Thoughts on a bunch of DACs (and why delta-sigma kinda sucks, just to get you to think about stuff)

[castleofargh]

 

How much of a difference can a transport make? I heard a difference between oppo 103 and a old sacd player to my nuforce dac-100 but thought I was just hearing things. Isn't it just relaying the 010101s?

 
A transport can make 30-60% of the sound of the DAC. Yes, it's relaying 01010101s, and in theory, it should only be jitter at the DAC chip digitial input pins which matters. But why does the Schiit Wyrd work magic when it shouldn't, even with $10,000 DACs? I've messed around with DAC internals to know that even the slightest changes make differences, e.g. change a regulator, different sound.
 
We can even consider USB to coax / i2s converters as "transports", just that they do not use CD but USB from a PC instead. Heck, even the type of computer makes a difference. Macbooks have a tendency to sound bad (digital glare) from USB, Mac desktops sound good, Windows machines have a certain sound, etc.
 
The Master 7 is highly dependent upon quality of transport and hence why I have a slight hesitancy to recommend it. Use a crappy or badly matching CD transport, and the potential of the Master 7 gets severely gimped.

come on mate, how about a little less caricature and exageration? some readers might believe such a post.
from a bad dac to a good dac there isn't 30-60% differences in the sound(in fact in a controlled level matched test most would sound exactly the same). hell an amp will not change the sound that much.
so unless your scale of sound goes up to a hundred thousand%, it would be nice to come up with something more realistic about a transport. I would have been ticked off with 1% as being largely unrealistic.
 
never mind, I didn't realize it was you purrin(I feel silly for responding to this post now). we've been living in parallel universes for some times now, and I don't feel confident at all about the laws of physic on your side.

 

[SearchOfSub]

Well, actually if you know about ps audio and its Native X vs. Native setting, you would know purrin is correct on some parts. Native X clean signal before entering the Dac, and many report huge difference when turned on.

How accurately the transport reads the disc and gets to the dac, the dac can then process whaever info is given.

So if the read skips 12345 out of 10, dac can only process 5 numbers. So, there is some truth to what purrin said.. i dont think 60%... more like 25- 30% max..

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk

 

[purrin]

^Purrin, would you say the Gugnir/Bifrost USB 2's have the best cost/performance ratio in this thread/your experience?

 
Wyrd + Modi for $200 is the best cost/performance DAC. I actually have one sitting on my desk.
 

I think Bryston bda-2 might do the trick for me.. Chord does sound nice but eveything is just lit up and with MY speakers which are NOT laid back at all... it can get fatiging..

Purrin.. have you heard the bryston bda 2?

Did you also say you preffered Hugo over PS Audio Directstream? Just wanted to clarify...

P.S - souprknowa said the same thing to me in pm telling me What about Hugo lol

 
Always have been interested in the BDA-2. AKM chip which is a good sign.
 
I preferred Hugo over PSA DSD on a specific headphone setup because I felt the Hugo had better overall tonality with the PSA DSD sounding too thin and lacking sub and low bass. The PSA DSD was superior to the Hugo in all many aspects - the PSA DSD was more refined sounding, less coarse, more liquid, less grainy, and more resolving than the Hugo. Overall tone matters a lot of me. Personally, I'm not a fan of either DAC.
 
soup tends to hear the same things as I do, so I can totally see his "What" expression regarding the Hugo. You may want to get opinions from other people who really like the Hugo.

 

[zachchen1996]

  so I can totally see his "What" expression regarding the Hugo. You may want to get opinions from other people who really like the Hugo.

 
Exactly how I felt when I first heard the hugo, and I thought mine was broken.

 

[purrin]

  come on mate, how about a little less caricature and exageration? some readers might believe such a post.
from a bad dac to a good dac there isn't 30-60% differences in the sound(in fact in a controlled level matched test most would sound exactly the same). hell an amp will not change the sound that much.
so unless your scale of sound goes up to a hundred thousand%, it would be nice to come up with something more realistic about a transport. I would have been ticked off with 1% as being largely unrealistic.

 
I would highly suggest that you actually try blind testing as I have done.
 
The fact that the Audio-GD M7 goes from #12 (below a Gungnir) from straight USB to #1 with the OR5 on the list should be an indication how much the transport matters. As I've said, and many others in the M7 thread, the M7 is extremely sensitive to transport.
 
Stack up 5-6 transports and do a blind test yourself as some friends and I have done. This is what you would do if you are truly interested in science. I was quite shocked myself how transports do actually have their own sound which gets carried over from DAC to DAC.
 
It's really not that unexpected given how small the differences are between some DACs in the first place.
 

never mind, I didn't realize it was you purrin(I feel silly for responding to this post now). we've been living in parallel universes for some times now

 
Yes, you live in the universe where science is perverted into religion, where hypotheses, in this case "transports do not matter", do not require testing and must be accepted as absolute truth.
 
And no, you don't feel silly at all. If you did, you wouldn't have done the intentional strike-out and then later state that you felt silly. You would have replaced everything with "deleted. nvm" instead. What you are doing is just a passive aggressive throw a booger at my face drive by.

 

[kothganesh]

Hi Purrin:
 
Reading your comments to castleofargh, am I inferring correctly that it would be better to play music out of the Mac mini than out of a Macbook Air ? I have both sitting on my desk and would love to hear from you on this. Thanks.

 

[purrin]

Definitely try it.
 
I've had good results with the USB from my Mac mini (an ancient model) - better than from my Sony VAIO laptop, which would have drop outs with the early USB of the Schiit DACs. With the Schiit DACs that you have, I didn't think the differences were huge. While you are at it, try a dual boot with Windows too on the Mac mini.

 

[kothganesh]

  Definitely try it.
 
I've had good results with the USB from my Mac mini (an ancient model) - better than from my Sony VAIO laptop, which would have drop outs with the early USB of the Schiit DACs. With the Schiit DACs that you have, I didn't think the differences were huge. While you are at it, try a dual boot with Windows too on the Mac mini.

Ok thanks a lot.

 

[castleofargh]

Well, actually if you know about ps audio and its Native X vs. Native setting, you would know purrin is correct on some parts. Native X clean signal before entering the Dac, and many report huge difference when turned on.

How accurately the transport reads the disc and gets to the dac, the dac can then process whaever info is given.

So if the read skips 12345 out of 10, dac can only process 5 numbers. So, there is some truth to what purrin said.. i dont think 60%... more like 25- 30% max..

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk

anything with that many errors would simply be defective. anything that ends up with a dac reading actual errors instead of the real signal with some matter of jitter should be dismissed as a non working audio system. that much is pretty obvious to me. we're not in 1980 anymore.
 

 

  come on mate, how about a little less caricature and exageration? some readers might believe such a post.
from a bad dac to a good dac there isn't 30-60% differences in the sound(in fact in a controlled level matched test most would sound exactly the same). hell an amp will not change the sound that much.
so unless your scale of sound goes up to a hundred thousand%, it would be nice to come up with something more realistic about a transport. I would have been ticked off with 1% as being largely unrealistic.

 
I would highly suggest that you actually try blind testing as I have done.
 
The fact that the Audio-GD M7 goes from #12 (below a Gungnir) from straight USB to #1 with the OR5 on the list should be an indication how much the transport matters. As I've said, and many others in the M7 thread, the M7 is extremely sensitive to transport.
 
Stack up 5-6 transports and do a blind test yourself as some friends and I have done. This is what you would do if you are truly interested in science. I was quite shocked myself how transports do actually have their own sound.
 
It's really not that unexpected given how small the differences are between some DACs in the first place.
 

never mind, I didn't realize it was you purrin(I feel silly for responding to this post now). we've been living in parallel universes for some times now

 
Yes, you live in the universe where science is religion, where hypotheses, in this case "transports do not matter" do not require testing and must be accepted as absolute truth.

blind testing? strange I don't remember reading much about matched volume levels and blind test on the first post. I happen to have 2 different models of audio switches right here and I realize that I never blind tested them.
 
what I read from your post is that the M7 has one crappy USB IN with compatibility issues. I don't really see why we should blame the transports for this, or what they have to do with it?
even arguing feels weird in that dimension.
 
anyway I would love to know half of what nwavguy knows, I'm not familiar with the second dude was he also banned for being right too loud about the wrong subject? 
if by "science is a religion" you mean that I believe in science, then yes, guilty as charge. science being a major contributor to the fact that we have music at home and the source of a few pro tips like "wash your hands will help you not die before reaching 35". yeah I'm a huge fan of music at home and not being dead.
but then again, I fail to see why an hypothesis wouldn't require testing. I guess you meant axiom
also you might be interested by the fact that the only domain of science dealing with absolute truth is math.

 

[boatheelmusic]

SearchofSub, why don't you try a PS Audio PWD II?  You can get a new one at Audiogon for maybe $1,800 now, a tremendous deal.

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Regarding laptops to desk tops. For the use of playing audio any portible CPU does not do audio good. It's not that it cannot be used but there is plenty to lose if you do. Shutting down all services espically anti virus and running on battery makes a big difrence . Using optical output does help but it is limited anyway so USB in most cases matters more .

Regarding how we make choices of what we like .
Our choices are actually made before we even listen as this is all about personnel preference and not really what is better . It's important for us to say this clearly . If we do not it becomes a holy grail of that persons choice .
We all hear different and I know some feel this is not true but choices we make prove it. A simple example is a mytek dac or a ak 120 or ak 240. Not all of them use sabre but all,of them are dull and and glaring if played loud to Me . but clearly not all feel this way. To many make claims for all,of us to read and this becomes law ,well there is no law but nice guide lines for us to follow.

Having a really high end source for reference matters plenty in making judgements . So listing what music is being used is mega important . The why is simple using ref cd tracks from low red book to high dsd shows the full realm of the products being reviewed. A simple case of this is the Hugo or psa DS dac. They both do PCM very well and it does improve with dsd . But while playing dsd it becomes apparent of the limitations of the dacs.

Given noise floor and just how well a dac can play low volume sounds at the noise floor matter plenty at this point.
Also how well the dac performs at high levels and maintaining staging from simple to complex music also shows how well a dac handles the full spectrum.

Regarding the M7 dac as reference well not for me at all. It's just way to varying in the above situations . The staging changes as well as the noise floor being way above the other dacs I just listed. Now I have dacs costing many times the price of the two I mentioned and if I use them as referance it's clear just how off the findings mentioned by purrin are. Now are they really off , well theres that choice that must be figured into this. But most do not consider it and they should

The how and why is simple it's that persons choice and this should be weighed in but does not. There is no be all end all reference but choices we have made already before we turned on the equipment.

Regarding the music we play this matters as well. Simple music always sounds better than complex does so when I read what a reviewer is using helps me understand the review. If the person uses just simple then it's a Waiste of time to read as dacs change during varying styles of music. Also if the music is Brite to begin with matters. This is why I have about thirty tracks I use to evaluate and device i play . The music runs the gamet of sounds , from simple to complex , from soft to loud and from PCM low to high as well as dsd both dsd 64 and 128.

I completely disagree with some of purrins statements but do feel he is wrong in his choices ? We must form our own in this and not what someone says with confidence . I have owned a few PC,s of devices of the years based on this and will not anymore follow what someone says. Lastly as i love to make claims of having super memory or hearing but I do not . I have read many studies that we do not have good sound memory as whole so not having stuff in front of you can lead to making statements makes no sense but we all do this anyway. I have in the past few weeks had the time to play with a about six dacs at length and with a few friends as well. The how and where matters plenty in this review process and having others comments does as well. This shows me my choices over others. And makes me feel better about the whole process. I have gone to many homes to listen to there home systems. It's amazing how different they all sound some were very dull or recessed . But yet these people love it just the way it is. And for me to suggest it's all wrong is just me making the choice for them , my choice not there's understand my point. It's not mine to make. . My top dog dac is a MSB stack consisting of a platinum plus with galaxy clock 2 with a diamond PSU . Also is a MSB UMT plus with a signature dual PSU. This is connected to a full caps unit.
This consisted of a MSI main board with PPA clock mod , I7 2.70 CPU . Two PPA SD drives one for server 2012 OS and the other music only. All batteries running all devices . Two bakoon,s and one redwine for main board. The PPA USB PCI x card as well. Now this gives a my reference to use against other dacs I own or test. This gives me the ability to make the choices I make and find them different from others who post. Again my choice and this does not make mine better than there's. But I'd like to say it's very different then above comments about ranking of dacs.

Hope this clears up my choices as opposed to others made here.

Al

 

[ALRAINBOW]

SearchofSub, why don't you try a PS Audio PWD II?  You can get a new one at Audiogon for maybe $1,800 now, a tremendous deal.

As I own both to get the best out of either dac required the off ramp. It's way to expensive for me to Recomend either of them. Although they do have some similarities but with headphones i preferred the M7 but with speakers the Pwd mkii with 244 firmware.

Al .

 

[boatheelmusic]

As I own both to get the best out of either dac required the off ramp. It's way to expensive for me to Recomend either of them. Although they do have some similarities but with headphones i preferred the M7 but with speakers the Pwd mkii with 244 firmware.

Al .

Thanks, Al - the 2.4.5 firmware fixes the mute and other switch issues of 2.4.4 and sounds as good or better, IMO.

 

[ALRAINBOW]

If you already own the dac try to borough a ap1/pp. It will make a big difrence in the dac .

 

[kazsud]

A transport can make 30-60% of the sound of the DAC. Yes, it's relaying 01010101s, and in theory, it should only be jitter at the DAC chip digitial input pins which matters. But why does the Schiit Wyrd work magic when it shouldn't, even with $10,000 DACs? I've messed around with DAC internals to know that even the slightest changes make differences, e.g. change a regulator, different sound.

We can even consider USB to coax / i2s converters as "transports", just that they do not use CD but USB from a PC instead. Heck, even the type of computer makes a difference. Macbooks have a tendency to sound bad (digital glare) from USB, Mac desktops sound good, Windows machines have a certain sound, etc.

The Master 7 is highly dependent upon quality of transport and hence why I have a slight hesitancy to recommend it. Use a crappy or badly matching CD transport, and the potential of the Master 7 gets severely gimped.

Thanks

I knew about osx sounding better than windows. I would hate hearing new music at work on my windows box w/ my dragon fly and w4r.