[Tjj226 Angel]

What even is this thread?

If we are comparing cheap delta sigma to expensive delta sigma, then you shouldn't hear a difference. 99% of the dacs on the market these days use one or two ICs for the entire dac. The only real job the designer has to do is make a high quality DC power supply and design a clean PCB layout. In other words, all the designer has to do is not screw up.

Years ago, Dac ICs were far less sophisticated and you had to design your own filter, output stage, and so on. In those cases, yes, dacs could sound very different from one and other because they were physically different circuits. These days most DAC ICs pretty much do everything for you, and the technology has become so precise that the difference between a high quality sabre dac and a high quality AKM dac is pretty much indistinguishable.

If you are comparing a good quality delta sigma dac to a different dac architecture (r2r, fpga, and so on), then the comparison should be made on a case by case basis.

 

[bigshot]

A lot of people seem to think that the price tag impacts the sound quality. Marketing departments encourage that.

 

[Tjj226 Angel]

A lot of people seem to think that the price tag impacts the sound quality. Marketing departments encourage that.

The sad part about it is that the well built dacs seem to be right in the middle. You have the cheap dacs with a power supply that looks like it came from a cracker jack box, and then you have the expensive dacs that have a giant buzzing computer processor chip right next to the god damn dac chip so that you can look at album art on your dac.

But human psychology dictates that people will often swing to one extreme or the other, and no one gets to enjoy the simplicity of having well built functional gear.

 

[theaudiologist1]

The sad part about it is that the well built dacs seem to be right in the middle. You have the cheap dacs with a power supply that looks like it came from a cracker jack box, and then you have the expensive dacs that have a giant buzzing computer processor chip right next to the god damn dac chip so that you can look at album art on your dac.

But human psychology dictates that people will often swing to one extreme or the other, and no one gets to enjoy the simplicity of having well built functional gear.

the best DAC's are probably in the $2000 range like the hugo 2.

 

[theaudiologist1]

A lot of people seem to think that the price tag impacts the sound quality. Marketing departments encourage that.

Do you think newer DACs are better than older DACs and do you think DACs can still improve?

 

[bigshot]

In the mid to late 80s, oversampling was introduced. That pretty much nailed sound quality. A DAC would have to be quite old to sound worse. With modern DACs, a DAC is a DAC is a DAC. Choose because of features and build quality if that matters to you, not price. In fact, in most home audio, there is no correlation between sound quality and price. Great speaker systems can cost more, but that is about it.

Personally, although I have a really nice DAC/Amp, I don't use it. It doesn't offer any improvement in sound quality over my players (blu-ray, media server or phone) and it just adds another step of complication to my system.

 

[theaudiologist1]

In the mid to late 80s, oversampling was introduced. That pretty much nailed sound quality. A DAC would have to be quite old to sound worse. With modern DACs, a DAC is a DAC is a DAC. Choose because of features and build quality if that matters to you, not price. In fact, in most home audio, there is no correlation between sound quality and price. Great speaker systems can cost more, but that is about it.

Personally, although I have a really nice DAC/Amp, I don't use it. It doesn't offer any improvement in sound quality over my players (blu-ray, media server or phone) and it just adds another step of complication to my system.

So you're saying there is no sound difference between a mojo, a hugo and a dave? I think there is. I never tried a chord product myself but I think the hugo will be miles better than the mojo for example. Though the sound difference is more in the amp than in the DAC.

The one thing that DOES make a difference in sound is the sound equipment.

 

[bigshot]

If you think there is a difference, do a line level matched, direct A/B switched blind test and see if you can hear it then. Unless you are doing a controlled test, there are things other than sound quality that can make you think you hear differences.

DACs are designed to perform to specs beyond our ability to hear. They are supposed to all sound the same- perfect. If they don't sound the same as every other DAC, they are defective, either by manufacture or design. But 99.9% of the time, people who report hearing differences between DACs haven't done a controlled test, so it's probably bias or perceptual error.

By the way, I'm not talking about the amp. I'm talking about the DAC. How the amp sounds depends on the match with the headphones.

 

[Tjj226 Angel]

In the mid to late 80s, oversampling was introduced. That pretty much nailed sound quality. A DAC would have to be quite old to sound worse. With modern DACs, a DAC is a DAC is a DAC. Choose because of features and build quality if that matters to you, not price. In fact, in most home audio, there is no correlation between sound quality and price. Great speaker systems can cost more, but that is about it.

Personally, although I have a really nice DAC/Amp, I don't use it. It doesn't offer any improvement in sound quality over my players (blu-ray, media server or phone) and it just adds another step of complication to my system.

Oversampling has it's problems too. Some companies definitely do a better job than others, but I would argue that it's only been within the last 10 years that all the players in the dac world have reached the same plateau.

One day I am sure the military or darpa will have some need for a "perfect dac". It will only be about 5 years later before we get true analog sound out of a digital processor, and all the boutique dac companies will have to figure out a different business model.

 

[castleofargh]

One day I am sure the military or darpa will have some need for a "perfect dac". It will only be about 5 years later before we get true analog sound out of a digital processor, and all the boutique dac companies will have to figure out a different business model.

I would argue that most marketing about DAC is already fully focused on solving made up problems. They won't have to change anything in their business model.

About perfect DAC, I have a plan. A big limitation comes from thermal noise, so I'm launching a startup and will need funding to create a better world(for myself). The project is to create the very first superconductor resistors. noise problem, solved! I'm a genius.

 

[VNandor]

superconductor resistors

hmmm...

 

[Tjj226 Angel]

If you think there is a difference, do a line level matched, direct A/B switched blind test and see if you can hear it then. Unless you are doing a controlled test, there are things other than sound quality that can make you think you hear differences.

DACs are designed to perform to specs beyond our ability to hear. They are supposed to all sound the same- perfect. If they don't sound the same as every other DAC, they are defective, either by manufacture or design. But 99.9% of the time, people who report hearing differences between DACs haven't done a controlled test, so it's probably bias or perceptual error.

By the way, I'm not talking about the amp. I'm talking about the DAC. How the amp sounds depends on the match with the headphones.

Dac chips CAN perform beyond our ability to hear. The circuit that those dac chips usually cripples the performance such that the differences are indeed within our ability to hear.

The catch is that the same stuff that cripples the dac chip in one dac, pretty much exists in all other dacs. An example would be a voltage regulator. A lot of dacs will use something like an LM317 to regulate the voltage being fed to the dac. Just the self noise of the regulator alone is actually audible. But since everyone under the sun uses an lm317 to regulate the voltage, we don't actually notice a difference from one dac to another. In fact if you wanna have a laugh, go read the spec sheet for the lm317 and compare it to the datasheet for a dac chip. You end up realizing that most dacs on the market are nowhere near capable of reaching their 24bit spec.

It's just basic business practices that are putting a glass ceiling on the performance of a dac. And yes, some dacs will just blatantly sound different. But it's not because one dac is magically better than the other. But rather because one dac is just poorly designed/implemented.

 

[bigshot]

What DAC sounds blatantly different in a level matched, direct A/B switched, blind listening test? Have you done a controlled test to actually prove this? I'm guessing if something like this exists, it's some woo woo hyper expensive DAC marketed to audiophools. Every mass market DAC or player I've ever heard has been audibly transparent, from a $40 Walmart DVD player all the way up to a $1200 Oppo HA-1.

I honestly don't care if a DAC isn't living up to 24 bit. I can't even hear 16 bit. Human ears would probably be fine with 12 or 14 bit if the music was mastered properly. I don't care about things I can't hear. Audiophiles worry more about sound they can't hear than sound they can. I don't go down those rabbit holes.

 

[surfgeorge]

So you're saying there is no sound difference between a mojo, a hugo and a dave? I think there is. I never tried a chord product myself but I think the hugo will be miles better than the mojo for example. Though the sound difference is more in the amp than in the DAC.

The one thing that DOES make a difference in sound is the sound equipment.

This seems to be the wrong thread to ask this question

 

[bigshot]

Ask an audio salesman. His product always sounds best. Honest!