Hard to tell without properly defining what you mean by those terms. They are very subjective, and can mean all sorts of things to different people. One man's neutral is another ones lifeless, one man's warm is another ones lacking detail. Just read or watch some reviews. Most will say neutral...

I was editing... I always first finish the essay and edit the specifics in later. Links are added now.

So we agree pretty much. Just talking about different aspects. I was specifically not talking about digital time domain (jitter). And you do. You speak about ringing and sigma delta, I about it's absence in NOS R2R. Look at the first page of the Pasithea review on 6Moons. That plot is so clean...

Nope. That's why I didn't go in to it. It's just a statistical rounded off average. I could hear it too at that age. Not anymore. Instead I am rewarded a constant high pitched tone in both my ears. That's called tinnitus... The 20-20kHz is just an easy to remember number we learn in school. So...

I disagree on a few things. Or let me redefine the framework. And get some definitions straight. Broaden the horizon so to say. I learned a lot in school, but what I learned best is that most teachers have no idea what they are teaching you. Besides the language and math you get indoctrinated...

Very interesting. In my understanding there is no dac chip inside the Laiv. How else do we explain the stated resistor tolerances. And the specs don't point to this either. I was assuming there is no chip inside. But what made me suspicious is the small size of the gold wrapped R2R modules...

This is always a difficult subject. And there is a diffentiation that is often underestimated. I'll try to explain short and sweet. Transducers that convert electrical to dynamic energy or vice versa (microphones, pickups and speaker drivers) have a hard time keeping the amplitude linear over...

What dac chip do you mean? There is no dac chip in an R2R dac that already puts out line level voltage. With a SD dac chip there is only very low voltage and you need an elaborate well made I/V stage (or opamps, or tubes or discrete transistors). Then you can implement a volume control. But...

I think you are only speaking from your specific situation and preferences. Not general opinions or uses. Keywords: "for me". You state: "AES is the best output". Not true You should have stated: " I think AES is the best output from my DDC". True. You are also pretty opinionated on the use of...

Can you make a direct link to YouTube? I'm now watching it on Rosetube so I can't get the link.

1 The output impedance is actually 600Ω If you use the balanced output it doubles, because you have 2 signal wires. This is a pure dac. Not a preamp. You are not supposed to directly connect it to a poweramp. If that poweramp has a balanced input it seems to me that 10k is rather low. 2 AES...

That is not true. You are forgetting scalability. Like DACs have an output stage that is very defining for the quality so do speakers have an input filter. Exception R2R DACs and fullrange speakers. In budget speakers this crossover is often hidden and made of very cheesy parts. You need to see...

I didn't say they weren't professional. It's just the payment and transport service I have a problem with. Transport services can be really, really annoying. I'm now in a heated dispute with FedEx, and a friend had stuff from Hermes that just vanished... I tried to buy a pair of Fosi ZA3 but I...

It's 600 for single ended, which is ok. Balanced needs to double that of course. The input impedance of balanced inputs should be double too.

I ha It is not expensive, but I agree that it's still a lot of money. Expensive is always relative to perceived value. It it were a car for €5400 you wouldn't say it's expensive, would you? Or a boat, or a house, or a jet... It's a luxury item that is more useful than a omega watch. Or a Birkin...

About Europe: I just saw it mentioned on the website of Audiophonics.fr for €3k. That is including VAT, which is a decent price. https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/dac-without-volume/laiv-harmony-black-p-19276.html It's not available yet but we knew that. I never ordered in France from them. It's...

And by presentation you mean how lifelike the musicians or venue is presented before your eyes (ears)? That's what I currently miss from the digital part of my setup. For instance when I play 'Get lucky' by Daft Punk from lp it's like there's a living breathing Pharrell Williams in my room...

Ok, but I already edited my post and removed my out of place remark. My apologies. There are so many people just shooting from the hip with one quick remark. I spend quite some time trying to explain (finding the right word in English oftentimes takes looking up) and then one person pulls the...

I just did.😋 But maybe you shouldn't talk to me like that. I understand I was rambling about statistics. Not everyone understands it so I tried to give a snap conclusion. But you blew that out of proportion with one quick snarky reply you didn't put any effort in. I was just trying to explain...

Lol 😁 Yup! Thank you for the amp. If you still want the Ares, just ask. I thought it was you. But we all like our avatars to have a little bit of anonymity.

You Just jumped to the (deliberately dumbed down) conclusion and pulled it out of context. What I meant to explain is that neither Holo Audio nor Denafrips use 0.005% tolerance resistors. I'd like to see your implication of an R2R dac made with high precision wirewound resistors. Bring a lorry. 😁

Geen kritiek op jou, wat je zegt doet me ergens aan denken. I bought my Gato amp150 (pure analog) from someone who thought it would be an upgrade from the Dia250s. But he didn't hear that much difference so he sold it off (lucky me). We had some more discussion about it later why and if this...

Don't forget that the 0.005 % you mention is done by software and parallelling 4 (?) resistors. That means the actual tolerance per physical resistor is 0.005/2⁴= 0.08. That's just an estimate because tolerances follow a Gauss or bell-curve. By handpicking resistors you decrease the standard...

I just watched a video by an older guy who has been in the business for decades, and reviewing for years. Je knows all the luxury brands and the people behind it. Notice the discrepancy. He just discovered SMSL. I think this is the reason 2ndH "chifi" does not command as much. He was even...

Correct. Denafrips has the same warning. It is a load issue. What I learned from working on my TDA1543 DACs is that it needs a certain resistance to ground. That's the most basic I/V stage possible. That's your output resistance. The value has a very large influence on the sound. Compare it to...