[Kazz123]

Certainly? How can you tell? The only way to find out is blind auditioning, which isn't something people normally do.

Whoops, wrong person quoted it seems.

 

[tomb]

Good point (and a great post right there).
Note that I did not say there's no difference, I'm only saying I can't hear any. And believe me, if there's a way to improve my system by spending a couple hundred bucks on a DAC, I'd happily do so. I'm at a point where (to the best of my knowledge) the only way I can improve my listening experience is buying headphones for at least $1500, if not more.

P. S. None of the DACs you're referring to are single-chip integrated solutions. For instance, PCM1794 has a current output (rather than voltage) so it needs an I/U stage, which is a simple way to screw it up with sup-par circuitry. They're also easy to screw up by poor power circuit, even just by poorly routed PCB, since they're designed to operate on USB power like 2704.
By the way, I have listened to PCM1794, too, among a couple other DACs I couldn't tell any difference between.

The SkeletonDAC is shown in that first graph. It is completely a single-chip integrated DAC based on something called the PCM2704. You may have heard about it.

Before that, I sold the BantamDAC for many years, which was a smaller version of the AlienDAC, pretty much one of the first DACs available for building on Head-Fi. Both of those were based on the PCM2702, which was replaced by the PCM2704/5/6/7 family - even though the PCM2704/5/6/7 had worse specs. However, it has a bit of a built-in headphone amplifier, which was more marketable than the PCM2702. It's also why the 2704/5/6/7 family is a little worse in SNR, I suspect.

They're all very low-performing DACs compared to most of what's available today. Just sayin' ...

 

[Alexium]

The SkeletonDAC is shown in that first graph. It is completely a single-chip integrated DAC based on something called the PCM2704.

Oh, I didn't realize. I guess whoever slaps a chip onto a PCB with 5 traces is free to invent a unique name for it

They're all very low-performing DACs compared to most of what's available today.

Measurably - sure. But in this thread we're only interested in audibility, right?

P. S. Seem like PCM2704 is delivering datasheet performance on that graph, or at least very close to it?..

 

[Malfunkt]

I am evaluating a Chord Hugo 2 at the moment, and it is audibly transparent. And so is the ODAC.

I wholeheartedly recommend the ODAC / O2 combo. It doesn't get in the way of enjoying my music. Want great quality, spend it on quality headphones, and listen to the best recorded music using high bit-rate, lossy or lossless. It's that simple - at least for me. For others, things get more complex, but not necessarily better.

 

[Music Alchemist]

I am evaluating a Chord Hugo 2 at the moment, and it is audibly transparent. And so is the ODAC.

I thought the JDS Labs OL DAC (improved version of ODAC) sounded underwhelming compared to Chord DACs, although it was the best-sounding DAC under $200 that I've owned.

 

[HBen]

there are basically only three things I actually learned on my (pretty extensive) headphone journey:
1) audio memory is a bitch. Its really short living and it all depends on your mood, time of the day, what you concentrate on etc.
2) There actually are (small) differences between different amps and DAC's but its mostly not really better or worse, just different and...
3) It all depends on synergy and preference. Some headphone/amp/DAC-combinations sound subjectively better for a certain type of music than others. Synergy matters much more than price.

Thats it.

Not very much for all the time and money invested.

I had a lot of fun and enjoy my favorite set ups immensly so I'm not complaining though

If you don't mind, share what you learned with us as well ^^

 

[buke9]

Get a Yggdrasil and you'll see things just a bit differently. IMHO.

 

[domsch1988]

Without having extensive experience i'm (with everything audio and "hi-fi") sceptical.
By definition any DAC that's decent should produce the exact same output. But that's only the DAC part. Output amp stages and such can change that a bit.
All Amps that are not specifically build to color the sound (tubes) should sound identical beyond a certain point.
Until i'm proven wrong (which i'd happily be), i'm on the same boat as i am with cables: Pay for construction, materials looks or brand if you like, but beyond the "10$ basement options" don't expect to pay money for massive sound improvements. I'm quite certain (not 100% though) that in a double blind ABX Test most people wouldn't be able to tell 200$ or 6000$ DAC/Amp Setups apart.
I know this might not be a popular opinion, but there is a reason most high end audio "afficionados" don't do blind tests, and if they do, results are inconclusive at best.

So, buy what you want really. Get what looks good to you and has the features you want. I just don't expect any big sonic improvements in spending that money. I rather invest in new Music. Much more fun than a new DAC

 

[Music Alchemist]

By definition any DAC that's decent should produce the exact same output.

Not true. It may be easy for even the cheapest of DACs to have a neutral frequency response, but DACs measure very differently in terms of timing accuracy, noise floor modulation, noise shaping, and distortion. Rob Watts' approach with Chord DACs addresses all of this in ways no other DAC manufacturer has achieved. Check out these posts for starters. You can look further into it if you like.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-344#post-12938860
http://www.head-fi.org/t/831345/chord-electronics-hugo-2-the-official-thread/1665#post_13342285

 

[domsch1988]

Not true. It may be easy for even the cheapest of DACs to have a neutral frequency response, but DACs measure very differently in terms of timing accuracy, noise floor modulation, noise shaping, and distortion. Rob Watts' approach with Chord DACs addresses all of this in ways no other DAC manufacturer has achieved. Check out these posts for starters. You can look further into it if you like.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/chord-electronics-dave.766517/page-344#post-12938860
http://www.head-fi.org/t/831345/chord-electronics-hugo-2-the-official-thread/1665#post_13342285

I'm not saying it isn't true, but, the Problem starts with the AD Conversion.
At some point the signal was analog (nowadays potentially only in the studio just at the microphone). After that it's digital up until we play it. Recorded into the PC, mixed, mastered on the PC, and published on CD, all digitally. The Digital Data describes the Analog Waveform. Any DAC's Job is to produce the Waveform that's described by the Digital Data. How this is done is pretty irrelevant really. Either you produce the desired output or you don't. There might be differences, but i doubt they are massive,
Differences can come from any Amplification done by the "DAC". But that's not the DAC part, that's the Amp part. Even if it's in the same housing and is only called a DAC.

I don't doubt that DAC's measure differently. I don't doubt that there are differences between DAC's (as in units, not Chips). I only doubt I could here them, or that they are big enough for me to care.

 

[Music Alchemist]

I'm not saying it isn't true, but, the Problem starts with the AD Conversion.
At some point the signal was analog (nowadays potentially only in the studio just at the microphone). After that it's digital up until we play it. Recorded into the PC, mixed, mastered on the PC, and published on CD, all digitally. The Digital Data describes the Analog Waveform. Any DAC's Job is to produce the Waveform that's described by the Digital Data. How this is done is pretty irrelevant really. Either you produce the desired output or you don't. There might be differences, but i doubt they are massive,
Differences can come from any Amplification done by the "DAC". But that's not the DAC part, that's the Amp part. Even if it's in the same housing and is only called a DAC.

I don't doubt that DAC's measure differently. I don't doubt that there are differences between DAC's (as in units, not Chips). I only doubt I could here them, or that they are big enough for me to care.

Again, not true. Please research these things instead of spreading misinformation. Or better yet, listen to DACs before claiming how they sound.

Rob Watts' philosophy is that a DAC's job is to get closer to reproducing the original analog waveform before it entered the ADC (not to merely reproduce the digital samples as they are), which requires advanced mathematics, filtering, and so on.

 

[domsch1988]

Again, not true. Please research these things instead of spreading misinformation. Or better yet, listen to DACs before claiming how they sound.

Rob Watts' philosophy is that a DAC's job is to get closer to reproducing the original analog waveform before it entered the ADC (not to merely reproduce the digital samples as they are), which requires advanced mathematics, filtering, and so on.

This would asume the ADC conversion was perfect.
IF the goal is to reproduce the Analog sound before the very first digital conversion, the only way to do this would be doing the exact conversion the studio did backwards. Since you can't now what ADC was used while recording, this is potentially unachievable. IF the difference between DAC's is as big as you claim, the differences between ADC's should be similarly big. That means the ADC used in recording would have the same amount of influence on the sound the DAC has. You would need a matched DAC for any album to come close to that goal

Also, i'm not spreading misinformation and i'm not claiming anything. I'm just stating an opinion. My opinion is, the best we can achieve (and what we should aim for) is to reproduce what the Mastering engineer heared while finalizing the song. This is the closest to the Artists "intentions" we can get (except maybe live albums). But really, we all do this so our music makes us happy. Buy what ever gear makes you happy while listening to great music.

 

[Music Alchemist]

This would asume the ADC conversion was perfect.
IF the goal is to reproduce the Analog sound before the very first digital conversion, the only way to do this would be doing the exact conversion the studio did backwards. Since you can't now what ADC was used while recording, this is potentially unachievable. IF the difference between DAC's is as big as you claim, the differences between ADC's should be similarly big. That means the ADC used in recording would have the same amount of influence on the sound the DAC has. You would need a matched DAC for any album to come close to that goal

Also, i'm not spreading misinformation and i'm not claiming anything. I'm just stating an opinion. My opinion is, the best we can achieve (and what we should aim for) is to reproduce what the Mastering engineer heared while finalizing the song. This is the closest to the Artists "intentions" we can get (except maybe live albums). But really, we all do this so our music makes us happy. Buy what ever gear makes you happy while listening to great music.

You claimed that how DACs do the digital to analog conversion is not relevant, which is far from the truth. Yes, it's going to be limited to the quality of the recording. But notice that I said closer to reproducing the original analog waveform. I never said anything about reproducing it perfectly, as that's impossible. Read Rob Watts' posts, starting with the ones I linked to. They go into great detail about how the way DACs convert matters, how most DACs have large timing errors and so on, how massively increasing the accuracy of his DAC designs (especially in terms of restoring the timing of transients) gets you closer to the original sound regardless of the recording and which electronics were used in the studio, etc. You can potentially do better than what the mastering engineer heard or what the artists (who are typically not very involved in the production process aside from performing) intended, because there is often more musical information in recordings than they realize, and using better gear than they had (especially when it comes to transducers) reveals this. (By the way, Chord will release a very advanced ADC in the future.)

 

[SilverEars]

I think there it's more of how headphones respond to the different sources. DACs generally measure flat so what accounts for the sound differences?

It's likely how the headphones react to the output of the source.

If you don't believe us, try out different sources with different types of output devices(iems,headphones,speakers). I don't think it's strictly the output impedances explain the different sounds, although significantly high output impedance does change the frequency response to create a noticible skewed sound.

IME, some sources do sound brighter than others. I do find certain chip based DACs sound different from other chip based ones. ESS for example can make headphones sound forward and highs more prominant.

If we want more accurate measutements, we need accurate headphone output measurements from different sources, and compare.

 

[Music Alchemist]

I think there it's more of how headphones respond to the different sources. DACs generally measure flat so what accounts for the sound differences?

It's likely how the headphones react to the output of the source.

If you don't believe us, try out different sources with different types of output devices(iems,headphones,speakers). I don't think it's strictly the output impedances explain the different sounds, although significantly high output impedance does change the frequency response to create a noticible skewed sound.

IME, some sources do sound brighter than others. I do find certain chip based DACs sound different from other chip based ones. ESS for example can make headphones sound forward and highs more prominant.

If we want more accurate measutements, we need accurate headphone output measurements from different sources, and compare.

I touched upon some of the aspects not related to frequency response in this post.

As for headphones, it's best to connect the DACs to the same external amp and make sure to volume match when comparing. (Same goes for passive speakers.)