[milkpowder]

Actually, I have an even more extreme story to tell. During Christmas, I compared the Echo Indigo DJ to my brother's Samsung R55 laptop built in sound. We both took turns blind testing each other and we came to the conclusion that the R55 on-board sound card actually produced a more pleasing and better sound! Screw technical specifications. What you hear is the most important!

(FYI, we used a pair of ER6i and HD650 to do the testing)

 

[facelvega]

Just a little update. I spent some time with both sound cards today, using redbook cds and taking the Go-Vibe out of the picture to simplify things. I also replaced the A250 with an AKG K400, which was the pick of the AKG range before the K501 came out--they're practically identical except the 400 is black and has very deep bass (it actually has a broader reported frequency response than the 501, 15-32k vs. 16-30k, but I bet in practice the detail is better on the K501). I chose this headphone because it is very warm-sounding, thinking that it was unfair to pair the dry, bright character of the Echo with dry, bright headphones like the A250.

The first thing I was able to determine was that bitrates were not an issue. Yes, you could sometimes hear a bit of difference between the mp3 and wav files, but the character of the cards was the same either way.

Now, the K400 did have the effect I was looking for: it paired much better with the Echo than the other headphones did. For about a half hour I convinced myself that the Echo had a bit more detail; it certainly had a crisper-sounding response on complex passages. I was starting to think that this was really just a battle between a warm dac and a bright one, a 'fun' option and an analytical one, with the analytical Echo being a bit more capable than the fun TB. But somehow the vocal presentation wasn't quite right, and I couldn't make up my mind. Then for variety I tried some Balkan dance music, and I realized why I just can't bring myself to like the Echo.

It's pace, rhythm, and timing. The TBAAM for all its limitations still has a healthy dollop of PRAT, and the Echo just doesn't. You can't tap your foot to it, it's like dancing with a robot. Yes, I can find musical passages that it can handle better than the TBAAM, but in the end I just toss it into its box again and plug the audio advantage micro back into the Go-Vibe.

So, then, I need to find a different upgrade path. I was toying with trying a Headphonia, as Lini suggested above, but I'm expecting a much better amp in a couple of months (custom build), so I'm thinking of just focusing on a cheapish dac. I guess my next step is to read up on the Silverstone and maybe the Fubar, now that I have a horror of PRATless dacs. Please pass on any suggestions, and either way I'll be sure to report back with comparisons next time I switch sources.

 

[thomaspf]

I think this thread is getting a bit in the weeds. The Echo Indigo is a pro quality card that gives you bit perfect conversion with excellent measurements. The sound you will hear with this card is close to what is actually on your recordings.

The TBAAM is a great cheap solution that is better than most on board solutions but it resamples everything to 48 Khz and has a pretty weak analog section. The thing here is that the sound this device will make might sound pleasing to the ear but it is different from is what on your recording. So you need to decide what you want. Accuracy or euphonic distortion.

On a previous thread here on head-fi someone took the effort to RMMA this USB dongle and the results are pretty telling. Good measurements alone don't guarantee a good sound but resampling and and mediocre analog measurements are guaranteed not to produce good sound!

http://166.70.233.190/rmaa/Turtle%20...ge%20Micro.htm

As compared to

http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~r89004/rmaa52/ei-16-48.htm

While the TBAAM is loops back to itself the Card Deluxe used for the Indigo has higher quality. This might skew the results to the worse for the TBAAM, so I cross checked this with a few other published results on the WEB and they pretty much look all the same. I can only assume that the high end roll off on the TBAAM masks the noise to some extent but it is still significantly higher than what the Indigo produces.

The TBAAM is a nice solution for the money but it is quite a bit less accurate than the Indigo.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[facelvega]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thomaspf /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think this thread is getting a bit in the weeds. ...

I was nervous after I started this thread that people would attack me for making an outrageous argument, and really I had no urge to start a crusade. I was just disappointed at the results of what I expected to be a definite upgrade, and I wanted to report what I'd heard. Of course the Echo has better measurements than the TBAAM, as I knew very well when I bought it. But in the end I don't judge my audio by its measurements, but by the way it sounds, and it is here that what should have been a cakewalk for the Echo turned out to be an upset-- to my ears, with my headphones, etc. But is this so surprising? After all, there are many who prefer tube amps to the much more accurate solid state.

I'm not saying the Echo is bad-- it isn't-- and I'm not saying the TBAAM is great, because it also isn't and I'm not satisfied by it-- that's why I bought the Echo in the first place. I don't deny and have tried to describe that the Echo is technically superior in a way you can definitely hear. I'll even add that the harshness I heard at first was maybe just the absence of the rolled-off TBAAM highs I'd grown used to in my office rig. And heck, maybe the PRAT of the TBAAM is an accidental by-product of something that's actually killing the fidelity of the sound. I'm just reporting what I hear, which surprised me too. But from now I'm going to try to avoid bumping this thread because I don't feel strongly enough about this to keep on arguing. Let's just take the lesson that the Echo's sound may not appeal to people who listen for certain sorts of things, and that those people might do well to grab a TBAAM to tide them over while they search for a dac that will give them what they want.

ps, I retested for the noise floor, and realized that I had been led astray by a poorly mastered recording, which was the obvious reason why the two seemed to have the same noise level. I've edited the posts above to correct for this mistake.

 

[thomaspf]

I actually appreciate your thread and don't mean to attack you in any way. There is just a difference to these cards. The Echo is more targeted toward monitoring and frankly many people do not like that sound.

For the same reason you will not find many tube amps in music production. The focus of this gear is to be as truthful as possible not necessarily sound nice on a wide variety of recordings. I listen to my Indigo on Etys so you can imagine how analytical that will sound.


I have not even listened to the TBAAM as I mentioned earlier but many people seem to like the sound. Just be aware that the resolution before noise is about 11 bits and the intermodulation distortion is fairly high.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[uraflit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thomaspf /img/forum/go_quote.gif The thing here is that the sound this device will make might sound pleasing to the ear but it is different from is what on your recording. So you need to decide what you want. Accuracy or euphonic distortion.

i'll take the euphonic distortion

ehehehehe

 

[muzikk]

I am in the same situation as you, in the search of a portable/transportable dac for my laptop. I have bought the DAC in the box from diykits.com and it is burning in now. Other DACs that I am considering are the Micro DAC from HeadRoom, The Bloat from HippoHifi.com and the Headphnia combo. I am not considering E-MU products or other USB soundcard because I am not interested in recording, upsampling etc... I just want good sound from my laptop without complications, like my old CD player.

The Bloat is quite interesting but I have neglected it in the past because of the absence of reviews and informations here. I had a chat with a person from Hippohifi and he told me that the product is 6 weeks old hence the lack of information but he assured me that 3 loaner units has been send to Headfiers for reviews and comparison. He also told me that a thread in the "Member of the Trade Sponsored Threads Forum" will be posted this week with a first review and promotional price.

 

[facelvega]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thomaspf /img/forum/go_quote.gif I actually appreciate your thread and don't mean to attack you in any way. There is just a difference to these cards. The Echo is more targeted toward monitoring and frankly many people do not like that sound.

Thanks, Thomas. I guess the real title of this thread might have been "facelvega learns he prefers euphonic distortion to sheer accuracy." Most of the other differences I noticed (the harshness, for example) diminished after I grew accustomed to the Echo's different presentation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by muzikk /img/forum/go_quote.gif The Bloat is quite interesting but I have neglected it in the past because of the absence of reviews and informations here. I had a chat with a person from Hippohifi and he told me that the product is 6 weeks old hence the lack of information but he assured me that 3 loaner units has been send to Headfiers for reviews and comparison. He also told me that a thread in the "Member of the Trade Sponsored Threads Forum" will be posted this week with a first review and promotional price.

This is the first I'd heard of the bloat. It sounds interesting, and the price is definitely good for the specs even before any promotions. I also like how ugly it is. Oddly, made in Australia. Thanks for the heads up, muzikk.

 

[dougwx12]

Quote:

Originally Posted by facelvega /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was nervous after I started this thread that people would attack me for making an outrageous argument, and really I had no urge to start a crusade.

Your ears are your ears, so I guess your wallet wins this time. Difference might also be synergy with your headphones. But whatever the reason, rock on.

I happen to vastly prefer the Echo to the TBAA. But to each his own. I prefer the analytical sound all the way to the headphone jack, and then letting the cans add whatever personality that I'm in the mood for. (Usually Grado; unless I want to fall asleep, and then I might pull out the Sennheisers.)

I have an Echo DJ, and I believe that the line out bypasses the volume pot, at least.

To the folks that have recommend you jump up to the MicroDAC, I think the microdac sounds more like a better echo than a better tbaa (I have all three.)

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dougwx12 /img/forum/go_quote.gif To the folks that have recommend you jump up to the MicroDAC, I think the microdac sounds more like a better echo than a better tbaa (I have all three.)

Spot on, SQ wise MicroDAC is just refined version of Indigo.

 

[ferraro25]

Just wanted to say that the TBAAM sounds great. Just got it for my eventual laptop purchase. Drives the K701 very well - I can easily hear deep bass, for instance. It does appear to add some "musicality" to the K701, too - but I could easily be imagining that.

Recommended if you want a cheap alternative to crappy on-board laptop sound.

 

[Tantra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thomaspf /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think this thread is getting a bit in the weeds. The Echo Indigo is a pro quality card that gives you bit perfect conversion with excellent measurements. The sound you will hear with this card is close to what is actually on your recordings.

Put a normal guy in a great rally car and he would most likely find the steering too direct, the suspension to firm and the handling to demanding. He would most likely prefer the cozy seats and comfortable handling of a road car.

The excellent Echo Audio products may not be suited for the Hi-Fi consumer just because it's tools for musicians depending on accurate sound reproduction.

 

[dougwx12]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tantra /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...

Did you have a point beyond being condescending to the OP? Because if you did, I missed it.

 

[Tantra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dougwx12 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Did you have a point beyond being condescending to the OP? Because if you did, I missed it.

I don't in any way try to be rude to anyone. My point is that some pro audio products don't cut the cake for audiophiles. If you feel offended that wasn't my intention.

 

[facelvega]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tantra /img/forum/go_quote.gif Put a normal guy in a great rally car and he would most likely find the steering too direct, the suspension to firm and the handling to demanding. He would most likely prefer the cozy seats and comfortable handling of a road car. The excellent Echo Audio products may not be suited for the Hi-Fi consumer just because it's tools for musicians depending on accurate sound reproduction.

Sorry to bump this thread again, but I wanted to respond briefly to the kind of black-and-white picture that Tantra draws with this comparison. I see two problems with it. First, I'm not sure that an Echo Indigo counts as a rally car in this sense. There are rally cars in the pro audio and in the audiophile world (or are the audiophile ones Bentleys?), and frankly the Indigo isn't that far up on the food chain.

But the bigger problem is whether pro audio in general really represents the high-performance rally car that we'd all like it to be. Alas, the answer seems to be that it often departs widely from this ideal. For example, most of the headphones in widespread studio use are midfi and have nothing like a flat presentation. Think of the old classics, the V6 and K240, for example. The same thing carries over into pro headphone amps, dacs, and mixing boards. Sure, there are a few very high-end pieces that do uphold the rally car ideal, but they are not what most studios and even many music production studios are using for recording or mastering, and definitely nothing like what we're discussing in this thread. (And yes, of course there are many other professional applications besides studio monitoring, but I don't think this fundamentally changes the picture)

Certainly there is a euphonic ideal and an analytic one, but they are not always mutually exclusive, and there plenty of attributes of sonic presentation that vary widely even within these ideals-- soundstage, say, or transient response. I'm just trying to identify which of those aspects I want to achieve and which I can do without, and then find different links to the chain that give me a combination of characteristics that I can live with.