Playback Designs MPD-8 Dream DAC

MPD-8 Playback Designs Digital Analog Converter

DAC with integrated volume control

• Up to 384kHz PCM and up to 11.2MHz DSD
• USB I/O, AES, Coax, TosLink, PLink I/O
• USB compatibility with Windows, Apple OS, Linux
• Balanced and unbalanced analog outputs
• digitally driven, analog volume control
• double Differential discrete DAC
• double Differential ultra high end analog stages per channel
• three regulated analog power supplies with three transformers
• Software upgradeable by end user
• Recording software for file creation on computer
• Easy and intuitive remote control via iPad or Android

This product has been designed for ultra high end performance. Its architecture is specifically designed to eliminate and isolate anything that might hurt its analog performance. For instance, left and right output channels are built on separate circuit boards with completely separated power supplies. All digital input signals are filtered, cleaned and processed with Playback Designs’ proprietary algorithms to keep any negative influences away from the hyper sensitive DAC. Special care has been given to the design of the clock generator to make sure it is not exposed to any potentially harmful influences from external sources.

The MPD-8 is the companion DAC product for the MPT-8 transport which is designed to further isolate the MPD-8 DAC from the influences of digital sources by connecting to the DAC via a proprietary fiber optical link with galvanic separation (PLINK). As we all know too well, digital sources bring various degrees of “pollution” in form of correlated clock jitter, asynchronous clocks (disk drives, CPU, displays etc) and many other negative effects. When these sources are connected directly to the DAC, there is always the chance for some of this “pollution” reaching the analog circuitry of the DAC. However, with the MPT-8 receiving and processing all digital sources and then sending a cleaned up digital stream to the MPD-8 via a completely galvanically isolated link, Playback Designs’ proprietary fiber optical cable (PLINK), the MPD-8 is left alone performing what it is designed for: converting digital signals to super high end analog.

However, the MPD-8 is also equipped with a series of common digital inputs so that it can serve as a stand-alone DAC with any other digital source as well. These inputs are automatically switched off internally if not selected to prevent any negative effect of asynchronous data streams from reaching the DAC.