ЦАПы — CH Precision C1.2 Mono

The C1.2 Mono is the three-chassis, dual-monaural form of the C1.2 DAC and controller from CH Precision of Switzerland. The C1.2 replaced the C1, was announced in May 2022 and reached buyers from September 2022. In this version a common controller receives and processes the digital signal, splits it into left and right channels and passes each to its own external DAC unit. Launch pricing was EUR 70,350 or USD 77,000, against EUR 32,850 or USD 36,000 for the single-chassis C1.2 with one digital input board.

Key specs that matter

Conversion uses a fully differential layout with four R-2R ladder converters for each channel, with capability up to 32 bit and 768 kHz for PCM. Signal-to-noise ratio is above 120 dB, and THD+N is under 0.001 percent at full scale in a 22 kHz bandwidth. Output level is 5.1 V RMS from the balanced XLR sockets and 2.55 V RMS single-ended, with BNC outputs offered as well. Each chassis measures 440 x 440 x 133 mm and weighs 20 kg.

Engineering and use context

With the DACs in completely separate boxes, crosstalk between channels is removed and high-frequency noise is kept out of the analogue power supplies. Each DAC chassis keeps the discrete, fully complementary output topology of the C1.2 but gets a dedicated regulated supply of its own, and each channel has an independent 2.4 GFLOPS DSP engine running the CH-PEtER upsampling and DSD-to-PCM conversion. The controller is a card-cage design, so inputs are chosen at order and added later. The standard digital card offers CH Link HD plus AES/EBU, coaxial and TOSLINK sockets, and optional boards add USB, Ethernet streaming with Roon Ready support and native DSD512 files, analogue XLR and RCA inputs, or a SYNC-IO board with BNC clock connections. Clocking is based on a MEMS oscillator with thermal compensation, and the unit is fully MQA compliant. A hybrid digital and analogue volume control can be bypassed when a separate preamplifier is used. Up to three X1 external power supplies can be added, one per chassis, along with a T1 10 MHz time reference. Any C1.2 can be converted to the Mono configuration for the difference in retail price between the two.

Pairing

Because volume is handled internally, the balanced outputs can drive power amplifiers directly, and the D1.5 transport connects over CH Link HD for disc playback. The analogue input board lets a phono preamplifier or tuner share the same volume control.

Alternatives

The CH Precision C10 is a two-chassis DAC from the 10 series built around sixteen R-2R converters in a DSQ Phase Array layout.