Ibasso 1 bit Discrete portable DAC with Resistors Array D16

[rush1]

I did stack N7 with the PB5 and it is incredible... A very different experience to the D16 as a source. The N7-PB5 is a texture king but a bit drier, while the D16 leads the way for atmosphere, ambience and space. Epic presentations from each, N7 or D16 as a source will suit different moods of the week. And then I'll have to try D16 feeding C9 next...

Can you compare N7-D16 to Hiby RS8?

 

[Z_Showmaster]

That's genuinely difficult, the RS8 is a totally unique player – not even HiBy's own DARWIN players sound anything like RS8. Perhaps that's exacerbated by its discrete build.

Anyway, the N7–PB5 doesn't have the same frequency extension at the extremes, low-end authority nor soundstage of the RS8. Don't get me wrong, the stack is awesome. But it just won't mimic the RS8 entirely. It's probably got more note texture, but that's about it.

 

[rush1]

Thank you for your reply, the PB5 and D16 does intrigued me, I will swing by for an audition.

 

[VisalEziomi]

Is D16 able to drive Subtonic Storm properly without additional amp ?

 

[Z_Showmaster]

From the guys who built the DX320 Max and put part of that circuit into D16? Probably.

 

[Whitigir]

Hahaha. I just ordered the green leather case for the DX260 so they all match.

I need one for my 320M lol

 

[Loftprojection]

Hey guys, I know I'm not very technical and I'm deviating a bit but it's been very informative to me with the info I got here on the USB connectivity. I saw on the following on the DX260 DAP announcement:

"Dedicated USB Receiver for USB-DAC Mode - A Low Latency USB-DAC - Support ASIO / WASAPI Output"

Is this only marketing or is there something more in the DX260 DAP that would make it's USB IN a better implementation then what we get on other devices like D16?

The D16 lists this info which seems to me that they have some solid electronics in there to master the USB connection. When I read DDC marketing, this femtosecond oscillator clock stuff seems to be pretty important!

"Global clock regeneration technology is employed. Two Accusilicon femtosecond oscillators provide a clock reference for the FPGA. The FPGA regenerates the synchronous low-phase noise clock required by the DSP and USB receiver. "

Thanks again for your patience in giving me info on this subject.

 

[Whitigir]

Hey guys, I know I'm not very technical and I'm deviating a bit but it's been very informative to me with the info I got here on the USB connectivity. I saw on the following on the DX260 DAP announcement:

"Dedicated USB Receiver for USB-DAC Mode - A Low Latency USB-DAC - Support ASIO / WASAPI Output"

Is this only marketing or is there something more in the DX260 DAP that would make it's USB IN a better implementation then what we get on other devices like D16?

The D16 lists this info which seems to me that they have some solid electronics in there to master the USB connection. When I read DDC marketing, this femtosecond oscillator clock stuff seems to be pretty important!

"Global clock regeneration technology is employed. Two Accusilicon femtosecond oscillators provide a clock reference for the FPGA. The FPGA regenerates the synchronous low-phase noise clock required by the DSP and USB receiver. "

Thanks again for your patience in giving me info on this subject.

It would be simpler to think of it this way, a USB is universal port. You can use it to install firmware, move and transfer file, charge the battery, or play music, or diagnose the device….etc

In order for the USB port to know what task it should be handling, there has to be an Identification Chip to trigger the features accordingly. This chip is on both ends, your DAP as a host and your DAC as a Slave and Vice Versa

I have not seen any DAP lets alone Phones or IPad, Tablets… etc to have a USB out port only for a single purposes of “USB Digital Music”

Therefore as long as any USB devices is using 1 single USB port for everything, it contains a Generic ID chip.

The culprit of the USB interfaces that degrades the signals has more to do with this ID chips rather than the clocking. If we can not eliminate this chip, then clocking is negligible. Because once the information is lost, it could never be recovered. Apparently the USB chip is very noisy even when they are upgrading the interfaces toward 3.0 and 4.0 …etc… they don’t really worry much about live data transfer, which essentially is Digital music. It conducts differently than just information for pictures alone. Hence there will be some what missing from using USB Interfaces

 

[Z_Showmaster]

My reasoning for that text appearing on DX260 - and not D16 - is because it's a bonus an all-in-one player like DX260 has good USB receiver hardware.

Whereas that's completely taken for granted on D16. It's a bit too easy for me to say that but with only one way of receiving information, D16's digital inputs are overbuilt. The hardware is awesome, because it has to be awesome.

Whereas with DX260, a player I would still frankly trust more to play music back via Android and SD card, not tethered to another source, it becomes something to crow about yet is unlikely to surpass D16.

I've no doubt that sheer size alone on the D16 would already give its USB input the edge over DX260, with proper space to do power supply routing, isolation, clean LDOs, things like that you'll hear.

 

[Whitigir]

The D16 ability to retrieve the Dynamic variations of a Timbre Tonal body is "insane"! It can clearly shows me the differences between "dithering" and "Non-dithering" in upsampling a PCM file. Since the time I realized that Math was perfect, and Nyquist was right, and suspected that I could gain more performances if I was to use Upsampling offline from a good program

Whoever is more curious about digital music, different format, and upsampling, you can check it out here. I use this program to offline convert my 16/44.1 into higher sample rate and needless to say, no other DACS systems have shown me the great differences between these stuff as the D16...It is "insane"
https://samplerateconverter.com/

The analogues performances is best when you use the files as original as it is. If you want to have a snappier and speedy performance while not losing much of that analogues feeling, but also gain in staging, airiness and spaciousness, you can do so by upsample your file with the specific combo I have found for now "4X further with no change to bit depth, and no dithering". Any further than 4X and the sound performances becomes more generic, losing it analogues feeling, and losing it magics with nothing much more to gain. For Example, if mine is 16/44.1 and I want some more spaciousness with better vividity, I do 16/176.4

Also interesting to note that there is a warm up period for both, either D16 or the PB5, they get much better once warmed up. Not that it would be lacking at first turned on, but just better. I observed that since 15 minutes, it starts to release the magic and about 25-30 minutes, it is intoxicating

 

[Loftprojection]

It would be simpler to think of it this way, a USB is universal port. You can use it to install firmware, move and transfer file, charge the battery, or play music, or diagnose the device….etc

In order for the USB port to know what task it should be handling, there has to be an Identification Chip to trigger the features accordingly. This chip is on both ends, your DAP as a host and your DAC as a Slave and Vice Versa

I have not seen any DAP lets alone Phones or IPad, Tablets… etc to have a USB out port only for a single purposes of “USB Digital Music”

Therefore as long as any USB devices is using 1 single USB port for everything, it contains a Generic ID chip.

The culprit of the USB interfaces that degrades the signals has more to do with this ID chips rather than the clocking. If we can not eliminate this chip, then clocking is negligible. Because once the information is lost, it could never be recovered. Apparently the USB chip is very noisy even when they are upgrading the interfaces toward 3.0 and 4.0 …etc… they don’t really worry much about live data transfer, which essentially is Digital music. It conducts differently than just information for pictures alone. Hence there will be some what missing from using USB Interfaces

Ok many thanks Whitigir, this explanation makes a lot of sense, and very informative. In your opinion what makes a DDC so good at "treating" bad universal USB from computers and phones before feeding it coax to the DAC? if you have info it is welcomed?

The D16 is really interesting, if I had a bigger budget I'd buy it right away but I've exhausted my budget for now so I have to wait a bit. Can't wait though for others like you to buy it and provide their feedback.

 

[Whitigir]

Ok many thanks Whitigir, this explanation makes a lot of sense, and very informative. In your opinion what makes a DDC so good at "treating" bad universal USB from computers and phones before feeding it coax to the DAC? if you have info it is welcomed?

The D16 is really interesting, if I had a bigger budget I'd buy it right away but I've exhausted my budget for now so I have to wait a bit. Can't wait though for others like you to buy it and provide their feedback.

Digital feedbacks is mainly a thing to clean up the noises. It is a filters of some kinds and I don’t want to confuse people with digital filters as a common term in DAC worlds. Just keep in mind that the more it filtered out, the more you loses the info. Then there are noise shaping etc…

The DDC doesn’t magically improve your signals if it comes from a dirty USB that already lost some informations. It cleans up the noises and in many instances will results in earlier roll off and losing micro dynamic retrievals. However, some people associate it toward “Neutral” and “Spaciousness”. I don’t take it that way. IMO, if an instruments is losing it own tonal timbres and housing dynamic, there are lost information that were never retrieved somewhere in the chain.

I have seen debates coming from people trying to twist the facts and states that “if info were corrupted or missing, then the files would never be played back”. Nope, digital music doesn’t work that way. I am not gonna go onto complicated matters here, but let’s just give you another example

Does your MP3 work ? And how much of a memory capacity did it trim away from your original files ?

 

[Loftprojection]

Digital feedbacks is mainly a thing to clean up the noises. It is a filters of some kinds and I don’t want to confuse people with digital filters as a common term in DAC worlds. Just keep in mind that the more it filtered out, the more you loses the info. Then there are noise shaping etc…

The DDC doesn’t magically improve your signals if it comes from a dirty USB that already lost some informations. It cleans up the noises and in many instances will results in earlier roll off and losing micro dynamic retrievals. However, some people associate it toward “Neutral” and “Spaciousness”. I don’t take it that way. IMO, if an instruments is losing it own tonal timbres and housing dynamic, there are lost information that were never retrieved somewhere in the chain.

I have seen debates coming from people trying to twist the facts and states that “if info were corrupted or missing, then the files would never be played back”. Nope, digital music doesn’t work that way. I am not gonna go onto complicated matters here, but let’s just give you another example

Does your MP3 work ? And how much of a memory capacity did it trim away from your original files ?

I only play lossless files/streams and original CDs, never anything that is compressed in any way. I understand that the DDC doesn't improve the signal but I guess that when an equipment, either DAC or DDC, receives information from a USB source, then it tries it's best, based on it's own electronics, to work with that signal. I also guess that the equipment in question, DAC or DDC, will produce an end result that will sound more or less good depending at least a bit on the electronics it has to work with the "dirty" USB signal it receives. So all things equal, I would juste hope that DAC designers would put a little more electronics (that is in a DDC today) in their USB connection so that we as customers would be able to use phones and computers with even better results than today. And don't worry, I've learned my lesson, manufacturers no matter what the do will never be able to produce better sound then a coax connection whit a USB coming from a computers/phones.

And on the positive side, it does look like the D16 may have a bit more electronics treating the best it can its USB IN than many other transportable DACs we've seen up to now, and probably more than many desktop DACs, like my old MHDT Orchid.

Cheers, and thanks again for "educating" me.

 

[Whitigir]

I only play lossless files/streams and original CDs, never anything that is compressed in any way. I understand that the DDC doesn't improve the signal but I guess that when an equipment, either DAC or DDC, receives information from a USB source, then it tries it's best, based on it's own electronics, to work with that signal. I also guess that the equipment in question, DAC or DDC, will produce an end result that will sound more or less good depending at least a bit on the electronics it has to work with the "dirty" USB signal it receives. So all things equal, I would juste hope that DAC designers would put a little more electronics (that is in a DDC today) in their USB connection so that we as customers would be able to use phones and computers with even better results than today. And don't worry, I've learned my lesson, manufacturers no matter what the do will never be able to produce better sound then a coax connection whit a USB coming from a computers/phones.

And on the positive side, it does look like the D16 may have a bit more electronics treating the best it can its USB IN than many other transportable DACs we've seen up to now, and probably more than many desktop DACs, like my old MHDT Orchid.

Cheers, and thanks again for "educating" me.

I didn’t know you meant to ask this. They already do, an FPGA at the front of the chain as the D16 is exactly what it is doing. It is just that USB “can not” go straight to FPGA without the “oh, what should I do” chip. Unlike Coax and SPDIF

See this block

USB is called USB bridge , because USB has to go through it own interfaces first . Of course all of the correction and re-clocking is already done by DSP chip and FPGa master



What I have been saying all along is that USB is limited by it own self. Regardless of what you are doing, your Source from a PC or Phones will be the one that limited the performances.

There is only so much the FPGA in any proper DAC can do, and like I said, the more it filters out dirty stuff, the more info you loses. This is the reason why when compared to a clean signals and direct like Coax, there is a very obvious differences.

Previously, these problems were very elusive , and people like me usually get mocked off by being bat ears and so on. Now, you can witnessed it on the D16

 

[NehPets]

So what is an 8E PWM DAC? Is it just marketing speak for an 8-bit DAC (as in 'E' for ENOB), or is it something more exotic?