For me the glare appear when piano notes hit. At first it can be somethings sparkling, then it change to treble ringing. But i understand that is price for transperancy because even ESS 9038pro suffer from it.
So i think to really "enjoy music" we should have wisdom, knowledge to accept the compromise and unaccept failed to improve, advanced. Ofcourse you can have different idea. Please share. Thanks.
Certainly; this is a great topic, and is the reason why I come to head-fi to read/learn…
Filters is a ‘significant part of this’, as is ‘system synergy’ and then ‘ear training’ and ‘end user preference/experience’…
It is true that Delta Sigma DACs are attributed this notion of brightness, but, ‘integration’ can go a long way to ameliorating some of these aspects…
As can doing an ‘on the fly’ DSD convert, and then using the DSD pathway… for many; the DSD step alone can mitigate the notion of owning ‘cheap DACs’ and inherent ‘treble brightness’.
The piano notes playing through the same family of DAC chips eg the BB/TI 1793 and BB/TI 1798, as implemented in an iFi Diablo and a Grace Design m903, is incredibly different.
For many on the electrical side of the fence, we could discuss power and board layout and ‘many aspects of implementation‘ that contribute to a DAC (device, not the chip) actual sound output.
edit: quoting an interview re: the m903, that is on topic to this discussion,..: Notable for what this box does not have is electrolytic capacitors in the signal path,"They have lots of non-linearities," said Grace. "They have varying impedances, so they have distortion and a blurring in harmonics giving a metallic and tizzy top end.”
Some users might use cables to tweak, (I certainly do)
no amount of cable swapping is going to change the output character of the upstream device (just what downstream electronics might ‘see’), and, to be relevant to an ‘all in one product’, like a DAP, that has clocking/and transport duties, DAC duties and amp duties, (ideally finding a synergy to the end/output sound)- we would rather, from the point of science/understanding, want less variables and a ‘basis of operation’ that we can rely upon…
Getting back to those piano notes, on systems that are contained (eg the Diablo and the m903 are both DAC/amps), using the same front end transport, eg a Questyle QP1R (or a CD player - who cares it is ‘subjective storytelling’ anyway); there is a MASSIVE difference in the tone and weight of those notes.
In fact I am happily enjoying feeding the Diablo INTO the Grace (can use the dual diff DAC setup and iFis‘ clever implementation WITH the headphone amplification of the Grace part).. trying out a range of variables,.. lots of way to hear the subtle (and not so subtle) differences of these setups.
Ultimately the iFi Diablo was ‘endgame’ enough (for the pricepoint) in terms of DAC/amp (the amp section was 99.x% equal to a Sennheiser HDVD800 -brilliant!!) that finding ways to use it, especially with the benefits of the collaborative ‘GTO‘ filter being onboard (firmware dependant) - there is a lot of ways to look at ‘how to tame the beast’
examples given so far (for the Too long: Didn’t read crowd)-
filter selection (eg GTO or a conversion to DSD)
design and (system) synergy - eg ‘bright’ front end into ‘dark’ amp
tweaking using cables..
The cables option is another way to alter the sound somewhat- I know it took a few hours of cable rotation to land on a set that was ‘night/day’ improvement for some ‘bright’ headphones (chose an ALO pure silver cable for some Ultrasone Edition 5 as an example)- what that did for vocals and piano/harp/cymbals/(Sax/trumpet etc) was awesome…
Sure Delta Sigma DACs might have an unqualified/qualified notoriety for being bright.. (I’d happily insert a Denafrips in my frontend and ‘call it a day’), but if a chip notorious for being bright can sound so much darker than chips that generally are not, then implementation is a large part of that…
I put to readers that there is a reason why FiiO changed some of the ancillory parts when changing DAC chips between the M11+ variants.
FiiO are a company that has long been known for tweaking their designs towards certain sound tunings.
Their more recent designs seem to have focused on ‘world markets’ more so than local markets (eg the differences between an X5/X5ii/X5iii); they know what they are doing and strive to constantly improve..
For me, I loved running those Ultrasone Edition 5 (using ALO puresilver) direct from an AKM variant M11+, it is dark, but I would put that to failing with the internal amp compared to 4-5x more costlier desktop products (when directly compared, the internal amp doesn’t hold up to be equal, ‘fair’ really based on price point and home kit having altogether different design ideals (eg unlimited power)).
That same M11+ feeding into my home stereo rig: very listenable, and ‘sans’ some brightness of the BB/Wolfson/Sabre (ie ‘other’ delta sigma DACs) that I have compared it against.
I’d say, at the level that the M11+ gets the brightness right (ie isolated power to all critical circuits/improved/refined board layout/ superb clock chips etc) the main contributors to ‘bad brightness’ (ie electrical noise and mash through the system) is covered; their topology allows the ACTUAL DAC chips to shine through…
For me the M11+ is a transport, mainly, into ‘much higher tiered’ front end kit (eg I have a Mark Levinson ‘knockoff’ preamp, (a Proceed AVP2))- as a preamp it makes the preamp sections of the Burson Conductor V2 /Grace m903 abosolute joke ‘consumer-fi‘ parts (not a fair comparison and not being negative on the Burson or Grace Design parts- there is massive price differences between these ’preamps’); I find a lot of ways to ‘deal with/handle’ Delta Sigma brightness.
The easiest is probably just an ‘on the fly’ DSD convert (one of the selling points, to me, for the M11+), but beyond that, only the Cambridge DAC Magic (Plus) has atrocious D/S brightness, when comparing a range of ‘modern chips’.. maybe my speakers/listening space/headgear has been selected to counter D/S shortcomings (not that ‘delta sigma’ is the issue, rather ‘any given implementation’).
Given the internet YMMV (your mileage may vary) catchphrase, it is fair to say that there are ‘a lot of varaibles’ at play.
The piano notes resolved by the Grace Design m903 (as DAC&) are beautiful by the way.. yet my goto seems to be the M11+(transport)=>Diablo(DAC)=>m903(amp); and this setup allows using DSD convert (M11+) or the GTO filter in the Diablo…
Delta Sigma isn’t the issue, (sure IT IS, but), tuning and synergy play ‘a large role’.
Natural Piano notes can be achieved at this price point, and without a pile of ancillory equipment.
I’d visit a local retailer (head-fi) and see ‘what works and what doesn’t’! (for you!!)
