[Monsterzero]

Maybe it's just me but I listen with my ears, not my eyes "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

 

[geoffalter11]

Maybe it's just me but I listen with my ears, not my eyes "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

Here here... Last time I checked I listened to music not measurements, and I can tell you my ears here a great DAC. I could care less about its measurements. I have nothing else to add as it pertains to measurements. The DAC sounds phenomenal and that is all I care about.

 

[geoffalter11]

My Super Clock is dead silent. The background is dark, inky black and all I hear is amazing music. As I said, I go by my ears and what I hear is a silent DAC putting out exquisite music that has fluidity, muscularity, subtlety and has a nobility to the sound that I personally love. Detail is all there, there is no etch whatsoever in the higher frequencies and the low end is not bloated. I do not hear any noise of any kind. In fact, the DSD DAC is so sensitive in its inputs I can hear perceptible changes in cables and my server's connection.

 

[jianhuideng]

In particular, this result is obtained by testing with a maximum input signal of 0db, the THD+N is 0.04%.

If the input signal is lowered to -10DB, THD+N is 0.008% （ up to 1024).

no music recorded at a level of 0db.

 

[taipan254]

A few points:

• This is not the first, nor last, DAC that is both garnering positive feedback and has lackluster measurements. DACs that come to mind in this category are TotalDAC (we all remember what happened there!), the Hibiki DAC, and the Border Patrol DAC. Personal preference is king in our hobby, despite whatever our preconceived notions of right and wrong may dictate. I find it amazing that folks can't accept differences of opinion when they haven't even listened to the product (or simply prefer to be an A$$, piss other people off, and then watch the world burn).
• If this DAC's popularity continues to increase, it will eventually get measured again. The designer believes the L7 measurements are not an accurate representation of his product - fair enough. Someone will buy it and send it off to someone else that has the AP gear to measure it.
• I am eager to read more listening impressions of this DAC. Hopefully more people buy / review this piece. While not every audio product out of China is great, I believe some Chinese designed and made products offer exceptional performance and very high value per dollar spent. As an audiophile, I can't ask for more. In particular, I'd love to see someone feed this DAC with upsampled material (DSD and PCM) from HQPlayer - one may be able to discern which filters they prefer!

 

[Pharmaboy]

It's Thuya burl, which I admittedly have never heard of until Zach told me about it. It's stunning looking, but it arrived with zero hours on it, so I have a long ways to go before it opens up like the Burmese Teak AC I have here as well.

The Thuya is a harder wood type vs. the teak, so in theory it will tighten up the sub bass some.

My v550 pro only has about 60 hours on it, so I'm killing three birds with one stone.

Never heard of Thuya before this post. Just looked it up: it's from Morocco, a relative of cedar, and it's beautiful.

 

[Monsterzero]

Never heard of Thuya before this post. Just looked it up: it's from Morocco, a relative of cedar, and it's beautiful.

It really is. There are two pair that were both earmarked for CJ NYC but they didnt get finished in time. I don't think Zach is getting this pair back

and those "flaws" on the cup are reflections off of the gimble. Its flawless

 

[project86]

Thread cleaned up, let's try to keep it on track. Plenty of room for dissenting opinions as long as we all treat one another with respect.

A few points:

• This is not the first, nor last, DAC that is both garnering positive feedback and has lackluster measurements. DACs that come to mind in this category are TotalDAC (we all remember what happened there!), the Hibiki DAC, and the Border Patrol DAC. Personal preference is king in our hobby, despite whatever our preconceived notions of right and wrong may dictate. I find it amazing that folks can't accept differences of opinion when they haven't even listened to the product (or simply prefer to be an A$$, piss other people off, and then watch the world burn).
• If this DAC's popularity continues to increase, it will eventually get measured again. The designer believes the L7 measurements are not an accurate representation of his product - fair enough. Someone will buy it and send it off to someone else that has the AP gear to measure it.
• I am eager to read more listening impressions of this DAC. Hopefully more people buy / review this piece. While not every audio product out of China is great, I believe some Chinese designed and made products offer exceptional performance and very high value per dollar spent. As an audiophile, I can't ask for more. In particular, I'd love to see someone feed this DAC with upsampled material (DSD and PCM) from HQPlayer - one may be able to discern which filters they prefer!

Excellent point, and also a good reminder that I need to spend more time using externally upsampled material from Roon/HQP in order to compare to the integrated DSD upsampling. My initial impression is that I prefer sending native signals and letting the DSDAC1.0 handle it internally. But I haven't done enough back and forth to really be sure.

Contrast that with some other DACs (Denafrips comes to mind first) where I consider DSD (or very high sample rate PCM) upsampling to be almost mandatory for best results. So much so that I now make that a part of every DAC evaluation I do, just to see what happens.

Never heard of Thuya before this post. Just looked it up: it's from Morocco, a relative of cedar, and it's beautiful.

Same, it is lovely and was previously unknown to me.

It really is. There are two pair that were both earmarked for CJ NYC but they didnt get finished in time. I don't think Zach is getting this pair back



and those "flaws" on the cup are reflections off of the gimble. Its flawless

Very nice, thanks for the pics. I'm picking up a Caldera and Atrium Closed soon, and this will be high on my list of potential wood choices.

 

[taipan254]

Despite disliking the negative back and forth that occurred earlier, I'm grateful it happened for three reasons. First, I never would have seen this DAC's measurements without it. Second, the designer mentioned that the measurements were not completely inaccurate - notably the variability of tone frequency that is tied directly to the DAC's clock (this text has been subsequently deleted - not a great look for the moderator or the Cen.Grand designer). Third, the conversation mentioned the Playback Designs approach to DAC conversion.

I wondered: how does Playback Designs equipment measure? The answer: not well. I could only find this 2010 Stereophile review and measurement of the MPS5. As you can see, the review was very positive, but the measurements left JA "unimpressed". JA observed lots of noise, "random bursts of noise", "steady-state high frequency noise", and the use of two filters in series (I'm no DSP / filtering expert, but I haven't seen this before). My guess is that PD has only advanced its designs based on the same principles. The PD designer's response (with my added emphasis):

Manufacturers' Comment
Editor: We would like to thank both Michael Fremer and John Atkinson for the time and work they put into reviewing and testing our Playback Designs MPS-5 SACD/CD player. We were very pleased that an analog lover like Michael would enjoy our digital player.
Most of the measurement results are generally to be expected from the way they were measured. What differentiates the D/A converter inside the MPS-5 from other, more conventional converters is that it uses all custom algorithms and discrete components that were not designed following classic theories and practices. A large percentage of your charts show the behavior of the MPS-5 in the frequency domain, and only two charts show the time domain, although with rigid sinewaves as test inputs. While this would be totally adequate in most cases, it isn't for the MPS-5. For instance, most of the filter algorithms inside the MPS-5 cannot be described or even defined by feeding them periodic test tones such as sinewaves and looking at frequency charts. They were designed for real music signals, and therefore "listen" to the input signal and vary accordingly, to take advantage of how our ear perceives music, which never even resembles periodic test signals. It is common knowledge that such psychoacoustic criteria hardly ever lead to ideal measurements based on steady-state test signals.
Right from the beginning, the design goals for the MPS-5 were to reach new heights in sonic performance with real music signals rather than optimum test-signal measurements. The result is that the algorithms may not perform optimally from a measurement point of view when they have to process test signals, but, as your review also confirms, they do their assigned job quite well when processing real music signals. As we are always researching new ideas, the next-generation algorithms may very well make these kind of measurements even worse—but we can assure you that it will be for the benefit of sonic performance. Isn't that what we are all after?
Again, thank you for the wonderful review!—Jonathan Tinn, Andreas Koch
Playback Designs

Fascinating. From my deep dive down the Playback Designs rabbit hole, the PD designer Andreas has impeccable credentials, his hardware design and dedication to noise management is impressive (look at OCD Mikey's teardown of a PD DAC on YouTube - amazing construction with numerous isolated linear power supplies), so I believe his choices for filters and noise isolation result in wacky noise that can be picked up by instruments but is harder for our ears to pick up - similar to what the Cen.Grand designer said above. Also, the double filters match what is mentioned on the PD website of using both PCM and DSD upsampling. Something sophisticated is going on here with PD's approach.

I believe Cen.Grand is attempting to "emulate" the Playback Designs source clock isolation approach but I cannot tell how similar or different these approaches are. I think this thread deleted an earlier comment from the Cen.Grand designer that notes the purpose of the frequency modulation he injects into his DAC to decouple the source clock from the music signal (very unfortunate, and not a good look given how similar these approaches are at first blush). Regardless, Playback Designs also claims to do this as well:

The DAC inside the Playback Designs product line does exactly that: clock jitter from incoming digital audio signals can be described as an analog signal that gets mixed together with a quantized digital signal (our ideal and constant sample rate clock). So before any processing can happen we need to bring these 2 components into the same domain: The Playback Designs system quantizes the clock jitter into a digital signal, where it then can be subtracted from the original sample rate while the latter is converted to analog at the same time. Of the course, the DAC also works independently in the y-axis by using a set of unique algorithms in a completely discrete architecture (not even a single Op-Amp is used).

Given the Cen.Grand designer's admiration of Playback Designs (see Srajan's review with pictures of the Cen.Grand listening room populated with Playback Designs equipment), my guess is that Cen.Grand is trying to emulate Playback Designs' approach to detaching the source clock from the signal. I am unable to say how their approaches are similar or different. Therefore, I am NOT claiming that Cen.Grand is reverse engineering and / or copying Playback Designs' approach.

Quite honestly, I'm very intrigued to hear this DAC esp. since it is far more affordable than a PD DAC. However, I would love to hear how the source separation technique employed by Playback Designs is different from the approach taken by Cen.Grand. I would LOVE not to depend on upsampling and a high quality server if I can get away with it - I'd save a lot of money.

 

[project86]

Despite disliking the negative back and forth that occurred earlier, I'm grateful it happened for three reasons. First, I never would have seen this DAC's measurements without it. Second, the designer mentioned that the measurements were not completely inaccurate - notably the variability of tone frequency that is tied directly to the DAC's clock (this text has been subsequently deleted - not a great look for the moderator or the Cen.Grand designer). Third, the conversation mentioned the Playback Designs approach to DAC conversion.

I wondered: how does Playback Designs equipment measure? The answer: not well. I could only find this 2010 Stereophile review and measurement of the MPS5. As you can see, the review was very positive, but the measurements left JA "unimpressed". JA observed lots of noise, "random bursts of noise", "steady-state high frequency noise", and the use of two filters in series (I'm no DSP / filtering expert, but I haven't seen this before). My guess is that PD has only advanced its designs based on the same principles. The PD designer's response (with my added emphasis):



Fascinating. From my deep dive down the Playback Designs rabbit hole, the PD designer Andreas has impeccable credentials, his hardware design and dedication to noise management is impressive (look at OCD Mikey's teardown of a PD DAC on YouTube - amazing construction with numerous isolated linear power supplies), so I believe his choices for filters and noise isolation result in wacky noise that can be picked up by instruments but is harder for our ears to pick up - similar to what the Cen.Grand designer said above. Also, the double filters match what is mentioned on the PD website of using both PCM and DSD upsampling. Something sophisticated is going on here with PD's approach.

I believe Cen.Grand is attempting to "emulate" the Playback Designs source clock isolation approach but I cannot tell how similar or different these approaches are. I think this thread deleted an earlier comment from the Cen.Grand designer that notes the purpose of the frequency modulation he injects into his DAC to decouple the source clock from the music signal (very unfortunate, and not a good look given how similar these approaches are at first blush). Regardless, Playback Designs also claims to do this as well:



Given the Cen.Grand designer's admiration of Playback Designs (see Srajan's review with pictures of the Cen.Grand listening room populated with Playback Designs equipment), my guess is that Cen.Grand is trying to emulate Playback Designs' approach to detaching the source clock from the signal. I am unable to say how their approaches are similar or different. Therefore, I am NOT claiming that Cen.Grand is reverse engineering and / or copying Playback Designs' approach.

Quite honestly, I'm very intrigued to hear this DAC esp. since it is far more affordable than a PD DAC. However, I would love to hear how the source separation technique employed by Playback Designs is different from the approach taken by Cen.Grand. I would LOVE not to depend on upsampling and a high quality server if I can get away with it - I'd save a lot of money.

You do raise some good points - the earlier discussion that got nuked was done by a mod, and neither Cen.Grand nor any of us users had input as to what should remain versus what should disappear. It is my experience that once things start going south, and eventually get deleted, there's typically some useful stuff lost as a necessary byproduct of the correction. It is very tough to keep the gems and discard the trash as they are interwoven and the context matters, so mods tend to just delete everything to get things back on track.

But yes, as you mentioned previously, I hope and anticipate the Cen.Grand DAC will eventually be measured by hopefully multiple parties. And I agree that it will probably not have squeaky clean Topping/SMSL-style results. Worth noting is that the PS Audio DirectStream also has underwhelming measurements if I recall correctly, and I hear at least some of the EMM Labs gear is not impressive by the usual standards either. So there certainly may be some correlation there, and I would absolutely take Andreas Koch at his word based on his history and expertise.

As far as Cen.Grand being similar to the Playback Designs gear: from what the designer tells me, after his bid to license their DSD technology was declined, Cen.Grand took the long/slow road to develop their own solution. Surely it would have been easier to straight up clone it, and just limit sales to markets where that sort of thing would have no repercussions. That would be the faster/easier and possibly the more profitable approach, but instead they did something far more difficult with no guarantee of a return on their investment.

As far as I can tell by checking out the designs, the products are quite different, though I'm sure some of the underlying theory does overlap.

 

[geoffalter11]

I have no ability to join this conversation from a technical standpoint. I can say several things about my Super Clock. The middle tier version with the same clocking tech as the Deluxe minus some fancy parts somewhere else in the design.

1. Linearity to my ears is spot on.
2. There is zero channel imbalance
3. The DAC is dead quiet
4. The DAC is the most musical DAC I have ever had in my system and I absolutely love how it pairs with my CFA3 and my Icon HP8. I use Roon and there is no need for any DSP functions other than EQ if I want it. Otherwise the Super Clock is handling all of that before it sends the signal to my amps.
5. I also have a Meier Corda Soul in house, which is an incredible DAC made by one of the smartest people in the industry in Jan Meier. They are very different philosophies, but I prefer the Cen.Grand. I love the Soul and it has incredible micro detail and is extremely balanced from top to bottom. But, it sounds a smidge more digital even though it is every bit a reference quality DAC.
6.. I also have an Audio-Gd R1 R2R DAC here and it is another different philosophy on 1s and 0s. I like it, but it doesn't come close to either the Soul or Cen.Grand in overall musicality, detail, resolution or balance. Plus, it sounds veiled in comparison and it is a very good DAC. The Cen.Grand is that good. As for PD or PS Audio or Meitner, they are all trying to do similar things. I am sure just like most industries there are only so many secrets left to be had. Everyone is using similar ideas with small tweaks. Michelin rated restaurants are no different and these are the top 60 chefs in the world.

 

[Monsterzero]

Is there a consensus opinion on if this DAC should be left on 24/7 to sound it's best, and if not how long does it take before the DAC is flying after power up?

 

[geoffalter11]

Is there a consensus opinion on if this DAC should be left on 24/7 to sound it's best, and if not how long does it take before the DAC is flying after power up?

I don’t leave it on 24/7. It takes 15-20 min to fully bias.

 

[project86]

Yeah I don't feel like it needs any really special or out of the ordinary treatment. As long as your room isn't unusually chilly, a short warmup will be fine.

I do leave it on all day or even all week when I plan to listen off and on, but I don't notice any significant changes when doing so.

 

[driftingbunnies]

Do the DACs come with a remote control? I haven't seen a picture of one