The Well-Tempered Computer, an introduction to computer audio

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Resonessence Labs Invicta


  • ESS SABRE32 24/192kHz DAC chip
  • Digital filtering DSP and controls via Xilinx MicroBlaze FPGA soft processor cores
  • Ultra-low phase noise oscillator master clock
  • 1 x Toslink input and 1 x Toslink output
  • 2 x BNC digital input
  • 1 x AES/EBU input
  • USB - asynchronous mode, high speed so probably USB audio class 2 compliant but no drivers for Windows available. USB firmware by Cypres Semiconductor.
  • All digital inputs are transformer coupled, galvanically isolated
  • 2 x headphone outputs on front panel, simultaneous drive and levels can be independently set
  • SD card (WAV format only, up to 24/192)
  • Low noise OLED screen
  • Firmware upgradeable (FPGA)
  • High quality AD797 J-FET operational amplifier output stage

The manual contains a lot of measurements.
Each measurement is accompanied by a short explanation, very instructive.
This DAC is linear up to 130 dB. An excellent values allowing for minimal full 22 bits resolution.
Price: US$3.995