Do different DACS sound different?

[Redcarmoose]

Just get Topping and be done. No need to look back or try anything if measures worse. Topping is at the pinnacle of AP measurement. Remember you can’t hear what you can’t measure.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...topping-d10s-usb-dac-and-bridge-review.14859/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ng-replacing-op-amps-in-topping-d10-dac.4576/

And you can change the sound slightly by op-amp rolling.

 

[chesebert]

That difference in sound is distortion; just get the best measuring opamp.

 

[Redcarmoose]

From what we have seen in the last couple months, I view the future process/products will be different. Obviously all companies are not using a FPGA process but lots are building single units.

I apologize for the slight derailment in this post, yet this is conceptual and was experienced by the enthusiasts in the Walkman Thread for owners of the 1Z and 1A. We were given aftermarket firmwares and it changed the sound. The variations were and are elaborate and there are maybe 50 firmwares and variations due to their interfacing with the change of region codes. Thus Sony tried to dial the sound in for every community of the world depending on taste; much like fast food conglomerates do today.

What we experienced was soundscapes like paintings.


The tone was altered and we could then start to place personality characters on the sounds.

Take this painting for instance. The different color tones all give off a mood. The idea that listening is like painting is nothing new. Yet sound personalities could start to be described in the ways we describe color or food.

This chocolate tone, wet tone, dry tone, white tone. It ends up all very simple in the end. The complex part is just like this painting where high concentrations of tone react with the eye to pull interest. Soundstage and tone color are exactly the same when put on a listening soundstage. Imaging and tone, warmth and color, brightness and darkness. Fast and slow. The amplifier process and DAC process actually gave us new reverbs which were either shown or hidden due to reverb intensity or placement.

Full sound stage

Vocals

Cymbals

Drums

Violins

Reverb

 

[chesebert]

I have no idea what I am looking at I need to see a spectrum/X-ray graph so I know how good that paining is.

I am going to stop trolling now...

 

[Redcarmoose]

I have no idea what I am looking at I need to see a spectrum/X-ray graph so I know how good that paining is.

I am going to stop trolling now...

You don’t need to be rude? Why? No one is arguing with you. I totally agree the op chips are adding color. We are describing tone color. We are describing distortion as this is in agreement with your statement.

 

[Redcarmoose]

That difference in sound is distortion; just get the best measuring opamp.

Typically the more distorted op amps I’ve enjoyed as they are warmer.

 

[chesebert]

You don’t need to be rude? Why? No one is arguing with you. I totally agree the op chips are adding color. We are describing tone color. We are describing distortion as this is in agreement with your statement.

Didn’t mean to be offensive. I was just trolling in general. While I value ASR spitting out AP measurements, which I do find useful for my purposes, I think his “reviews” and rankings are full of crap. He should get rid of his own dac and go with $130 topping if he was serious about his own reviews.

Almost all reputable dac designers use AP analyzer. But good AP measurement is just step 1... you don’t stop there - you keep going until the dac sounds good to the designer team. If that means higher 2nd order harmonics so be it.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Didn’t mean to be offensive. I was just trolling in general. While I value ASR spitting out AP measurements, which I do find useful for my purposes, I think his “reviews” and rankings are full of crap. He should get rid of his own dac and go with $130 topping if he was serious about his own reviews.

Almost all reputable dac designers use AP analyzer. But good AP measurement is just step 1... you don’t stop there - you keep going until the dac sounds good to the designer team. If that means higher 2nd order harmonics so be it.

The point was simply that you can change the op amps. I would guess since you suggested the best measuring op chip that you do believe they sound different chip to chip. At times the difference is big at times not. All we are doing here is addressing the original OP question if DAPs can sound different. The Topping is simply an example of a DAC that has a sound, yet that sound can be modified by changing a small part in the line level out.

I’m here and have been reading posts exactly like this one since 2006. I’m not here to point out I know anything as the more I read the less I know. I know nothing really. But I do know that at times I like a more linear presentation and at times distortion and even brighter treble.

I’m simply more subjective in trying to understand this riddle.

Cheers.

 

[kumar402]

I'm not much of a believer in measurements. I have THX789 at home right now and don't have access to all my other DACs and Amp due to Covid enforced lockdown and it has made my ZMF VC and Senns so lifeless that I am using my JVC FDX01 out of Sony DAP or Mojo for all my listening.

 

[SilverEars]

The truth is that there isn't any difference so long as the DAC is designed to be audibly transparent. If a DAC is designed to have some sort of coloration, then there could be an audible difference. I'm going to guess, though, that most DACs are designed to be transparent.

To clarify, "audibly transparent" means that there's no coloration, that all distortion, noise, jitter, etc., are below the limits of human hearing. By definition, any two audibly transparent devices will sound identical. (Be careful when reading Head-Fi because not everybody uses this definition of "transparent.")

You insinuate "audibly tranparent" means in your definition, and transparent consists of what you listed. What about in terms of audibility outside of what shows from measurements? You bound the definition to your choice of parameters, and of measurements.

Does this mean it's the we all should define "audibly transparent?" No, there is no reason to think you know what it means, and that is the only and correct definition.

Basically, it's only your statement and what you believe.

Do you think an objectivists on a forum knows more about sound output based on design or somebody that actually design equipments? I would not ask somebody that thinks they know all there is know that is some random dude on the forum that does audio engineering as a hobby. Lol

If anybody lived in this world long enough would understand experience counts a lot vs what you are tought. When you are tought something, you take faith and either believe it or not. When you experience things, you know. Once again, black swan analogy.

Most often than not, blankets statements are made by those with little experience. When people have much experience, blanket statements become difficult.

 

[megabigeye]

To be fair though when I notice one DAC or DAC circuit sounds different it's usually the ones that actually suck, at least among good audio gear. Like when I spent a whole afternoon a decade ago testing several CDPs and found a couple of Cambridge players that imaged the bass drums up front, a Marantz and NAD that were just a bit 2D but overall not really a problem, and then there's the Arcam CD72 that had a good impact on the bass vs many sources but even on headphones still sounded clearly positioned behind the vocals.

I doubt the transports make for the difference in those more than how the analogue output stages were designed to sound.

For sure it's the truth sometimes, but it's overused and becomes a defense/excuse for somebody failing a blind test.

The only true way to do a blind test is have the tester actually measure and adjust the volume level. The individual DAC line-out functions have different volume levels. In such an uncontrolled applied test the louder lesser quality DAC could be heard as better, where the better DAC COULD in fact be the quieter one. This volume issue has always been my personal stumbling block. It’s maybe one reason for the CD volume wars. Louder always sounds better......unless of course it starts to red-line.

Yes, true. My point was that even blind tests can be skewed by somebody intentionally or subconsciously not listening for differences.

You insinuate "audibly tranparent" means in your definition, and transparent consists of what you listed. What about in terms of audibility outside of what shows from measurements? You bound the definition to your choice of parameters, and of measurements.

Does this mean it's the we all should define "audibly transparent?" No, there is no reason to think you know what it means, and that is the only and correct definition.

Basically, it's only your statement and what you believe.

Do you think an objectivists on a forum knows more about sound output based on design or somebody that actually design equipments? I would not ask somebody that thinks they know all there is know that is some random dude on the forum that does audio engineering as a hobby. Lol

If anybody lived in this world long enough would understand experience counts a lot vs what you are tought. When you are tought something, you take faith and either believe it or not. When you experience things, you know. Once again, black swan analogy.

Most often than not, blankets statements are made by those with little experience. When people have much experience, blanket statements become difficult.

I didn't make that definition up, if that's what you're implying (can't quite tell). One of my main complaints with audiophilia is that the jargon is so loosely/ill defined that most of it is largely meaningless, to the point that any conversation between using that jargon at best can only be vaguely interpreted, meanings inferred. The way language (any language, so far as I'm aware) works is that words have finite, concrete meanings that don't shift from person to person and only change slowly over time. Otherwise, communication would be impossible.
"Audibly transparent" is a term that's already used in the professional audio community and has a concrete definition within that community. Conversation would be clearer here and beginners would have a much easier time understanding audio and equipment if there were a stronger language. Audio professionals already have that language, so it'd be easy for audiophiles to simply adopt that language rather than trying to build it from the ground up.
I wasn't insisting that OP adopt my definition of "audibly transparent," simply warning that if s/he does that it's not a universally accepted definition. Maybe my meaning wasn't clear.

Anyway, semantics are an interesting subject, but we should save it for PM or another thread. Let's not stray from the OP's original question.

 

[mrconfuse]

it always made me wonder how good is a top end dac/amp/source vs a mid tier dac/ampsource. Take away from all the aesthetics and just by SQ/performance alone, how much of a jump is it really. Everytime a review is made it always makes the newer version seem that much more amazing. A lot of times it seems like you are paying for the aesthetics more than anything.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I reject the class-warfare and slumming in these threads.

I don't have any high end gear but there is a big difference between entry level gear and mid-tier gear and it's not just aesthetics. It could be build quality, materials, design, UI, support and service, long service life etc.

One thing is for sure. "Arguments" from people who have only low-end gear and never spent time with the gear they're criticising are not valid. Armchair theorists can quote all the unverified graphs they want but until you spend time with a piece of gear and have a system revealing enough you will just be parroting other peoples' opinions. And you need a good pair of ears too which not everybody has.

You don't need to speculate. You just have to get your hands and ears on the products you're interested in and then you can make a sound decision

 

[CTR640]

I reject the class-warfare and slumming in these threads.

I don't have any high end gear but there is a big difference between entry level gear and mid-tier gear and it's not just aesthetics. It could be build quality, materials, design, UI, support and service, long service life etc.

One thing is for sure. "Arguments" from people who have only low-end gear and never spent time with the gear they're criticising are not valid. Armchair theorists can quote all the unverified graphs they want but until you spend time with a piece of gear and have a system revealing enough you will just be parroting other peoples' opinions. And you need a good pair of ears too which not everybody has.

You don't need to speculate. You just have to get your hands and ears on the products you're interested in and then you can make a sound decision

Exactly. Arguments tends to end up in wars and bloodshed

I always had the impression my low-end crappy Fiio E10K was pretty alright and needed it as a start when I had my first high impedance headphone as my onboard audio is very weak to power such inefficient headphone. When I finally upgraded to K5 Pro, difference is huge and all details are revealed, it works very good for all my headphones. I wanted to chose between the K5 Pro and iFi ZEN and owning Beyers, the K5 Pro is a perfect dac/amp. So far I'm very happy and will stick to it. There is no reason for me to get another (high-end/expensive) gear. The K5P being a single unit is also very handy to keep my desk clean.

What I've learned: do not spend more than you can or above your limits. And also the most important: use common sense. Getting a $130k gear just for movies and gaming is a bit too much. It all comes down to your needs, what you want and what your limits and budget are. As simple as it gets. And indeed, do more research in the the products you're interested.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Exactly. Arguments tends to end up in wars and bloodshed

I always had the impression my low-end crappy Fiio E10K was pretty alright and needed it as a start when I had my first high impedance headphone as my onboard audio is very weak to power such inefficient headphone. When I finally upgraded to K5 Pro, difference is huge and all details are revealed, it works very good for all my headphones. I wanted to chose between the K5 Pro and iFi ZEN and owning Beyers, the K5 Pro is a perfect dac/amp. So far I'm very happy and will stick to it. There is no reason for me to get another (high-end/expensive) gear. The K5P being a single unit is also very handy to keep my desk clean.

Your statement seems contradictory to me. You always had the impression and found it wrong when you upgraded to something else. Yet you seem to have concluded, after upgrading to another low-end box, that no further upgrade is necessary. This seems like a repetition of wild claims and painting anything above what you consider ok as not worth it, all based on not actually having any experience with it at all