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Originally Posted by Milk and Coffee  Huh?! This confuses me. Does the G6 now sound worse than its predecessor?
Vinnie, you stated before that G6 sound better, at line-out as well as headphone out... not right anymore? ^^
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I still say that the headphone output of the 6G sounds better than the headphone output of the stock 4G and 5G/5.5G units. I don't hear ANY bass roll-off, and I don't measure ANY bass rolloff... even with a brutal 8-ohm load.
With regards to the headphone output ANDthe line out of the 6G, to me they both also sound more clear and detailed than the stock 4G and 5G/5.5G line outs. However, the stock 4G and 5G/5.5 lineout sounds a little warmer, but less transparent overall. The stock 4G and 5G/5.5G lineouts also have a little more output voltage, so you need to level match the best you can when doing direct comparisons.
The 5G/5.5G iMod definitely sounds the best, especially with the V-cap dock. The sound is very transparent, the top end is sweet (warm, but still detailed and never sounds harsh... well except with crappy recordings). The bass has more weight to it, and the overall sound is less thin and very well-balanced.
I hope to see more posts from others comparing the 4G, 5G, 6G, modded units, etc. and stating what they are hearing. We all have different equipment, different tastes, etc.
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Originally Posted by amb
Just thinking out loud here, but perhaps it's possible that output coupling caps are present on the 6G, on-chip? Normally on standalone, general purpose DAC chips, this is not done because capacitors take up a lot of die space, and they want to keep it external to give designers maximum flexibility. However, in this highly application-specific, Apple-branded chip, it may be feasible...
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I highly doubt there are caps built into this chip... it is not big enough and I would surely measure bass rolloff into an 8-ohm load using the headphone output if this was the case.
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| Note that the scale of the curve is 1dB. So the fall-off looks steeper than usual curves. I also guess the PowerMac G5 input line is not completely flat. |
Hi Marc,
I see... thanks. Actually, I don't know if I didn't have enough coffee this morning or what, but that peak in the top end actually doesn't look that bad (0.5dB is not much, especially at such a high frequency that our headphones or ears might not even be able to hear
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Originally Posted by Vinnie R.
The thinner sound mostly likely has something to do with the peaking in the top-end that you measured, and maybe other things.
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Like I just said, I must of not carefully looked at this plot (I was extremely busy today and in a big rush in general today). I don't think that the moderate peaking has much to do with my impressions I quoted above. I think it is just the overall sound of this dac + built-in output stage... whoever makes this part!
I see some posts where people are calling it a Cirrus Logic part. I do not see a Cirrus part anywhere on that board, and that dac certainly says "APPLE" so where is this talk about Cirrus coming from? I must be missing something
Any info would be appreciated.
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| Though the measurements fans will call this 'conclusive proof' while the feelings people will say they are completely invalid! |
Hi unclejr,
I like to see measurements just like any other engineer, but I believe they do not tell the whole story and they do not tell me if I am going to like the sound of what is being measured. The "feelings people" are the ones who listen and decide what sounds correct based on what they hear, not what they see in a graph. Also, not all graphs show you how a piece of equipment is going to interact with another piece of equipment (e.g. headphones or your headphone amp). There are many variables
Cheers!
Vinnie
