Most of the audio comparisons I have seen between the 59AVi and the 5900 yield the 5900 as the winner.
Just one is: The Perfect Vision, Sept/Oct 2004.
Here's what I dug up on the two DACs for the 59AVi and 3910 from Burr Brown's web site:
59AVi DACs PCM1738 117dB DR, THD+N 0.0004%, 8x Oversampling Dig Filter: Stopband Atten: –82dB, Start Price (1KU) ($) 5.25
3910 DACs PCM1796 123dB DR, THD+N: 0.0005%, 8× Oversampling Dig Filter: Stopband Atten: –98 dB, Start Price (1KU) ($) 6.5
Seem pretty equivalent to me, in fact, both the dynamic range and digital filter stopband attenuation numbers of the 3910's DACs are better. And it seems unlikely that TI would charge *more* for a worse performing DAC. So ... maybe the 59AVi's DACs were TI/BB's best when they came out (the PDF document is dated 01 Feb 2002 on TI's web site), but the 3910's certainly are state of the art now (PDF doc date 17 Dec 2003)
And obviously, in addition to the DACs, it's also the power supplies, op amps, anti-liasing filters, etc, that matter. Gordon also says this: implementation is king, and for example, he's already said that he prefers the implementation the 5900 has for SACD BM:
Quote:
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Though one point is very important. DVD-5900 has DSD->PCM converter SM5819A, and in the case of bass management for DSD this converter will be used, after my experiments I know that such way is better (I can ABX the difference in my system for such path with 19/19 probability http://www.digit-life.com/articles2...vd-a/index.html ) then using of analog filters in PCM1738 or PCM1790 for SACD signal decoding, therefore DVD-5900 logically should sound better in this mode for SACD then 59AVi ...
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The 3910 has the same BM the 5900 has.
