North Star Design Essensio

Brand: North Star Design

Model: Essensio

New price approx.: 1.300 ,- Euro

Technical data

• Digital input data: 32 kHz to 192 kHz
• Digital word width: 16 bit to 32 bit
• Dynamic range: 123 dB (with 24 bit input data)
• Noise floor: 109 dB
• Connections:
  • Inputs:
    • 5 x S/PDIF (2 x RCA, 3 x TOSLINK).

1 x USB2.0

• • Outputs: 1x Cinch; unbalanced
• Current consumption: 230/115 V; 50/60 Hz: 15 VA
• Dimensions (W x H x D): 300 x 60 x 170 mm

Remarks

Incredibly powerful sounding high-end D/A converter from the Italian digital specialist. More than 10 years of digital experience have gone into the Essensio and you can hear it. The sound is much more analogue/grown-up than for example the M2Tech Young (incl. Teddy Pardo power supply). Resolves wonderfully fine and builds a realistic wide and deep stage, without drifting into the annoying, like some other DAC. With the Essensio everything is just right. Special drivers for PC and Mac allow a "bit-perfect copy" of the audio data from the hard disk of the computer to the DAC. The asynchronous coupling reliably eliminates jitter and turns the computer into a "slave" that outputs the data packets under control of the processor in the DAC. All incoming signals are buffered in a FIFO and clocked by a high precision crystal. Any negative influence of noise on the audio signal is eliminated by a professional inductive coupling at the input of the USB interface using integrated devices (ADUM1400) from Analog Devices. The ground of PC and DAC is thus reliably decoupled from each other. In the actual DAC of the ESSENSIO, North Star Design uses components from Texas Instruments. The DAC component PCM 1795 can process data up to 32 bit with a sampling rate of 192 kHz and reaches a dynamic range of 123 dB! The analog output stage was designed to achieve maximum phase linearity. Very low-noise amplifier components from Texas Instruments (OPA1611) and National Semiconductor (LME49710) are used here. The basis for the power supply of the circuit is a high-quality toroidal transformer with an upstream line filter. To avoid mutual interference, four separately regulated supply voltages are available for the digital range. For the analog output stage, a regulated supply voltage of +/- 19 V is generated to ensure maximum linearity of the output signal.

Further models of the same series:

Images