Strictly speaking, two 8 bit DACs would be equivilant to one 9 bit DAC.
 Each DAC can only represent 256 different levels, so two of them can
only represent 512 levels.

As far as how much of a difference it would make, it depends on what
you're doing with it.  If you are doing sound, the averag person can
tell the difference between an 8bit DAC output and a 16bit DAC output
given a good output stage and amplifier.  The major problem is that
having such large steps between each sample create lower frequency
harmonics which are not as easily filtered out without removing wanted
audio information.

Think of it as the color depth of a monitor.  Sure, 65536 colors is a
lot, and more than adequate for many (if not most) uses.  But when you
look at a photo of someone's face you can see the lines where the color
changes.  Dithering helps, but you need higher and higher resolutions to
make dithering worthwhile.  Even at very high resolutions with good
dithering the average person would rather see the photo on a true color
display.

But it depends on the application.

-Adam

Richard Sloan wrote:

>Am I nuts?
>
>Can this be done?
>
>In the audio world if you were to playback just the MSB? what would it sound like, the LSB only accounts for 1/256 of the votage out, if the data was 0x5500 vs 0x55ff the difference would only be 1/256 of full scale? So it sounds like it would make no difference.
>
>R.
>
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