[Telstar]

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Hm you can no longer see the back now.
 
So what do we know about the AK4396, how would it rank with WM8740 and WM8741?

 
It's a very good D/A chip. Worse on the noise profile but better in the HF (i cannot stand the brightness of wolfson dacs).
AKM dacs are used for years in pro and semipro equipment of any price because they are very neutral in frequency response and good sounding.
I still prefer the CS4938 to it, though (reason why I keep my 1616m and i'm looking how to mod it).
 

 

[Telstar]

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They sound the same.

No, they dont.
Unless the unit is made i such a bad way that covers the sonic signature of the converters (it could be the case with this product, but i havent seen the pcb nor listened to it).
 

 

[Telstar]

see below:

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Well, almost. The idiom "garbage in, garbage out" gets thrown around way too often here. I like to think of that phrase as being more suited for file bitrate or source material, but I do think that there is a thin layer of garbage in DACs. These are the DACs that do not measure well and do not convert the digital signal faithfully as they are supposed to. Ultra-vintage and tube DACs can fall into this category.
 
Once you get past that thin film of crap, the rest is pure gold. Most importantly, the "pure gold" DACs aren't expensive to produce -- even this EMU 0204 is likely more expensive than the cheapest of them. Why pay actual pure gold prices when you can get the same level of performance for much less?
 
I think that you never listened to pure gold. Most dacs sound indeed very similar (the vast midfi, hifi ad pro ones), there are many bad ones and a hand(not)ful of really "pure gold".
 
I urge you try a controlled test where the analog outputs of the DACs are level-matched, and see if you can tell a difference without knowing which DAC is which. They should sound the same; in a controlled test outliers will fall out of pure gold and into garbage as they are not reproducing the signal faithfully.
 
I have, and they dont.
 
Ultimately you have the right idea. Buy professional equipment (with the highest-end headphones you can afford, since transducers actually do make a very, very palpable difference), and in meet conditions put your system in a black box and calibrate the levels, and I'm sure you'll put many much more expensive systems to shame.
 
Professional equipment, with a few notable exceptions has the only requisites of neutrality and accouracy. Any piece of crap that measures within the standards (of the few measurements used which are way usufficient to evaluate the sound quality of an equipment piece, but this is another topic) will be used by professionals depending on their budget.
In general, you get a minimum decent standard with pro equipment and excellent price/performance ratio.
 
The good thing in all of this is I realized my DAC, headphone amp, and speaker amp are all in the pure-gold-class. The bad news is that I grossly overpaid for this level of performance -- $1200, when I could have gotten away with it for considerably cheaper. I'm not complaining though as there are still significantly worse values to be had in value (just peruse the portable amp thread and you'll get an idea of what I mean).
 
You are listening in the "silver-plated copper" class, maybe even lesser. But as longas you are happy...

 

 

[Telstar]

While I agre (almost everyone does) that transducers have the biggest impact on the reproduced sound,

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However, modern-day DACs and amplifiers (i.e. electronics) that are well-built will measure far beyond the perceptive capability of the human ear.

you underestimate your ears.
 
The studies that you have surely read are old, poorly done and used low-resolution equipment.

 

[gregorio]

.Professional equipment, with a few notable exceptions has the only requisites of neutrality and accouracy. Any piece of crap that measures within the standards (of the few measurements used which are way usufficient to evaluate the sound quality of an equipment piece, but this is another topic) will be used by professionals depending on their budget.

Ignorance is not generally a good thing. Broadcasting your ignorance to the world is stupid. Publicly insulting professionals (who are not ignorant) based on your own ignorance makes you look like an even bigger idiot!

G

 

[.Sup]

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Hm you can no longer see the back now.
 
So what do we know about the AK4396, how would it rank with WM8740 and WM8741?

I had the EMU 0404 USB and I have a 8740 and 8741 based DACs now. The EMU sounds crispier, darker slightly laid back, the Wolfsons are more dynamic with wider soundstage and brighter. 8741 is just slightly more detailed and has better defined and tighter bass.
 
hope this helps

 

[firgoe]

is EMU 0404 USB superior in SQ compared to EMU 0204 considering it's balanced output?

 

[anetode]

Quote:

you underestimate your ears.
 
The studies that you have surely read are old, poorly done and used low-resolution equipment.

Any suggestion of new, well-done studies that used high-resolution equipment to look up?

 

[Reticuli2]

Quote:

Even after sending mine back, I'm interested in what otehrs think of ths DAC. To me, no matter what headphones I used Sony xb300,700,beyerdynamic 770/80s, Ultrasone pro 900, or Denon d5k, It sounded like there was too much treble and the bass rolled off. It put the crimp on the bass without a doubt. I'm waiting on my Musiland md-10 to come in , Twice the price but very nice. 

All those headphones are below 100ohms and the Emu 0204 jack is 22 ohms.  People keep missing the specs info for the Emu.  It says 22 ohms.  That's the jack's own impedance.  And then it gives you the 16mW + 16mW, which I assume is into 300 ohms since the next two specs use that.  That's actually not too bad into that high an impedance.  Driving headphones that are 100ohms and over, the class A circuitry amp on the 0204 is superior to the E7's.  The Fiio, though, is much better for low impedance headphones and gives them DEEP bass.  Lows sound kind of powdery and not harmonically rich with the E7 and the ER4S in comparison. Still beats the pants off most DAP jacks, but the 0204, even in spite of its modest 4:1 damping ratio with the ER4S is much more open, tuneful, detailed, quicker, etc, etc, than the Fiio.  You can tell there's some lack of dynamics and damping, but it's not too bad and certainly doesn't override the extreme clarity of circuit.  The headphone jack also doubles as a +2V line out and tests very well in RMAA as a line.  It might actually drive the E7's preamp better than the rear line out, at least to my ears and avoiding the 1.25V E7 limit.
 
Now, the 0204 ASIO drivers seem to SUCK really bad.  It's working well enough with Fubar, upsampling, crossfeed, and kernal.  But I would never DJ out with the Emu as it's just not stable and low-latency enough.  I need to have latency maxed in VDJ and Traktor for there to be no dropouts.  Kind of sad considing its amazing sound.  My two DJ controllers with 24bit ASIO soundcards built in never had those problems.
 
 

 

[Reticuli2]

Unless you're using a balanced headphone/amp combo or are running long distances, unbalanced will always sound better than balanced.  Now, you can certainly use unbalanced lines (the right type, like TS) on balanced jacks just fine.  Having a balanced port doesn't make its unbalanced use worse... again you have to use right cables.  I think the 0204 sounds very good and I doubt it is worse sounding than the 0404.  Emu seems to think they improved on it in some way in the circuit design.  Don't know.  Never heard the 0404.  I do think maybe the 0204 is touch more natural and cohesive compared to the 1212m, but that's a very invalid comparison for me to make without the same gear to do the comparison and the 1212m not being here for me to check.  The 1212m was quite stable in ASIO, though.  The 0204 doesn't seem to be.
Quote:

is EMU 0404 USB superior in SQ compared to EMU 0204 considering it's balanced output?

 

 

[gregorio]

Any suggestion of new, well-done studies that used high-resolution equipment to look up?

The most respected study of this type was published 3 or 4 years ago by the Audio Engineering Society. It was designed to test if CD could be differentiated from hi-rez formats. During the DBTs they used a range of equipment, including both standard rez equipment and high end equipment such as audiophile grade cables, SACD and 24/96, etc. The study contained over 500 trials, took over a year to complete and involved professional audio engineers, students and audiophiles. Not one of them could identify which was which! Overall, the results were almost exactly 50%, precisely what would be predicted from chance guessing.

G

 

[anetode]

Thanks, I'm aware of that study. I was wondering specifically what studies Telstar was referring to in his hasty dismissal.

 

[jiiteepee]

Quote:

...
 
Now, the 0204 ASIO drivers seem to SUCK really bad.  It's working well enough with Fubar, upsampling, crossfeed, and kernal.  But I would never DJ out with the Emu as it's just not stable and low-latency enough.  I need to have latency maxed in VDJ and Traktor for there to be no dropouts.  Kind of sad considing its amazing sound.  My two DJ controllers with 24bit ASIO soundcards built in never had those problems. 
 

In most cases, dropouts are related to CPU usage and disk read operations.
As USB audio interfaces are very sensitive for high priority processes, especially when the ASIO driver is type of wrapper as it is in case of E-MU USB audio interfaces, system needs to be well 'cleared' to get low latency operation working well. Actually, you can't compare E-MU USB audio interface against PCI/PCIe soundcards because of that fact.
 
There are tools for to help clear out the system from harmful highpriority procecces. Couple of them are listed in my signature.
 
jiiteepee
 

 

[Reticuli2]

I'll try updating my CPU, but (guess I didn't mention it here) I've been also comparing the 0204 to two 24bit USB ASIO DJ controller/interfaces that do not have any dropouts: A Numark and Hercules.  In fact, they can go all the way down to 5ms without much problem.  The Emu 0204 needs like 1000-2000ms and still I must walk on glass, have background processes given priority, and turn off as many tasks as possible.  Open up a web page or the task manager, and I STILL have split second glitches.  How is that possible with that configuration?  I could never use the Emu to DJ with (not to mention it's annoying for music listening in ASIO) with this state of drivers.  People always disrespect Windows MME and DS for not being bit perfect, but at least it's 24bit too now and I NEVER have drop outs.  The lag is still higher than 2000ms, but you know what I mean?  Right now I'm trying to stick to Kernal in Fubar, but people are saying that's a bad idea for some reason.  To me, it seems to sound close to ASIO with fewer drop-outs though not quite as seemless as Windows MME/DS.
Quote:

In most cases, dropouts are related to CPU usage and disk read operations.
As USB audio interfaces are very sensitive for high priority processes, especially when the ASIO driver is type of wrapper as it is in case of E-MU USB audio interfaces, system needs to be well 'cleared' to get low latency operation working well. Actually, you can't compare E-MU USB audio interface against PCI/PCIe soundcards because of that fact.
 
There are tools for to help clear out the system from harmful highpriority procecces. Couple of them are listed in my signature.
 
jiiteepee
 

 

 

[slashclee]

Anybody get this working on Lion?