[JaMo]

Hi all,

I think it is sad for whatever reason or objectives these informations are spread. If I as an engineer find these lousy measurrements along with a bad sonic result, I should definately take contact to the company or designer to make them/him/her aware. But this is if I want to help out with a faulty product and ensure that the company can correct if wrong.

The sad thing here is that a bunch questionalable measurements and the setup of it comes up with really aggressive distorison are spred around. A few of the worst I've seen really... It's fishy. ...Or the gear measured must be faulty.

I have a long history of buying and listening to Audio-gd's gears of almost every pricelevel but have never had those problems with any.

So, back to the sad part.... The only reason I can see why anyone should spread these bad measurments around the audio-communities is to bash the company instead of helping them, in this case Audio-gd.

The forums are very important channels for companies like Audio-gd and their selling. You know that, I am sure. And that's what hurts the most.

You want to miscredit instead of helping out. Maybe to boost Your ego, I don't know. Please change that. Use Your skills to help out instead.

Thanks
/Jan

(...right now enjoying my R2R-7 after approx 4 months of burn in... It really has been "taking off" now. Wow!)

 

[Wynnytsky]

Use Your skills to help out instead.

I can relate to that

@amirm
can you teach me to measure my DAC? I'd like to share mine as well, and my friend's (now w're measuring manhood)

 

[FredA]

Hi all,

I think it is sad for whatever reason or objectives these informations are spread. If I as an engineer find these lousy measurrements along with a bad sonic result, I should definately take contact to the company or designer to make them/him/her aware. But this is if I want to help out with a faulty product and ensure that the company can correct if wrong.

The sad thing here is that a bunch questionalable measurements and the setup of it comes up with really aggressive distorison are spred around. A few of the worst I've seen really... It's fishy. ...Or the gear measured must be faulty.

I have a long history of buying and listening to Audio-gd's gears of almost every pricelevel but have never had those problems with any.

So, back to the sad part.... The only reason I can see why anyone should spread these bad measurments around the audio-communities is to bash the company instead of helping them, in this case Audio-gd.

The forums are very important channels for companies like Audio-gd and their selling. You know that, I am sure. And that's what hurts the most.

You want to miscredit instead of helping out. Maybe to boost Your ego, I don't know. Please change that. Use Your skills to help out instead.

Thanks
/Jan

(...right now enjoying my R2R-7 after approx 4 months of burn in... It really has been "taking off" now. Wow!)

The r2r 7 has an incrediblly long burn-in period. Probably the resistors in the ladder needing to stabilize. Well worth the wait for me too. I don't regret selling my master-7, even though i still think it's a splendid dac when used with a great ddc through the i2s in, and still a very good one through the bnc. My friend really enjoys it now he has upgraded all his cables.

 

[Asgo]

Burn-in can be done just letting the unit powered on ? Or do we have to play off music ?
I didn't receive yet my I2S card so I was asking this to myself.

I noticed that the R2R-7 was heating up a lot (3 PSU inside the unit).

 

[FredA]

Burn-in can be done just letting the unit powered on ? Or do we have to play off music ?
I didn't receive yet my I2S card so I was asking this to myself.

I noticed that the R2R-7 was heating up a lot (3 PSU inside the unit).

You have to play music.

The heat is normal as all regulators and output stages are class-A. You can expect 45W of dissipation. This is like a small light bulb.

 

[Chopin75]

The r2r 7 is not the richest sounding as far as mids (meaning the quantity, as the mids are expressive and rich in information), it sound rather flat, clean, liquid and resolved, with great soundstaging, and more analytical then the old Master-7 but in a good way. But it combines very well with nfb-1amp which is little lush. Consider the Denafrips Terminator. The R2R 7 HE is supposed to bring some more substance to the party according to feedback on french forums.

Sorry, could you clarify this? How could being flat also can have great sound stage? To me flat means, very 2D sound and so the sound stage would be flat with no depth. Does it mean that the R2R7 is kind of dry and clinical, and lack warmth?

 

[baiyy1986]

I like all these measurements.
But the fact that I have some DAC which is measured so good on paper does not sound good to me.
To be honest I perfect r2rs than delta-sigmas even they perform badly on paper.
I appreciate those people devoted themselves to unbias measurement.
But if the measurement is good, but people don't like the sound, it must mean something.
I am not EE but I am a data guy, I deal with all kinds of different data. I believe enough data can represent the whole picture. but you really need more data to support it.
If this data can't support the real model of your test. The data is not versatile enough.
Which means if current data can't represent the original item itself. We need to add more attribute to the data to support the model.
In other words, is anyone think of add other factors to these measurements?

 

[FredA]

Sorry, could you clarify this? How could being flat also can have great sound stage? To me flat means, very 2D sound and so the sound stage would be flat with no depth. Does it mean that the R2R7 is kind of dry and clinical, and lack warmth?

This means it's not euphonic. Rich mids but not accentuated. Flat in the sense it has a flat tonality, with maybe a touch of brightness. This is not incompatible with great soundstaging. Soundstaging has to to with an accurate rendition of the highs which the r2r7 has.

 

[DACLadder]

My last comment (about this). Something seems not right with the field measurement comparison. The noise floor is higher as well as AC power spikes (120Hz., 180Hz, ....). The measurement comparison seems exaggerated on the vertical scale.

Apples and oranges... Did Audio GD supply measurement of the DAC analog (XLR) output versus headphone output? With that said -40dB first odd harmonic measurement translates to 1% distortion. Make sure the headphone output is loaded properly and not over driven. You should really measure power instead of voltage on any power amplifier i.e. 1 watt into ? ohm load.

 

[amirm]

@amirm
can you teach me to measure my DAC? I'd like to share mine as well, and my friend's (now w're measuring manhood)

Teaching you is the easy part. The hard part is getting on forums and defending them.

Seriously, you can evaluate your DAC using two methods:

1. Buy a high-quality ADC and measure it using some third-party software. This can cost you as little as a few hundred dollars. Problem with it is that the results are not transportable easily since you used an ADC which may have its own issues and at any rate, it is not a known quantity to other people. I have purchased an RME ADI-2 Pro to hopefully use for this purpose to augment my testing with dedicated hardware (sometimes it is just good to capture the bits for further analysis in software). Testing and comparisons to my Audio Precision to come in the future.

2. Buy a professional measuring system that includes hardware and software. The king of this field is the Audio Precision that I use. Unfortunately they cheapest box they make is $7,000 and it doesn't have as good as the specs you need for best in class measurements. For that, they happily sell you their $28,000 box which Jude on this forum has for example. They have other competitors like Prism Sound which make $6,000 or so box but again, doesn't have the best in class specs. There is also Rhode and Schwartz which is expensive and hard to use so don't think about going there.

There are more reasonably priced gear like Quantum Asylum's Q400 series. I think this retails for about $400. It is a turnkey system so works. But again, has the problems of #1 to some extent and its specs while good, can't rival the best of the equipment in #2. It is the best starter choice in my opinion though. There are people on ASR Forum who have bought it and are experimenting with it. The hope is that we can calibrate them against my Audio Precision so that the results can be more or less interchangeable.

Note that you need to have good understanding of audio, and to some extent electrical engineering to use such measurement gear. As otherwise, it is infinitely easy to use/set the wrong parameters and just get data that doesn't show what you think it is showing. I say the learning curve is a few months of using the gear, experimenting, reading, asking questions, etc.

So unfortunately there is no cheap and easy method to do it yourself. If you just want one piece of gear measured and it is a popular item, reach out to me and I can do it. There is no expense to you other than shipping cost which for DACs if you are in US, is not much. I usually pay for the return postage. By publishing the results then everyone benefits for the few dollars incurred in shipping expenses.

 

[amirm]

But if the measurement is good, but people don't like the sound, it must mean something.

People say all kinds of things. There are plenty of people say that Audio-gd is no good and I am sure there are people in this thread that say it is great. Which statement do we take as gospel to contrast against the measurements?

 

[amirm]

A few of the worst I've seen really... It's fishy. ...Or the gear measured must be faulty.

Why? The description for product gives clear reason for why the measurements would show such "faulty" outcomes:

What is feedback? Here is the Wiki:

Remove it and you get all the problems mentioned. Solid state devices simply are NOT linear. That means they generate distortion by definition.

Here is a typical transfer function of a transistor (relationship from input to output):

As you see, the graph is exponential. Yes to the eye it seems that it kind of, sort of, can be straight. But that doesn't get you -110 dB harmonic distortion level. It gives you what I measured.

Feedback is one of the greatest inventions of last century. Without it, vast amount of electronics in your life will stop working. Yes, it is fashionable to remove it from some audio products. Maybe that makes them sound better. Maybe not. But what it will guarantee to do is create lots of measurable distortion.

So let's not badmouth the measurements because they don't feel right to our gut. They are following rules of how electronics work.

Now, my measurements could be in error and I am happy to be corrected. But not with just lay intuition.

 

[amirm]

I am worried about making enemies out of you guys which is not my intention. I am going to bail out of the thread for that reason. If you have questions about my work, feel free to send me a private message and I am happy to address it. My apologies for barging into your conversations.

 

[baiyy1986]

People say all kinds of things. There are plenty of people say that Audio-gd is no good and I am sure there are people in this thread that say it is great. Which statement do we take as gospel to contrast against the measurements?

I didn’t mention a word about audio gd,just asking wether the data is fully reprent the product. If so many people prefer the sound of r2r,will there be some hidden factor we didn’t add to the measurement?
The society is improving, it is 2018 now.
Also people mention about the consistency of the meanturement, which tend to give different measurement result.
Again I didn’t mention a word about the brand, I care about measurements but I also trust my feeling, I don’t want to become world policy but I don’t care there is one more.

 

[FredA]

Why? The description for product gives clear reason for why the measurements would show such "faulty" outcomes:


What is feedback? Here is the Wiki:



Remove it and you get all the problems mentioned. Solid state devices simply are NOT linear. That means they generate distortion by definition.

Here is a typical transfer function of a transistor (relationship from input to output):

As you see, the graph is exponential. Yes to the eye it seems that it kind of, sort of, can be straight. But that doesn't get you -110 dB harmonic distortion level. It gives you what I measured.

Feedback is one of the greatest inventions of last century. Without it, vast amount of electronics in your life will stop working. Yes, it is fashionable to remove it from some audio products. Maybe that makes them sound better. Maybe not. But what it will guarantee to do is create lots of measurable distortion.

So let's not badmouth the measurements because they don't feel right to our gut. They are following rules of how electronics work.

Now, my measurements could be in error and I am happy to be corrected. But not with just lay intuition.

This curve is rather irrelevant. Biased under proper voltage, a transistor provides a linear current gain. Electronics 101. If you are nwavguy, you should certainly know this.

Feedback is used to compensate for a load that changes with frequency contents. Just my 2 cents. I am not a practicing EE. I work as a software engineer/researcher. But this is basic knowledge.