NOS DAC - Marketing BS? - Page 21

Damn great sig. I've always thought that.

I had to read this twice to believe there are people here who actually seem to prefer good measurements above good sound.
I'm off, enjoying mutilated music from my Havana, that sounds better then any digital player I ever heart.

wow

i love it when folks say a particular argument is irrefutable

working with other tech folks and engineers all day (both scientific, electrical and comp sci) we often find out that the things that we thought couldn't be refuted end up be overturned over time (indeed a number of our patents come from challenge the 'irrefutable' assumptions)
but that's a separate subject - as is whether the particular claim is actually true

i like the vinyl analogy because when CDs first came out several folks wrote articles (in journals and back then newsletters) about how irrefutably better the CD was than vinyl.

Maybe they were right, i don't actually know (work more with algorithms than EE myself) but even if CDs were better they sounded really bad to me (early CD players folks).

so a few things:

- never say never

- what's actually being proven depends upon the goals and context (users define success differently -even if the early CDs had better tech specs I didn't dig them, but then again I use tube amps)

- designs always have trade offs (price/value, etc.)

i appreciate the service of Dan writing this fro the community - the thing is, there's probably a dozen other cases one could write on and this one happens to overlap with his business

on one hand i get it - i write tech articles in my domain defending our approach; on the other hand i don't blame folks, take offense, nor am i surprised when they note i have vested interest

Nice write up. Everything can be refuted because everybody opinion is different. Having some scientific fact to back things up is good, but in a lot of cases when things arent necessarily black and white, given long enough time and changing technology allowing for different testing, those so called fact can become fiction.

I think D. Lavry's point is that mathematics, engineering and science is not settled on the basis of opinions. For example, his point that waveform reconstruction from a digital signal is not feasible with NOS (but is with at least 2x oversampling due to the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem) is sound. And people arguing from a non-technical standpoint, which happens A LOT in this and other websites are not going to overturn that technical finding.

As jrosenth points out, that is not to say that it is impossible. There might be some mathematical genius who will see beyond Nyquist and Shanon's theorem. But Shanon's insights are canonical, and in the last 60 years have become the basis for whole fields of inquiry (information theory, the computer you're staring into). And so a refutation will take a staggering insight of human genius that will change the face of engineering and be celebrated for centuries. So in other words, something not likely to ever happen in one of these forums.

And no, it will never happen just because someone has a different opinion.

My point is isn't that someone will overturn a theorem in this forum only - but only to calibrate against hubris of irrefutably (and this isn't the ideal place but refutations aren't always paradigm-wide but more often than not context dependent nor does overturning one mean that product and systems created based on them stop working or are faulty but only that something else better explains them potentially allowing refinement and extension more often than not)

My other point is that irrefutable technical argument may still not mean better sound - not just because folks physically hear differently and have different opinions (although true) but that the nature of what you define as your standard of better may not actually correspond to or describe in totality what sounds better (specs from early CDs or SS amps trounce vinyl and tubes) - that the nature of that technical argument and the constraints of what was being measured may not describe the totality of what makes something better (i'll concede the technical arguments to the folks who made them that early CD players were irrefutably better than vinyl even though early CD players actually sounded very brittle, bright and edgy - but my strong suspicion is that there is another domain or dimension of something else, even a measurable something else, that might explain why they sounded so bad). The there's also the question of the price/value ratio and opportunity cost (something a 1/10th the price changes the experience for the user and allows set funds to be placed elsewhere in the system for potentially great system performance).

My final point is that one can't be surprised or offended if one makes an argument claiming the irrefutable superiority of an approach that aligns with one's product or business over another approach that represents products that are both taking market share and preventing a portion of that market from concluding there's value to spending 10 times as much. (It's like a positive review of a product from a magazine where that product's manufacturer is a major sponsor - maybe it's unbiased, but one can't be surprised much less indignant if someone notes the financial implications or eve calls the intention into question.)

I thought the reason early CDs sounded so bad was due to the recording processes back then. The existing technology for recording was more customized for vinyl and cassette tapes which are both analog. On top of that the average engineer(or whoever) was more skilled and experienced with analog media than they were with the new digital format. To me that equals that the data on the CD itself was distorted -- not that the CD itself or the player could not faithfully reproduce what was on the disc.

So at the time, because of existing tech, vinyl probably did sound better than CD. But mostly because you had a mature technology vs a baby one.

Thats why I am not so sure about the analogy between NOS dacs and tubes/vinyl. With tubes we are talking about something very simple -- they are either buffering or amplifying - it colors or in some cases softens the sound to some degree but nothing is lost -- tubes are about taste. Vinyl is analog and CDs are digital -- nothing is missing from a vinyl reproduction - CDs are the approximation. No whether you like the vinyl sound is something else.

But with DACs we are talking about something different entirely. A DAC is all about reproducing whats on the CD as close to perfect as possible. Otherwise its not doing its job IMHO.

My own experience with the Havana has swayed me to the OS side for good. I have borrowed my friends Havana twice now. The first time I borrowed it I had a significant shortcoming in my audio system -- my speakers are quite a load and I simply did not have enough power. The reason this is significant is that my amp gets quite brash on the top end when driven hard -- alot of distorted treble energy. The Havana in this system actually sounded on par with my other digital sources albeit with some shortcomings namely soundstage (you can see what I wrote in the Havana thread STARTING HERE) . The softness of the Havana helped tamed my treble issues and I incorrectly gave credit to the Havana.

Then I bought a second amp and biamped my speakers -- loads of headroom now, no brash top end at any comfortable listening level. Recently borrowed my friends Havana again last week - he had replaced the stock tube with a extremely well regarded tube (the name escapes me). My opinion has completely changed. The Havana is a decent sounding DAC no doubt - but resolution no, soundstage no, top end clarity no, bass yes, transparency no, less ability to decode phase information, overall musical weight/tone yes, detail yes.

Most of the sound seemed to come from one central location between my speakers. A centralized ball of music. Unless you hear the Havana using speakers and not headphones you will not notice this. I imagine that without some sort of cross feed the Havana would sound quite nice on a pair of headphones.

The larger point at least to me is this - I just don't think the Havana reproduces sound true to whats on the disc. It may reproduce a sound that you like (And I very much enjoyed it on some thinner sounding recordings even on my second go around with it) but it is not faithful by any stretch. It is not transparent by any stretch. If I play CDs of material recorded in the 50's they should not have the same basic sound as a recording from last year. "Hey Jude" should not sound like it was recorded in a room full of plush couches.

Again, I am not downing this DAC, I think its good, but out of the 10 or so digital sources (cd players and Dacs -- all of which were OS) that I have heard that are above the $800 price range I'd rank the Havana at the bottom. YMMV especially if you are using headphones instead of speakers. I am not trying to get into a pissing match with fans of the DAC because I can see why you like it, I am just reporting what I heard and felt.

So i think the fundamental question is really what do you think a DAC should do? I am in the camp of "please reproduce my digital music as faithfully as possible" - if I want warmth or tamed highs I will add a tube pre-amp or tube amp. Now I have only heard one NOS DAC obviously but since the Havana is so well regarded I thought my story would have some value.

@ciphercomplete

How's Monarchy NM24 vs Havana?

I haven't listened to Havana in a good speaker rig until now. On headphones I consider it on -par with the DA10 but have no intention to go into a dispute of technicall superiority.

definitely not use a tube stage!

many ppl believe that the DAC LPF will color the sound far more than the DAC chip ever will: Heres some test results for the new ESI Juli@ card - RightMark Forums
use some high grade opamps instead...OPA211/627/827, AD797, LT1028....if the PCM1794 datasheet advises to use LT1028 there's a very good reason

That just about settles the argument for me. I guess it's the high frequency cut off that is preferred in some systems.

It is similar to a guy said on avsforums about recompressing Blu-Ray video. He says prefer the transcoded (to lower bitrate) versions because the real thing has film grain. I guess in certain situations lower resolution can be helpful.

No offense to anybody. Maybe I'd like it if I tried it.

lol film grain is what movies are all about, fail...I personally add film grain on purpose

his display prolly deals w/ it very poorly..