[tim3320070]

Quote:

I would personally avoid AudioGd gear - they design to some incredibly dodgy criteria to my mind. Besides, the Benchmark is cheaper and a known "perfect"* source.
 
*Perfect in the sense that it exceeds every threshold of audibility in everything by stupidly large amounts, such as it would have to do what it does several measurable orders of magnitude worse before there are audible problems.

Kingwa won the American National Semiconductor Audio Design Contest, it doesn't make him god of audio but I wouldn't call it dodgy. How many AGD dac's have you listened to to base your assertion?
 
 

 

[Dynobot]

None!!!
 
If there is one saving grace that this thread can bring on is to finally reveal lack of credibility.
 
I hope the original poster has sense enough to see though the bs.

 

[gregorio]

I look for something that sounds more natural and life-like to me. My goal is not to change the sound that was intended by the artist. I just want to enjoy the music.

You don't know what the producer did or why he/she did it, therefore you cannot judge what is more "natural and life-like". For all you know, the producer may have specific artistic reasons for not wanting the recording to sound "natural and life-like". The problem is, the sentences I've quoted cannot be reconciled. Either you change the sound to "something which sounds more natural and life-like" to you and you personally "enjoy" more OR you use the most transparent audio system you can afford, listen to what the artists intended and take the risk that you enjoy it less (although you might enjoy it more).

G

 

[Adda]

I don't know how the audio-gd's sound, but they look awfully complex, you'd think it should be possible to make a good DAC using a much, much simpler design.

 

[korzena]

Quote:

None!!!
 
If there is one saving grace that this thread can bring on is to finally reveal lack of credibility.
 
I hope the original poster has sense enough to see though the bs.

 
I read audio forums... I believe I've learned to be selective. No worries
 
 
 

 

[MrQ]

I would personally avoid AudioGd gear - they design to some incredibly dodgy criteria to my mind. Besides, the Benchmark is cheaper and a known "perfect"* source.
 
*Perfect in the sense that it exceeds every threshold of audibility in everything by stupidly large amounts, such as it would have to do what it does several measurable orders of magnitude worse before there are audible problems.

Kingwa won the American National Semiconductor Audio Design Contest, it doesn't make him god of audio but I wouldn't call it dodgy. How many AGD dac's have you listened to to base your assertion?

Dear Tim,

Don't feed the Troll. It's not worth it.

 

[tim3320070]

Quote:

Dear Tim,
Don't feed the Troll. It's not worth it.

Yes, my bad.
 

 

[gregorio]

Dear Tim, Don't feed the Troll. It's not worth it.

I think in your ignorance, you maybe doing Willakan a disservice. I've never heard any audio-gd stuff either but just looking at the specs, the NFB-9 does demonstrate some very dodgy design problems. For example, it says the unit is capable of 24/192 but the specs say it has an output bandwidth up to only 20kHz! That's not really enough bandwidth for even 44.1k (CD), let alone sample rates of 96k or 192k. And a signal to noise ratio of 119dB is not even 20bit resolution, let alone 24bit.

Instead of just insulting Willakan you should first try and find out what evidence he has for his assertion, otherwise you run the risk of making yourself look like an idiot.

G

 

[tim3320070]

Regardless, .......they.........sound.........great. Quote all the numbers you want, my ears have heard 4 different AGD dac's.
Kingwa, care to respond?

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Regardless, .......they.........sound.........great. Quote all the numbers you want, my ears have heard 4 different AGD dac's.
Kingwa, care to respond?

They sound great to you. That's the nature of subjective impressions. There's no guarantee that someone else will like it, or find it "neutral" at all. That's why numbers are so important, they allow us to gauge performance without subjectivity. We can point to numbers and say "This is neutral by definition." You can then choose whether you want that sort of neutrality or not. You could even aim for objective neutrality, then change it to suit your tastes using an equalizer and other effects! That's easier to do when you know where you're starting.

 

[korzena]

Quote:

Quote:

I look for something that sounds more natural and life-like to me. My goal is not to change the sound that was intended by the artist. I just want to enjoy the music.

You don't know what the producer did or why he/she did it, therefore you cannot judge what is more "natural and life-like". For all you know, the producer may have specific artistic reasons for not wanting the recording to sound "natural and life-like". The problem is, the sentences I've quoted cannot be reconciled. Either you change the sound to "something which sounds more natural and life-like" to you and you personally "enjoy" more OR you use the most transparent audio system you can afford, listen to what the artists intended and take the risk that you enjoy it less (although you might enjoy it more).

G

Gregorio,
 
I listen to the music to experience emotions, aural pleasure. I want to be involved, be moved by the music.
Does listening to the music through let's say Havana DAC will take away from me what an artist intended to convey? Will listening through Benchmark fix it? I don't think so, unless my goal is purely analyzing the recording.
 
Maybe because you work as an audio professional, you take different approach, more analytical one. But this is not my goal and I don't think this is what most people want from listening to music.
 
If I have equipment through which I don't enjoy listening to music (because it sounds sterile/analytical/digital/flat to me) than I will not listen to it at all. I will lose a chance to know the artist completely. On the other hand, if I have equipment through which listening to the music is pleasure, I will want to listen to the artist's music. Sometimes the beauty is in imperfection

 

[gregorio]

Regardless, .......they.........sound.........great. Quote all the numbers you want, my ears have heard 4 different AGD dac's.
Kingwa, care to respond?

You mean they sound great to you. In my opinion that says more about your perception than it does about AGD DACs. If the DACs filter everything out above 20kHz, there is no possibility of hearing any advantages that Hi-Rez may provide and there's even the likelyhood of degrading the quality of CD. Your perception may lie, specifications (if accurate) do not! And please, bring on Kingwa.

But regardless of these facts, it still does not give you or MrQ the right to insult Willakan, without at least finding out if he has any evidence to support his claim. Doing so just makes you look ignorant.

G

 

[Dynobot]

Quote:

 If the DACs filter everything out above 20kHz, there is no possibility of hearing any advantages that Hi-Rez may provide

The human ear filters everything out above 20kHz, so unless you are a dog there is no possibility of hearing any advantage that Hi-Rez may provide.
 
You are human aren't you???
 
Or will you be buying your digital products for your pets??

 

[Adda]

Gregorio,
 
I listen to the music to experience emotions, aural pleasure. I want to be involved, be moved by the music.
Does listening to the music through let's say Havana DAC will take away from me what an artist intended to convey? Will listening through Benchmark fix it? I don't think so, unless my goal is purely analyzing the recording.
 
Maybe because you work as an audio professional, you take different approach, more analytical one. But this is not my goal and I don't think this is what most people want from listening to music.
 
If I have equipment through which I don't enjoy listening to music (because it sounds sterile/analytical/digital/flat to me) than I will not listen to it at all. I will lose a chance to know the artist completely. On the other hand, if I have equipment through which listening to the music is pleasure, I will want to listen to the artist's music. Sometimes the beauty is in imperfection

A neutral system doesn't sound analytical or sterile, it doesn't sound like anything but whats played on it, it will sound poor with poor recordings but excellent with excellent recordings.
A colored system will carry sound characteristics over form song to song, the coloration will hide the unique signature of each band, and won't benefit as much from excellent recordings.
Not all colorations will work with all genres/bands/inherent signatures, that's why so many people say Grados for rock, a neutral system is not genre specific.

You mean they sound great to you. In my opinion that says more about your perception than it does about AGD DACs. If the DACs filter everything out above 20kHz, there is no possibility of hearing any advantages that Hi-Rez may provide and there's even the likelyhood of degrading the quality of CD. Your perception may lie, specifications (if accurate) do not! And please, bring on Kingwa.
But regardless of these facts, it still does not give you or MrQ the right to insult Willakan, without at least finding out if he has any evidence to support his claim. Doing so just makes you look ignorant.
G

Are you sure that 20Hz - 20KHz rating doesn't mean that it's FLAT between 20Hz and 20KHz, above and below that it's not flat.
The sample rate of digital music is the refresh rate of the digital content, not the frequency bandwidth of the analogue output stages.
Everything above 20KHz inaudible, so if the benefit of lets say 96KHz audio is that it reproduces audio up to the 96KHz range, then no one would benefit.
Fx. a higher refresh rate on your old CRT monitor, does not enable you to see ultraviolet.
Signal to noise ratio is just that, how much noise do you get at a given signal strength, this shouldn't have an impact on a systems ability to reproduce high resolution audio.

 

[gregorio]

Does listening to the music through let's say Havana DAC will take away from me what an artist intended to convey? Will listening through Benchmark fix it?

As the Benchmark is perfectly accurate within the hearing spectrum and as the Havana is not, then the obvious answer is yes! How much the distortion added by the Havana will counteract the intention of the artists would depend on the recording and the nature of distortion's interaction.

Sometimes the beauty is in imperfection

Precisely, I think you're arguing against yourself now! I want to hear those imperfections that the artists have created (deliberately or not), I don't want those imperfections changed or added to by my DAC. I want to listen to the artists' music, appreciate the artistry and message it contains, I don't want my DAC to change the music into little more than aural titillation. But that's just me, maybe being an audio professional and prior to that a professional musician, gives me a different perspective on music.

G