At the price I feel like I'm "looking a gift horse in the mouth" by asking this, but why are they using an op-amp after the DAC for I/V conversion when they went to all the expense of following it with a "Fully Discrete Differential Reference™ Output Stage with fully independent balanced and unbalanced drive stages?"
I'm not saying an op-amp is a bad thing in this design, but I'm curious. if a discrete design is better for the output stage, why not for the I/V conversion as well? Obviously use of an op-amp is cost effective, but is its use here a bottle-neck of this design in terms of sound quality?
Just to be clear, I'm not knocking this DAC, in fact... I'm probably going to buy one. I'm just wondering about this one aspect of the design.
Anyone?