[James-uk]

Put your hand over your mouth and try to sing. That's what the ODAC sounds like. The Modi, as well.

Oh yeah. You are right. Sounds amazing! Like I'm hearing myself sing with my hand over my mouth perfectly reproduced !

 

[i luvmusic 2]

   she is a Staffordshire bull terrier. Smilar to American pit bull ie soft as crap , friendly , beautiful bread that just wants to love us stupid humans!

 

 

[mikoss]

I will agree that the differences between most of the < $1000 DACs is minimal. Most of them are using a chip/chips that cost $10-$20. The filtering and analog stages can be very good, but the chip is not accurate enough to actually present the sound like some of the more expensive ones. Oversampling and/or using a delta sigma chip is cheap, but the change in accuracy compared to the other DACs can be heard. It's easy to live in bliss with a cheap DAC until you hear why the expensive ones are so expensive.

I also feel like saying something that bothers me just because... I feel like some people buy the ODAC believing that specs can explain how something will sound. Also people who argue that all amplifiers with the same specs will sound the same. Anyway that's a big off topic post but just my thoughts on the topic of DACs specifically.

 

[Shaffer]

Oh yeah. You are right. Sounds amazing! Like I'm hearing myself sing with my hand over my mouth perfectly reproduced !

What?

 

[DDDamian]

I will agree that the differences between most of the < $1000 DACs is minimal. Most of them are using a chip/chips that cost $10-$20. The filtering and analog stages can be very good, but the chip is not accurate enough to actually present the sound like some of the more expensive ones. Oversampling and/or using a delta sigma chip is cheap, but the change in accuracy compared to the other DACs can be heard. It's easy to live in bliss with a cheap DAC until you hear why the expensive ones are so expensive.

I also feel like saying something that bothers me just because... I feel like some people buy the ODAC believing that specs can explain how something will sound. Also people who argue that all amplifiers with the same specs will sound the same. Anyway that's a big off topic post but just my thoughts on the topic of DACs specifically.

Agree - most DAC's use the same few chips. The implementation of those can change the sound quite a bit, and is far from transparent. It's like the saying how the perfect amp is a wire with gain. So why are they all so different?

 

[coastal1]

Thanks, looks like a great deal. Price aside, does anyone prefer the Dark Voice 336se over the Crack (or consider it equal) when paired w/ the HD 650?

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/dark-voice-366se

 

[mikoss]

It's like the saying how the perfect amp is a wire with gain. So why are they all so different?

I personally believe it has to do with the fact that the drivers in headphones are not purely resistive devices. Their impedance changes throughout their FR... Some amps just pair better with different gear than others.

 

[Kodhifi]

Some confusion exists because of the way we use words like DAC.
 
DAC - Digital to analog converter.
 
In reality - a DAC chipset, a USB, toslink, or spdif chipset, a power supply, an analog output stage.
 
DAC chipset - The system on a chip which does all of the decoding of a digital stream and conversion to an analog stream. This includes DAC logic, buffers, filters, and in some cases amplifiers. Most DAC chipsets accept an incoming 24bit 192khz stream and convert it into 2 channels of L/R audio. Inexpensive DAC support multiple bit and sampling rates, by reconverting the signal back to 24/192 before rendering it as an analog output. This results in dithering artifacts and an increase in noise which is usually filtered internally (oversampling) before being output as the analog signal. Higher end DAC chips are able to multiclock and so the chip changes it's clock signal for different sampling rates, ridding it of any dithering artifacts and a more accurate representation of the digital waveform. Because having multiple stable clocks is absolutely necessary to prevent jitter, these DAC's can be very expensive. In the pro-audio world this can be somewhat alleviated with interfaces where the clock/sync signal is sent along with the bitstream, allowing bit perfect playback, but in the consumer world including audiophile, this is seldom seen and so most DAC's are self clocked.  Individual chipsets have different specifications for SNR, noise floor, dynamic range, operating voltage, and supported digital stream types. Most modern DAC chipsets are built around DVD, blu-ray, and other formats with the exception of DSD DAC's which are used in SACD applications and work very differently than a normal DAC. That's a whole other story though.
 
USB, toslink, or spdif chipset - These handle the digital input and recreate the digital stream to feed into the DAC. They have little to no affect on audio quality but can have a big impact on compatibility. Whether your USB DAC requires specialized drivers or not, whether it supports WASAPI push or event mode, synchronous USB or asynchronous, and whether the toslink or spdif support high sampling rates, all depends on these chipsets. For recording studio use it's preferable to have chipsets that support ASIO and have low latency operation. For audiophile use this is less important.  Poor USB interfaces may also cause clicks and pops due to USB communication issues.
 
Power supply - Whether it's using a DC to DC converter to power off of USB, or using a wallwart the power supply and how isolated it is from the rest of the DAC can affect things like computer noise, ground loop hum, etc. In general it doesn't matter whether the device runs on plug in power, or USB, so long as the power supply is isolated from the rest of the circuit, is stable, and doesn't introduce noise.
 
The analog stage - This is where the very low level output of the DAC chipset gets amplified to XLR, RCA, or other line level output. The analog input is amplified and a low pass filter may be used to further reject high frequency noise from the DAC. The analog output stage can sweeten a sound, stifle it, or be neutral. When people talk about a DAC sounding good or bad, it is usually this stage that is responsible for that. You can have the greatest DAC chipset money can buy but if the analog stage kills the dynamic range, rolls off the highs and lows, and changes the phase of the two signals, it's going to sound like rubbish.

 

[Solrighal]

It's easy to live in bliss with a cheap DAC until you hear why the expensive ones are so expensive.

 

 
Why are expensive DAC's so expensive?
 
I preferred when you were all talking about dogs to be honest. We have three. Two Cairn Terriers & one Skye Terrier. Here's the Skye.
 
Meet Murdo..
 

 

[Kodhifi]

   
Why are expensive DAC's so expensive?
 
I preferred when you were all talking about dogs to be honest. We have three. Two Cairn Terriers & one Skye Terrier. Here's the Skye.
 
Meet Murdo..
 

Clocking. Cheap DAC's < $1000 usually support a single bit depth and sampling rate, 24/192khz and any other formats get upconverted back to 24/192. This conversion can lead to noise and doesn't result in bit perfect playback.
 
Expensive DAC's will have highly accurate internal clocking sources and they can run at several different clock rates to directly support multiple sampling rates without needing to convert them. Because of the need for an absolutely stable clock, operating at multiple rates, they can get very expensive.
 
Most of the conversion artifacts in cheaper DAC's are in the area above 20khz and so are nearly inaudible but some people say or believe they can tell the difference.
 
 
If I might make an analogy, in the professional audio world you often have the clock sent as it's own signal, separate from the bitstream, so this isn't a problem. Kind of like the old VGA connectors, they sent RGB signals but also horizontal and vertical sync signals. Since for audio, there is no separate sync cable, they must mux the clock signal with audio signal and then find a way to demux it on the other end. Kind of like component video, which could do nearly the same resolution as a VGA signal, but the sync signals were muxed into the video signal.
 
The really expensive DAC's simply dispense with the conversion problems and re-create the bitstream, clocking and all, from their own internal clocks from scratch.

 

[Solrighal]

 
Clocking. Cheap DAC's < $1000 usually support a single bit depth and sampling rate, 24/192khz and any other formats get upconverted back to 24/192. This conversion can lead to noise and doesn't result in bit perfect playback.
 
Expensive DAC's will have highly accurate internal clocking sources and they can run at several different clock rates to directly support multiple sampling rates without needing to convert them. Because of the need for an absolutely stable clock, operating at multiple rates, they can get very expensive.
 
Most of the conversion artifacts in cheaper DAC's are in the area above 20khz and so are nearly inaudible but some people say or believe they can tell the difference.

 
But I thought it was the analogue section within a DAC that made the difference?

 

[mikoss]

 
Most of the conversion artifacts in cheaper DAC's are in the area above 20khz and so are nearly inaudible but some people say or believe they can tell the difference.

This for sure... the treble is the area that I think most less expensive DACs have major trouble with. If people are still able to categorize different chips by a characteristic sound, there are definitely issues with the chips themselves, regardless of implementation.
 
Also, I really hope someday soon Sennheiser releases another headphone like the HD-650. Definitely not that closed back variable bass thing they slapped with a 600 series label. Blasphemy!!

 

[joebobbilly]

Perhaps it would be more prudent to move this DAC discussion to the various threads dedicated to it or to the sound science forum.

 

[Kodhifi]

   
But I thought it was the analogue section within a DAC that made the difference?

Say that you have 2 DAC devices both based on the same chipset like the AKM4399. But they are made by two different companies, each with their own custom designed analog section. One might sound 'better' to some people than the other even though the DAC chipset is the same. This is the analog section that makes one sound slightly different.
 
That is a good way of thinking of DAC's in the same price range, although some will have better spec DAC chipsets than others.
 
But the really expensive DAC's that re-clock the bitstream will sound different at the chipset level as well as the analog output level because they aren't converting one format like 24/44.1 to another like 24/192, they simply clock the DAC at 44.1 with no conversion. Where as a cheaper DAC mathmatically upsamples the 44.1 to 192khz because 192 is the only sampling rate the DAC natively supports. Oh it might say it supports any sampling rate from 32 to 192, but supporting via conversion, and supporting natively are two different things.

 

[Solrighal]

I did that online hearing test thingy & it turns out my ears top out at 15KHz. Plus, I use a valve amp so there's no point in an expensive DAC for me. Nice one, more money for beer