[hagenhays]

I "hear what your saying", ive heard this logic before....marketing by appearing aloof is genius marketing.
Understanding i need none of these fangled things....want vs need, i will settle on a cheaper budget item that i am already happy with the sound. I want something for 2 channel music for a more analog sound for my vintage marantz--in terms of streaming and flac. (Cds and vinyl sound great). My modi 2 works pretty well but im tired of moving it around--another modi 2 should work, and not break the bank. Chasing upgraditis for the sake of "audio nirvana" is prepostorous....buy music instead. Maybe i should just buy a $2k cd player.....joking haha!!
I love my vali by the way....dont see why people need more than that...sounds great.

 

[hagenhays]

Any recommendations on a decent blu ray player for digital out pass thru to dac?

 

[watchnerd]

buy music instead

 

 
How do I buy more music?
 
I'm being serious. I have a Tidal Hifi subscription which gets me unlimited lossless streaming for $19.99/month to 40 million tracks. I can't buy more than that.
 
Not to mention the archive of 50,000 tracks already sitting on my NAS, playable via Roon.
 
(I guess I could buy more vinyl, but I don't have the space for that...)

 

[460414]

Can anyone here contribute to this?
http://www.head-fi.org/t/825898/best-measuring-r2r-dac 

 

[Baldr]

Check the atomicbob threads on this forum

 

[hagenhays]

I would like to clarify my earlier comment/rant...given the fact there arent audio stores anymore (at least ive never seen one) i think its a breath if fresh air to not have to deal with sales tactics or watch for sale prices. SCHIIT is very honest, you know what your going to get and if you do want to upgrade..you know it should squeeze more detail out of your setup.

Im hoping to pull the trigger soon.
I dont have balanced outputs so im thinking bifrost is probably my upper threshold, since i love my amp.

 

[Traveller]

...given the fact there arent audio stores anymore (at least ive never seen one)...

Maybe not in your neck of the woods...
 

 

[460414]

In scientific applications where accuracy etc is required and the frequency is comparable to that of audio dacs (~192khz max, normaly 44.1khz), delta sigma is a far better choice. With high frequency frequencies, well beyond that of audio (eg multiple mega hz), multibit starts to quickly become a better choice.
 
Not sure where this "delta sigma throws away all the bits etc etc" argument comes from. As most of you know sigma delta works in a very different way with only 1 bit instead at a high clock sped... But the end results is identical to that of a multibit dac, except with lower distortion (good chip vs good chip). Unless you want a high number of bits, eg 21 bits vs say ~19 bits, then multibit is better. But then.. Can you tell the difference between 19 (524,288 combinations) and 21  bits (2,097,152)? Suppose the recording is actually a true 21 bit recording. (not to mentions the noise floor interfering with the accuracy at 21 bits with a 21 bit dac) Here is a test of 8 (256 combinations) vs 16 (65,536) bits: http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit_NeilYoung.php or http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit.php granted the recording is horrible, but still. That's a tiny *256* vs 65,536.

 

[watchnerd]

 
Here is a test of 8 (256 combinations) vs 16 (65,536) bits: http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit_NeilYoung.php or http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit.php granted the recording is horrible, but still. That's a tiny *256* vs 65,536.

 
I completely flunked that listening test, doing no better than random chance.

 

[OddE]

  I completely flunked that listening test, doing no better than random chance.

 
-That makes two of us. Granted, the source material is not very suitable to detect bit depth differences in the first place - but then again, surprisingly few recordings are, which kind of is the point that webpage stresses.
 
 

 

[KeithEmo]

The answer to your question is pretty simple.....
 
In this day and age we can put millions of transistors on a piece of silicon a few millimeters square.
There are benefits that can be gained by using nice big separate parts....
And there are other benefits to using tiny little parts, close together, and mounted on the same substrate....
So, in and of itself, whether your circuit is the size of a building, or of a speck of dust, doesn't necessarily suggest whether it will sound better.
Sometimes a designer will use separate parts for a specific reason; sometimes it's just a matter of not being able to buy one chip that does all of what they need.
And, of course, sometimes there's a little chip that does EXACTLY what you need

 
Quote:

If i had $1000 laying around i would. Im currently using their "lo-end" modi which to my ears sounds fine....its filtering pandora and cds. I also have my cds flac ripped. Schiit is pretty reputable and steering people to higher flagship pieces isnt their thing....i will probably get the bifrost4490.

...it was so much eaiser when you could go to an audio store. I miss those days. If anyone has impressions of the 4490 that would be great. I dont understand how if the multibit analog stage is on a smaller piece of board how it can sound better than a fully discrete supply (bifristmb vs s/d) That is where im lost.

 

[KeithEmo]

But "considered" is a very dangerous and misleading word.....
 
Discrete components have certain advantages.....
And integrated circuits have OTHER distinct advantages.....
And, in a given circuit, either may prove to be more important.
 
One of the biggest "advantages" of discrete components is that it's a lot easier to convince people that your fancy complicated circuit, with all those transistors, sounds different than the other guy's equally complicated circuit, with just as many, than it is to convince people that your preamp, which has three parts, including a standard $5 op amp, really sounds a lot different than the other guy's preamp, constructed of the same three parts, and the same standard $5 op amp.
 
By and large, you can make a really good sounding piece of equipment (or a really bad sounding one) using discrete components or integrated circuits, so it's rather foolish to generalize that either is "better".  
Quote:

   
All things being equal, discrete is usually considered better.  So from that point of view, one could argue that the analog stage of the Bifrost 4490 is superior to that of the Bifrost MB.
 
But the multi-bit believers presumably feel that the benefits of MB (or at least the DSP filter used in Schiit's MB products) trumps that difference.
 
 
(BTW, the Jotunheim DAC implementation is arguably superior to the Bifrost 4490 in that it is fully balanced and uses 2 x 4490).

 

[Ruben123]

Could anyone summarise this topic? Do two different DACs with flat fr differ any bit?

 

[KeithEmo]

Easy summary......
 
Frequency response, noise, and distortion are NOT the ONLY specs that define how something sounds.
Another way in which DACs differ is "time response" or "transient response" (which has to do with "ringing" and how their digital filters work).
In non technical terms, those other specs all concern steady state sine wave response.
Time response has to do with how the device reproduces a transient (a sound that is short and sharp or doesn't repeat).
Different types of DACs differ significantly in this regard, and you can easily see the differences on an oscilloscope picture.
HOWEVER, because of the nature of those differences, there's a lively debate as to whether they're AUDIBLE or not.
 
Depending on your speakers, and your source content, most people (but not all) seem to agree that, on a DAC that offers multiple filters to choose from, switching between filters produces a subtle but noticeable change in sound. (To me, on a high-res recording that includes well recorded wire brush cymbals, the cymbals sound more "natural" or more like "metal on metal" with one filter than with another. Try the 24/192k HDTracks version of the Eagles Hotel California album.) Some people claim to not hear any difference, and others insist that, based on the numbers, there cannot possibly be an audible difference to hear. I only notice it on certain content material, and with certain speakers or headphones. Note that we're talking about a very subtle difference that, even if you do notice it, you may not find at all important.
 
Some people claim to notice this sort of difference between R2R DACs and D-S DACs. My personal suspicion is that they're hearing differences in the digital filter which aren't strictly due to whether it's an R2R or a D-S DAC. (The filter is actually a separate thing from the topology.)
 
NOTE that many R2R DACs are ALSO non-oversampling, which produces noticeable audible differences for other reasons.
(However, DACs like the Schiit Yggdrasil, which gets a lot of mention in this thread, is actually R2R, and uses its own custom filter, but is NOT a non-oversampling DAC.)
 
Quote:

Could anyone summarise this topic? Do two different DACs with flat fr differ any bit?

 

[sonitus mirus]

 

Easy summary......
 
Frequency response, noise, and distortion are NOT the ONLY specs that define how something sounds.
Another way in which DACs differ is "time response" or "transient response" (which has to do with "ringing" and how their digital filters work).
In non technical terms, those other specs all concern steady state sine wave response.
Time response has to do with how the device reproduces a transient (a sound that is short and sharp or doesn't repeat).
Different types of DACs differ significantly in this regard, and you can easily see the differences on an oscilloscope picture.
HOWEVER, because of the nature of those differences, there's a lively debate as to whether they're AUDIBLE or not.
 
Depending on your speakers, and your source content, most people (but not all) seem to agree that, on a DAC that offers multiple filters to choose from, switching between filters produces a subtle but noticeable change in sound. (To me, on a high-res recording that includes well recorded wire brush cymbals, the cymbals sound more "natural" or more like "metal on metal" with one filter than with another. Try the 24/192k HDTracks version of the Eagles Hotel California album.) Some people claim to not hear any difference, and others insist that, based on the numbers, there cannot possibly be an audible difference to hear. I only notice it on certain content material, and with certain speakers or headphones. Note that we're talking about a very subtle difference that, even if you do notice it, you may not find at all important.
 
Some people claim to notice this sort of difference between R2R DACs and D-S DACs. My personal suspicion is that they're hearing differences in the digital filter which aren't strictly due to whether it's an R2R or a D-S DAC. (The filter is actually a separate thing from the topology.)
 
NOTE that many R2R DACs are ALSO non-oversampling, which produces noticeable audible differences for other reasons.
(However, DACs like the Schiit Yggdrasil, which gets a lot of mention in this thread, is actually R2R, and uses its own custom filter, but is NOT a non-oversampling DAC.)

 
That was a wonderful synopsis and as fair as I've read on the topic under discussion.  Though, it should be noted exactly how you go about noticing these subtle differences in filters.  Is there a high probability that what you seem to be noticing is actually nothing more than sighted bias?  Also, for those filter changes, could some of these actually be altering the sound significantly enough to show a measurable difference that many would consider to be audible?