chihwahli
Head-Fier
I did not find anything complete and thought why not start one. Just post an reply with useful info. This is not mend as discussion, but to be informative for anyone who wants to identify DAC differences. Yes really! There can be differences.
Any digital equipment that produces sound has a DAC: CD players, computer CD, etc.
The bigger the quality difference between the two DAC's , the easier for you to identify the differences. More on this later.
My equipment:
- Laptop X230 with realtek HD audio (Realtek ALC3202) using Windows 7
- Soundblaster E5
- Schiit Bitfrost Uber (USB option not arrived yet, cannot test between Bitfrost and E5)
- Lossless and high bit rate audio files. I ripped CD music files WAV or FLAC to 1411 kbps. There are better ones, up to you. (HD tracks)
- Disable EQ or any other way to alter the sound, like Dolby surround, Soundcard settings that alter volume like making all volume levels the same. (Itunes does that). Disable all these to have a fair and repeatable result.
Music has several sounds and characteristics that you can sum up. What you heared and how it was.
Words like:
- soundstage: Does the music play in a huge virtual room? Where are you? How ar the instruments placed, Can you accurately identify their places? Are instruments easy to identify because their sound is easy to focus upon or not? Are some instruments piled up making it difficult to identify what they are actually playing?
- Low (BASS), Mid (singers voices, some instruments), High sounds (Violin). Do they sound natural? Are they sharp sounding or not? Are sounds distorted? Are they muffled, do the voices sound alive? Sound mono or stereo? Do they sound far or close?
- Dynamics range. Do you hear all the low, mid and high sounds are they should be present , given the instruments? Or are some sounds almost not audit-able . Or are some sounds completely gone as you cannot hear it.
- Does it feel warm, cold or in between? DAC should not color the sound. Normally no specific frequency should be elevated moer than the other. The EQ should remain flat (horizontal, no spikes)
1) Use the same setup and only replace DACs A and B.
Legenda: --> arrow means connected to
My setup would be like:
Laptop --> (USB) --> E5 --> headphone (phone jack)
Laptop Realtek ALC3202 --> headphone (phonejack)
Identify which settings need to be changed, and how you can do it fast. Reason is: the faster you switch, the easier it is to hear differences,
Ideal would be two separate setups with 2 different DAC's, but who has 2 the same laptops around?? In this case you only need to swap headphone very fast.
2) Choose songs with high quality. These have high bit rate and are lossless.
3) Choose certain parts in songs, long or short parts, depend on you.
4) Listen on DAC A, Song A
5) Listen on DAC B, Song A
6) repeat several times.
I listed to Kari Jobe "The garden" around the end of the song at 5:06 minutes, she will sing and her voice will be very clear and in the front.
At this moment I heared a big difference. With onboard DAC, her voice is less alive, lower in volume, not crystal clear, muffled. I tried pumping up the volume knob, but that does not make her voice (with onboard soundcard) more alive. This means. The onboard DAC creates a Analog female sound that is less alive, less dynamic, less clear.
Hope this small guide helps you out. There are many things that sometimes seem the same..... but they are not. Sometimes I also don't hear much difference. That means the equuipment is almost the same as in quality perhaps. Or, my hearing cannot process all the data. Or my hearing is not trained enough to identify differences, Whatever, try and see. Have fun!
Any digital equipment that produces sound has a DAC: CD players, computer CD, etc.
The bigger the quality difference between the two DAC's , the easier for you to identify the differences. More on this later.
My equipment:
- Laptop X230 with realtek HD audio (Realtek ALC3202) using Windows 7
- Soundblaster E5
- Schiit Bitfrost Uber (USB option not arrived yet, cannot test between Bitfrost and E5)
- Lossless and high bit rate audio files. I ripped CD music files WAV or FLAC to 1411 kbps. There are better ones, up to you. (HD tracks)
- Disable EQ or any other way to alter the sound, like Dolby surround, Soundcard settings that alter volume like making all volume levels the same. (Itunes does that). Disable all these to have a fair and repeatable result.
Music has several sounds and characteristics that you can sum up. What you heared and how it was.
Words like:
- soundstage: Does the music play in a huge virtual room? Where are you? How ar the instruments placed, Can you accurately identify their places? Are instruments easy to identify because their sound is easy to focus upon or not? Are some instruments piled up making it difficult to identify what they are actually playing?
- Low (BASS), Mid (singers voices, some instruments), High sounds (Violin). Do they sound natural? Are they sharp sounding or not? Are sounds distorted? Are they muffled, do the voices sound alive? Sound mono or stereo? Do they sound far or close?
- Dynamics range. Do you hear all the low, mid and high sounds are they should be present , given the instruments? Or are some sounds almost not audit-able . Or are some sounds completely gone as you cannot hear it.
- Does it feel warm, cold or in between? DAC should not color the sound. Normally no specific frequency should be elevated moer than the other. The EQ should remain flat (horizontal, no spikes)
1) Use the same setup and only replace DACs A and B.
Legenda: --> arrow means connected to
My setup would be like:
Laptop --> (USB) --> E5 --> headphone (phone jack)
Laptop Realtek ALC3202 --> headphone (phonejack)
Identify which settings need to be changed, and how you can do it fast. Reason is: the faster you switch, the easier it is to hear differences,
Ideal would be two separate setups with 2 different DAC's, but who has 2 the same laptops around?? In this case you only need to swap headphone very fast.
2) Choose songs with high quality. These have high bit rate and are lossless.
3) Choose certain parts in songs, long or short parts, depend on you.
4) Listen on DAC A, Song A
5) Listen on DAC B, Song A
6) repeat several times.
I listed to Kari Jobe "The garden" around the end of the song at 5:06 minutes, she will sing and her voice will be very clear and in the front.
At this moment I heared a big difference. With onboard DAC, her voice is less alive, lower in volume, not crystal clear, muffled. I tried pumping up the volume knob, but that does not make her voice (with onboard soundcard) more alive. This means. The onboard DAC creates a Analog female sound that is less alive, less dynamic, less clear.
Hope this small guide helps you out. There are many things that sometimes seem the same..... but they are not. Sometimes I also don't hear much difference. That means the equuipment is almost the same as in quality perhaps. Or, my hearing cannot process all the data. Or my hearing is not trained enough to identify differences, Whatever, try and see. Have fun!
