DAC Showdown: AQVOX USB 2 D/A vs. Benchmark DAC1 vs. Lavry Black DA10 - Page 4

thanks

it will fit under my amp sideways

I didn't feel "offended" or annoyed at all since I'm generally not defensive about my gear or my preferences.Actually I enjoyed reading your review.It is amusing and enlightening how different the perception and preferences of two guys can be.
Sourcewise we have so much in common I have to laugh about it.Benchmark, Aqvox, Rme soundcards (one of my RMEs in my third rig is by chance been modded by you, I've got it for a ridiculously low price since your modding destroyed any ebay market value).Sometimes you like to make jokes about yourself as being a FOTM generator but due to my propensity for detecting I've got any of these long before you had the chance to turn them into a FOTM.

However, it seems to be a question of preferences.For my classical music through the K1000s I clearly prefer upsampling/reclocking.In bypass mode the for me most important coherency is disturbed.Seems to be I'm not that sensitive to lacking microdynamics.Comparatively lame old headphones, my ears are much older, what do you exspect.What I hear in bypass mode is a more forgiving sound for not so stellar recordings at the expense of imaging.There's a good use for both options, and fortunately everyone can experiment for himself.I wouldn't feed the DAC via USB or CDP with a 44,1KHz signál though since the analog filters aren't designed for plain old Redbook.Bypass is usable only for the soundcard guys. Again, with all the "no offense" back and forth, no offense, but as far as the engineer knows you are just plain wrong.Maybe the whole jitter issue is overrated at least in regard to your preferences, but in bypass mode there's absolutely no jitter reduction.Nada, rien, nichts.What you like is just a slaved DAC with an excellent analog output stage.

I would think that general sound quality and jitter induced distortions are independent issues. When the sound of a DAC with or without dejittering circuit engaged is slightly better than that of a different model, than the engineer in me would conclude that the impact on jitter on the sound is smaller than the other differences between the two DACs. I would not think you are just plain wrong saying that...

The difference in sound betwen the different PLL modes in a DA10 are very subtle. I am not sure I could reliably DBT the differences between narrow (no secondary PLL), wide (ASRC), and crystal (synchronous reclocking).

Cheers

Thomas

Exactly my thoughts, but without k1000 . I tend to use upsampling with all orchestral music. Peter, maybe your preference for other music styles could be conditioning your preference for bypass?

Having spent a great deal of time listening to gear and music with Iron_Dreamer, he has diversified his music choices, as have I. I never thought I'd find myself listening to Progressive Metal. LOL.

But if you look at his first post, he extensively lists the different songs he listened to. And it's not all Metal and Rock.

-Ed

Yes, yes - This is not what I mean. I'll try to explain with my limited english. I suppose he prefers certain music styles over others, as we all do. And is normal we listen for different "things" in different styles of music. You can listen to a wide variety of music, but prefer certain "presentation" because you are more partial to one style whose strong point is this "presentation". Hard rock/metal and classical sound certainly are very different. Only asking if this could be the case.

By the way, I'm a heavy metal lover too since the beginnings of the '80s

I didn't want to question his comment about the sound quality in comparison to the Benchmark. doesn't make much sense since the guy that designed the DAC claims the DAC doesn't provide jitter reduction in bypass mode.

How exactly would it not provide some jitter reduction. You'd be hard pressed to build a S/PDIF device that does not provide some jitter reduction from the standard chips available on the market.

A digital receiver chip like the CS8416 does of course use a PLL to extract a low jitter version of the clock embedded in the S/PDIF stream.

There might no secondary PLL like the crystal lock circuit in the Lavry or an ASRC but the primary PLL in the receiver chip is always there.

An interesting question is how you would ever compare the quality of a S/PDIF signal without this. I suppose older generations of the receiver chips did pass most of the jitter through to its clock output.

Cheers

Thomas

For those interested, I belive Sound Pure has some Lavrys DA-10 in stock.

Indeed they do.

Fixed ones, or first batch?

The reversed Left and Right thing was just stupid.

-Ed

They said that they were sent back to Lavry for an update and returned to Pure Sound. Hopefully that was fixed.