Well its like this there are two parts to a good converted the analog side and the digital side both or just one can be bottle necks in the circuit.
Meaning that you can have a great converter and a noisy front end. This means that the best converter in the world would be useless to improve on the sound quality and noise floor. The size of a converter is not a part of the problem as most converters are small in size. Its about keeping a good clock rate and the way in witch they quantize the signal meaning slice it up and convert it into 1's and 0's this is where the real science lies. companies like Apoge have made there name with knowing how to quantize a signal in a musical way.
thanks scoper... one more question if you don't mind... so the a->d steps are the reading of the analog input and the conversion to a digital (1 and 0) pattern. are you saying that some devices aren't able to correctly read the analog input and therefore 'miscreate' a correct conversion?
I'm sure someone here can give a better answer to this than me...
Yes, the A/D circuit is responsible for turning analog music into 1's and 0's. There are expensive boxes with very sophisticated circuitry that do this job. Now try to miniaturize that into a small circuit which can be included into a low priced consumer unit. It's the hardest part to do really well, I guess. Size and cost are the bottlenecks.
Some consumer/pro recording units are known for good ADC sections - the Edirol r-1 and r-4 (still available), the Sony PCM-M1 and TCD-D100 DAT recorders (discontinued). These are all in the $700+ range. The Sound Devices 700 series runs into the thousands. People like the Oade Brothers make a good living modifying circuits on some of these.
You can't expect a $300+/- unit to compete.
Others with more experience, please expand, correct, and clarify - I'm in over my head here.
Scott
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