistance. Much of our day is filled with talking to our customers. We learn a lot, they learn a lot.

Once again, thanks for the great review on our newest baby, the iDac.

David Solomon, Managing PartnerPeachtree Audio

m a n u F a c t u r e r s ’ c o m m e n t s

Posted with permission from the October 2011 issue of Stereophile ® www.stereophile.com. Copyright 2011 Source Interlink Media. All rights reserved.For more information about the use of this content, contact Wright’s Media at 877-652-5295

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