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Originally Posted by
project86 
Quote:
Originally Posted by
athenaesword
I agree. at this point it looks like much of the review seems to favor the femto simply because it's priced at its current price point and therefore has to be "better". there seems to be no technological breakthrough here or revelation in terms of how certain elements are being implemented. even that USB line seems to have been thrown in just because.
in contrast, I'm finding significantly more information on the invicta. not to digress, but 2 days of visiting another pro audio forum, gearslutz, has revealed a list of dacs that don't seem to have found their way here but seem to be very highly regarded there. they just don't seem to have been marketed as well. these include the lynx hilo and the forssell mdac-2. both are also in the 2-4k price range and as far as I can tell, are very loved by the folks on that forum.
To add to what we have been discussing via PM - Gearslutz people tend to have certain criteria for the DACs they love. Have you noticed how they generally gravitate towards "studio" oriented units? Or units that look somewhat basic, where (as DaveBSC mentioned) you are spending more for the guts than the caswork? In contrast, some other forums have the opposite preferences - I've read a few places where basically I could determine which DAC they would like most simply by looking at the exterior.
I tend to think at HeadFi we have a somewhat good mix of preferences, though extra weight is given to value for dollar. On the downside we tend to demonize the more popular DAC brands (Benchmark, DacMagic, Audiolab) in favor of obscure brands (then again sometimes the obscure brands are simply better).
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Originally Posted by
arnaud Probably because half of a product's sound and ranking against the competition is a result of collective mind reinforcement ;)
This is very true. I always applaud when I hear of someone who totally dislikes a popular DAC, for whatever reason, as it takes some courage to go against the crowd like that. I might disagree with their opinion on the DAC but I'm glad they are thinking for themselves and trusting their own ears.
Allow me to drag up some less recent but interesting thoughts from this thread. I don't think people demonize the Benchmark quite so much. For a few years it, and the Lavry DA10 were the go-to DACs for many. The older Benchmark my friend owned sounded great until you compared it to a something like a Parasound or other old-school over-build ladder DAC, whereupon the treble glare became obvious and instruments didn't sound as natural. Many people were likely using them with warmer-sounding tube amps, so likely it all balanced out in the end.
I agree though about certain gear being popular on certain forums.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DaveBSC Quote:
Originally Posted by
athenaesword
in contrast, I'm finding significantly more information on the invicta. not to digress, but 2 days of visiting another pro audio forum, gearslutz, has revealed a list of dacs that don't seem to have found their way here but seem to be very highly regarded there. they just don't seem to have been marketed as well. these include the lynx hilo and the forssell mdac-2. both are also in the 2-4k price range and as far as I can tell, are very loved by the folks on that forum.
That's where I discovered Burl's B2 Bomber DAC, which has me quite interested. What I like about the Burl (and the Forssell seems quite similar) is that they are no nonsense. You don't get a fancy enclosure or gold plated feet, but you don't have to pay for that either. The downside is some of these "studio" DACs can be quite analytical and sterile in nature - designed to spotlight recording flaws rather than be enjoyable to listen to. The Burl seems to not be in that group.
I have a ULN-2 here which totally doesn't match that description. If anything, as a DAC alone, it isn't as detailed as what you can get for similar money nowadays. Maybe to look impressive to those types of people, many of those DACs would be designed to measure as perfectly as possible, which seems to lead to distortion that doesn't show up in the usual measurements, but only during playback.
I keep wondering about the Femto though, as it uses the same, awful-sounding XMOS chipset for USB as the Calyx DAC does. What would put me off buying one (if I was ever in the market) would be that. It's as if the special femto-clocks are needed to fix the awful output of that XMOS chip. It would be fascinating to compare my digital set-up with the Audiophilleo etc. with the DAC 24/192 against the Femto using the USB input.
