Well I did not asked for this, I was just trying to find a technical reason. The Apple dongle is a pretty extreme case and it seems to be optimized for « regular » mass-market headphones. The power is so low that when I tested it out of curiosity with a full-size speaker amp, I thought at first that the dongle was not working until I pushed the amp to a lot higher levels.
The question is how they had heard them.
Unless they were hooked up to a passive pre-amp with direct A-B switching and the same track running at the same time with the same exact volume matching, it will be heavily affected by confirmation bias.
Well I did not asked for this, I was just trying to find a technical reason. The Apple dongle is a pretty extreme case and it seems to be optimized for « regular » mass-market headphones. The power is so low that when I tested it out of curiosity with a full-size speaker amp, I thought at first that the dongle was not working until I pushed the amp to a lot higher levels.
No matter what people are just going to believe what they believe.
It’s fine, I mean......audiophiles have all kinds of beliefs. Vinyl vs Digital, cables making a difference or not, amplification type making a difference or not. So we get to DACs.
I obviously am not too scientific. The test was sighted, the volume was not electronically set. There are a bunch of variables. Actually I set out just to see if there was a difference, but in truth the original question was about the difference in outputs of DAPs, I miss understood the original question, thus the test had no real purpose......except in the end it was interesting.
And it’s maybe not a common working situation for anyone? Maybe someone is using an Apple phone and using the Dongle then RCA out (with an adapter ) to the Asgard One amp? But.... in reality they are probably using a laptop to a real DAC, then to the Asgard One.
You see the Dongle does have a small amp, but I believe the amp is a basic design. Thus the Dongle amp is under an inch long, and smaller than a pencil barrel. It is fine in association with many IEMs.
I use the Dongle actually all the time when I’m out and about. I use it with the qdc Anole V3. Such a combo works perfect. But.......there is something to be said for having an actual (real) DAC. The reason being is that small amplification section that does the line level out to an amplifier with a desk top is much different. It’s not volume levels.......but noise floor, shielding, all kind of stuff.
Remember too the Cambridge DACMagic Plus is a 10 year old desk-top design. The DAC does not do DSD. It doesn’t do a bunch of stuff. But......it does do oversampling and that may be a clue as to what is happening, because the sound is lusher.
But there must be more to it? Obviously expectation bias is strong too. Just visualizing the MacBook Air hooked up to the DAC with a USB cable is a way different visual?
The question is how they had heard them.
Unless they were hooked up to a passive pre-amp with direct A-B switching and the same track running at the same time with the same exact volume matching, it will be heavily affected by confirmation bias.
It comes down to answering the question of..........do all amplifiers sound the same? No. There are all kind of amplifier topographies and methods. Why do they do that? For a slightly different sound. And....obviously different amounts of power output, impedance...etc.. etc.
Tube amp DACs have a tube stage. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but certain people prefer a “color” to their sound. A warmer sound and a different soundstage. Maybe slightly different bass tone..and on and on. So the line out amplifier section affects the DAC tone.
The main reason we have these posts is so people try different things. That maybe, just maybe they will find a DAC that complements the rest of their gear. The end sound is a combination of everything, the amp, the DAC, the headphones.
Well thanks for your thougts, at the end we never really know and if belief or anything else makes the experience "better", to me it is still worth (without going to extreme ends, "extreme" being defined by someone budget too).
The only thing I try not to do is to mix too much "coloured" stuff in my chain. For instance, I chose very neutral headphones and I do not use "tube mode" of my DAC but bought a tube amplifier. It is simpler to make things work together if you have only to care about one piece instead of trying to make two (or more !) coloured pieces working together. Someone might choose coloured headphones, or just DSP/Equalization instead.
I will stop there because I am probably off topic and that is only my personal opinion.
Well thanks for your thougts, at the end we never really know and if belief or anything else makes the experience "better", to me it is still worth (without going to extreme ends, "extreme" being defined by someone budget too).
The only thing I try not to do is to mix too much "coloured" stuff in my chain. For instance, I chose very neutral headphones and I do not use "tube mode" of my DAC but bought a tube amplifier. It is simpler to make things work together if you have only to care about one piece instead of trying to make two (or more !) coloured pieces working together. Someone might choose coloured headphones, or just DSP/Equalization instead.
I will stop there because I am probably off topic and that is only my personal opinion.
Well that’s the thing, to a person used to color.....the color actually comes off as neutral! They don’t hear it at all. Or take someone who never heard a headphone before......there is no telling what they would say if they heard something? It is a little mystery really. Neutral is a range, as well as argued often in what characterizes that range.
I mean yes, there can be something that many agree is close to flat? Still there is actually many styles of even and correct. A frequency response has a lot of room to still be correct. An even, complete and correct frequency response has a range it can be. That’s the hardest thing for many to wrap their head around. They seem to think that a warm warm signal is off, when to the listener is could be correct. Though maybe the most problematic examples (of too warm) will have the lower midrange start to smear, which is a pace issue? But anything before that is heard as neutral to some, with some simply not noticing the texture or pace issue until they actually hear it done right! Also this whole enchilada can be in regards to brightness too! Though would have other styles of possible distortions than pace and bass texture.
Also the pinna gain (due to various pinna shapes) of an ear is slightly different for each individual as is the shape (and size) of their head, so the full size headphone actually has a range of how it can sound (person to person). The driver is positioned differently for every individual! Various air space (leakage) when the pads are positioned. Also distances from ear to driver variations. So how we interpret a tone has various changes. Same as an IEM, each persons ear has a different resonance points (due to distance variables) inside the ear canal, which means a different frequency response and perceived tone.
What happens when we hear live singing? Have there even been a time when the replay was all the colorations of stereos? No, the mind fills it in live. But recordings are never exactly like the original because recording studio monitors are not standardized, so who is to say what neutrality totally is in headphone replay? Studios vary when it comes to monitor replay in the mixing area. There is variation for slightly different tone in headphone playback.
None of your talk, or above is off topic as it results from a DAC.
The question is how they had heard them.
Unless they were hooked up to a passive pre-amp with direct A-B switching and the same track running at the same time with the same exact volume matching, it will be heavily affected by confirmation bias.
If there was no difference in DACs, progress in mixing/mastering would not move on from state of the art equipment of the 90’s. Like most things “digital” based, improvements are made in quite a rapid pace. This is the evolution part of DACs as we know it, but there’s more to it.
There is a bit more controversial part of it tho. Differences between pro audio and consumer audio “hi-fi” market. “Hi-Fi” market is catering towards niche market that is driven by enthusiasts with wide range of personal preferences, goals and budget (While pro-audio is driven by reliabIlity and universally set benchmarks). And I think that is one of the reasons why some companies can get away and still be successful with products that deviate from “neutrality” and offer their own, slight, “signature”. Let’s use a quick example of two, kind of popular DACs used today in our niche audiophile domain.
Holo Audio May KTE (R2R - DSD1024) dac and RME ADI-2 Pro FS R (AKM's AK4493 chip).
Both excellent DACs yet, there’s a difference is sound presentation. Which one is more accurate? It’s not for me to decide. But, I would argue that RME could potentially win that debate. However, there are qualities of Holo dac that appeal to many audiophiles. Smoothness, expensive soundstage, refinement at detail retrieval and term that is as vague as is the rest of this hobby, “musicality”.
RME as detailed, transparent and “neutral” as it can seem, may not appeal to everyone, hence the “need” and purpose for companies like Holo, Chord, PS Audio, Denafrips etc.
So to tackle the question, are there differences in DACs? I will stand firmly and say, absolutely. Are they worth premium or provide you with noticeable “improvement” in your music enjoyment? It’s for you to decide.
One more observation from my end that speaks to eliminating bias since some people may say what I’m hearing is bias or sound level not being equal. My Chord stack includes the Dave and the mscaler. Since I can switch the mscaler oversampling rate without altering the volume and I can hear a difference with each increase. when I had my Sagra, it sounded different from my Hugo 2, which both sounded different to my Holo May, which sounds different compared to my Dave, both with and without the mscaler.
For those that don’t believe it, I’m curious what equipment type do you hear a difference with? I assume you hear a difference between headphones? What about amps? How about tube amp versus solid state? Great, how about cheap TV power cord versus a better insulated power cable on your amp? Did the noise floor drop? How about different cables for your headphones (silver versus copper)? How about interconnect cables? What about the difference when you first turn on your equipment versus after it’s playing for an hour or more and is up to temperature/hot? What about different tubes? Can you hear that difference?
If there was no difference in DACs, progress in mixing/mastering would not move on from state of the art equipment of the 90’s. Like most things “digital” based, improvements are made in quite a rapid pace. This is the evolution part of DACs as we know it, but there’s more to it.
I didn't state anywhere that there are no differences, I heard them myself. But in those circumstances when bias is eliminated, the differences were much less than I expected in fact, if I didn't know what to look for based on past experiences, I may not even be able to tell reliably, which one was which and there were things that I assumed (regarding soundstage) which turned out to be completely false.
My general impression is that people generally tend to judge things related to audio pretty hastily.
Here is delta-sigma against R2R by someone who might be qualified to have an opinion:
So it sounds like we agree that there are differences is dac sound, the question is to what extent. Fair enough.
that’s a pretty old video and it seems the main focus of the video was to compare the headphones. In the beginning they do discuss the very small difference in soundstage and Bob made two points that stood out to me. 1. He wasn’t focusing on all the different aspects of comparing dac’s and that none of the setups to him sounded world class.
There is a misunderstanding regarding what he said: he said none of the headphones (as tested) measured up to his reference speaker setup (without EQ).
And Tyll also didn't hear anything that was really significant to mention in that test.
I didn't state anywhere that there are no differences, I heard them myself. But in those circumstances when bias is eliminated, the differences were much less than I expected in fact, if I didn't know what to look for based on past experiences, I may not even be able to tell reliably, which one was which and there were things that I assumed (regarding soundstage) which turned out to be completely false.
My general impression is that people generally tend to judge things related to audio pretty hastily.
Here is delta-sigma against R2R by someone who might be qualified to have an opinion:
If you're running a balanced set up you can pick up a schiit modius for $200. The only dac I would pay $1000 for is the RME because of all the features.
If you're running a balanced set up you can pick up a schiit modius for $200. The only dac I would pay $1000 for is the RME because of all the features.
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