[gimmeheadroom]

LOL 2 channel... I am not into home theatre so 2 channel is all there is for me

Thanks guys

 

[Koei]

The headphones on the market are typically coloured with a lot of sound signature from brand to brand.

Dacs are all over the map as well. The preference of each person varies from brand to brand.

Transparency and resolution plays a major role in the system as well the DAC itself.

Just recently using the built in DAC in my Parasound P6 preamp is quite refined without digititus even using the cheap was Sabre chip. I’m rather shocked to be honest. For organic realism the space tech local built DAC is amazing without mushy vacuum tube bloom.

People must test to hear what they like.

Preference only varies in the second category, all dacs in the first category sound the same. Knowing Parasound they probably also fall into the first category. Its funny how you degrade the ESS chip based on costs, because very few implementations even come close to a reference implemenation using that "budget" chip. A good implementation of a "budget" chip beats any bad implementation of a higher end chip. Unless you like the colouring added of course

 

[AlanU]

Preference only varies in the second category, all dacs in the first category sound the same. Knowing Parasound they probably also fall into the first category. Its funny how you degrade the ESS chip based on costs, because very few implementations even come close to a reference implemenation using that "budget" chip. A good implementation of a "budget" chip beats any bad implementation of a higher end chip. Unless you like the colouring added of course

I think many dacs will sound similar to an extent. But many still have a spin on things.

Test a resonessencelabs Concero HD. If you want ear bleeding sound with a totally artificial air surrounding the instruments, massive fake sound stage with extreme hyper detail.....have fun!! Match that with a HD800 or HD800S and you'll feel pins puncturing your eardrums. Sabre chipset found in that dac.

Project Dac S2+ has lean mids and far from musical while the Mytek Brooklyn and + had a much more refined sound with a tad more meat. Adding the linear 12v+ actually changes the game for the Mytek. Testing my Parasound internal dac with your run of the mill ESS Sabre32 Reference DAC (ES9018K2M) Sound like it gravitates closer to an analog sound while using a Furutech FP-S032N terminated with Furutech FI-28 gold plug ends or 3ts20 cord. I cannot even remotely get close the SQ of my Parasound internal dac even when I compare it with my Astron linear 12+V power supply with my Mytek Liberty (same dac as the older Brooklyn). The Parasound sounds much better than my dac found in my Burson Virtuoso with Burr Brown PCM1793. I actually prefer my Mytek Liberty running off of a lithium battery over the Burr Brown or RME ADI-2 sound. Goes to show tweaking is always a fun alternative to attempt to change SQ.

I do find it most interesting how every headphone on the market has a different character that really causes a massive difference. This is where synergy or matching of components is just as crucial in headphone land as in the hifi stereo world.

I'll admit I like to add colour with the harmonics from vacuum tubes. With 2 channel hifi stereo you can really hear the difference if you own a transparent system. There's a difference between feeling the rhythm and pace/ toe tapping experience or a flat boring sound.

One must experiment and NOT rely on reviews....

 

[Koei]

I'm curious if you know the design principes employed by the creators of your DACs? I've done some comparison and only the ones where the creator is known for having a sound signature sound different. All DACs I tried that were made by companies with the goal to represent the information present as accurately as possible sound the same. To be fair I only compared the Benchmark, RME, Topping and SMSL to Schiit Multibit, some Muse 4x1543 NOS cheapo dac and a Vincent one with a tube stage. Maybe my system is not transparent enough because I'm only running a $2000 amplifier with $3500 speakers.

 

[AlanU]

I'm curious if you know the design principes employed by the creators of your DACs? I've done some comparison and only the ones where the creator is known for having a sound signature sound different. All DACs I tried that were made by companies with the goal to represent the information present as accurately as possible sound the same. To be fair I only compared the Benchmark, RME, Topping and SMSL to Schiit Multibit, some Muse 4x1543 NOS cheapo dac and a Vincent one with a tube stage. Maybe my system is not transparent enough because I'm only running a $2000 amplifier with $3500 speakers.

I think the ultimate goal is to achieve "personal musical nirvana" based on one's personal ears and budget.

Just had a conversation with one of my friends. He read an article from UHF and how it mentions how the highly regarded Berkley DAC most touted for one of the "best of the best" is DREADFUL. Mentioned how the designer does NOT know what live music sounds with insane hyper detail. 6 Grand DAC that does NOT sound like music.

The Concero HD is one dac I purchased for fun. Intense hyper detail with overly unrealistic air and sound stage. When I used that DAC as a USB spdif converter it was pure digital sound with not realism or presence. Yet people even like the Invicta even more???? what the????

I really urge anyone to buy or borrow as many dacs as possible. This hopefully creates a non biased view of different dacs on the market in their price range.

Headphone world the headphones colour the sound massively just like two channel speakers. The beauty of headphones is you can store them on stands and pick and choose depending on your mood. I modified my Senn HD800 and some days I want more detail, but it really lacks analog sound unless I feed it tubes. My HE560 has a rich organic sound with holographic sound more realism and presence and it's not as expensive. I stopped buying headphones lately because I do not want to be a headphone collector. Now I settle with a pair of campfire Solaris with Astell&Kern Norma for portable needs.

A person can throw on a pair of Senn HD650 which is a classic "chill out" headphone and enjoy the boring dynamics and soft sound using an inexpensive 02 battery powered amp. There would a drastic difference between using a sabre chipset vs Burr brown or cirrus dac chip.

If you have a transparent hifi stereo system you can hear how the "room" environment reacts with different components/amps/dacs etc. I definitely can say dacs are not created equal or have same sound signatures when comparing from brand to brand.

I find Headphone users are really interesting bunch. Many will buy aftermarket cabling and enjoy the differences audibly. However you almost never ever hear anyone discuss power conditioning or after market power cables. With two channel world using the same exact DAC but swapping power cables you can really change the sound signature of the music on a transparent system. Running power through $5000 dollars worth of Blue circle power conditioning and swapping PC my friends jaws dropped in disbelief in how drastic the sound changes. Before hand they laughed at me and they auditioned with great skepticism. The difference in the singer's stage presence, emotional content in the vocals, blended instruments rather than pin point digital isolation, rhythm and pace (to tapping feels) really is "in your face" different with different power cords.

Spent a modest sub-$5000 on a Super rectifier P/S for my Space tech labs tube dac. The balance of adding holographic sound, realism with great detail without being overly warm/bloom tube sound so far surpasses any solid state dac I've used. Using a modest diy $1200 power cord Furutech S55n with rhodium plug ends has made my 2 channel amplifier more neutral / warm simply by a tweak. Tweaks like this was noticeable but was less apparent when I was using a simaudio 340I integrated amplifier with Totem forest speakers. Separates amp/pre amp makes a very noticeable difference.

Swapping dacs is only a tiny piece of the puzzle.

 

[Koei]

I presume you ABX tested all that right? I know I did. Saved me a lot of money. Tried some crazy power conditioner for my amplifier, turned out it was designed by a competent designer and had no effect. So that was great.

 

[AlanU]

I presume you ABX tested all that right? I know I did. Saved me a lot of money. Tried some crazy power conditioner for my amplifier, turned out it was designed by a competent designer and had no effect. So that was great.

Unfortunately I can hear a big difference. Going from Totem forest to Totem Earth's the resolution ramped up in a huge manner. Listening to Gershman to Nola speakers those speakers have a totally different way in music presentation. Goes to show speakers drastically change how music sounds compared to the original recordings. Everything to an extent is coloured. For fun try adding a 3TS20 furutech cord with gold furutech terminated plug ends. If you do not hear a change in warmth, marginal loss in detail to your system's sound you can determine that your systems transparency is the reason.

The famous John Curl designed Parasound amplifiers. My modest A21+ is rather impressive for the price point. The JC5 flagship $8500 does sound better but double the price it's getting closer to the point of diminishing returns for amplification. Even my amp with a tonne of line filtration benefits from power conditioning without losing dynamics. If there was more transparency in your system you'd be blown away in the change of Power cords. A/B comparison with my 13yrs old sitting in the same position has hear big differences. This has proven that even a child can hear a difference in power cord swaps with NO motives or influence from me. Rhodium power plugs increase detail but effect mids. Gold plugs warms up but can get a hair bloomy depending on the cord used with the plugs. My daughter laughed at me before she sat in front of the system. "blind folded" clarity, size of sound stage, detail, warmth, rhythm and pace, piano note decay, realism all changed. If a plug costing about $380USD each certainly thins the wallet but a non biased ears of my 13yrs old laughed as she heard drastic sonic changes.

To a point many folks never reach audio nirvana. Fun to play around while enjoying music.

 

[439598]

Stereo speakers.

Anyway in my 2 cents is that there are two kind of DACs:

• DACs that are acoustically transparent, they just play exactly what you feed them and all of the DACs in this category will sound exactly the same (when level matched) because all the distortion and other issues are below our hearing threshold. Think RME, Benchmark, Matrix Audio, SMSL and Topping.
• DACs where the designers goal wasn't to provide a 1:1 copy of what is being fed to it, notable examples here are all DACs with a tube stage or R2R multibit DACs. But also plenty of DS DACs. Examples of these kinds can be found at Schiit multibits, Audio-GD or PS Audio for example.

The most analogue sounding DACs can be found in the second category because they create errors in the reproduction that are similar to analogue systems (vinyl, tape). They however do not reproduce what was recorded.

WRT R2R: If you are going by measurements then achieving DS-like distortion figures is very difficult with R2R by nature , still the majority of recent R2R DAC measurements show very low distortion levels that are not considered to be audible. They will look ''bad'' if directly compared to DS.
I think most R2R DAC designers do aim to make the best measuring and most transparent DAC they can, in fact some recent R2R DACs have some of the lowest distortion ever seen with R2R.
Exceptions Ive seen are AGD R2R11 which was pretty bad (but that's really AGD DACs in general, even DS) and Airist DAC wasnt the best but you will notice both are some cheapest R2R DACs available,
due to precision parts needed for R2R you can never have low price and high performance like DS.

Take Schitt's line of R2R DACs, measurements improve as you move up the line, and the better DACs happen to use high precision R2R chips. Holospring's brilliant measurements comes with a ridiculous price tag

 

[Koei]

WRT R2R: If you are going by measurements then achieving DS-like distortion figures is very difficult with R2R by nature , still the majority of recent R2R DAC measurements show very low distortion levels that are not considered to be audible. They will look ''bad'' if directly compared to DS.
I think most R2R DAC designers do aim to make the best measuring and most transparent DAC they can, in fact some recent R2R DACs have some of the lowest distortion ever seen with R2R.
Exceptions Ive seen are AGD R2R11 which was pretty bad (but that's really AGD DACs in general, even DS) and Airist DAC wasnt the best but you will notice both are some cheapest R2R DACs available,
due to precision parts needed for R2R you can never have low price and high performance like DS.

R2R is mainly a fun challenge for the designer to see if they can beat an DS dac. For the end user it is just a waste of money because DS outperforms it by quite a large margin. The only thing an end user stands to gain is lower performance. It has no place in transparent audio reproduction. If your hobby is just playing with suboptimal performing gear to get a sound you like instead of the sound that is in the media content R2R can be fun just like tubes and other non-ttransparent gear.

 

[439598]

R2R is mainly a fun challenge for the designer to see if they can beat an DS dac. For the end user it is just a waste of money because DS outperforms it by quite a large margin. The only thing an end user stands to gain is lower performance. It has no place in transparent audio reproduction. If your hobby is just playing with suboptimal performing gear to get a sound you like instead of the sound that is in the media content R2R can be fun just like tubes and other non-ttransparent gear.

The point I was making is that most of the R2R DACs should be audibly transparent according to the measurements. You would be paying extra for nothing, rather some audible distortion/ pleasant colouration.
If people can actually hear differences then it's the measurements that are sub-optimal and there might be more to the R2R vs DS argument.

 

[Koei]

The point I was making is that most of the R2R DACs should be audibly transparent according to the measurements. You would be paying extra for nothing, rather some audible distortion/ pleasant colouration.
If people can actually hear differences then it's the measurements that are sub-optimal.

Yes, I agree. But a lot of R2R DACs aren't transparent. And if they are they are more expensive than DS DACs, so there is no point in buying them.

 

[439598]

Yes, I agree. But a lot of R2R DACs aren't transparent. And if they are they are more expensive than DS DACs, so there is no point in buying them.

True, but what proof do you have these 'transparent' DACs are actually transparent?
Too many to ignore claim they can hear differences, we need ABX tests to truly confirm it.

 

[Koei]

True, but what proof do you have these 'transparent' DACs are actually transparent?
Too many to ignore claim they can hear differences, we need ABX tests to truly confirm it.

ABX tests already confirmed no difference can be heard. Measurements already indicate that any difference is far outside hearing range. We are talking about being able to hear a pin drop next to a 747 taking off...if these people have such great hearing they are mutants and of interest to science.

 

[439598]

Can you link me to R2R vs DS tests?

Im suggesting the difference lies outside the measurement, if inaudible distortions were the cause then the R2R would still be worse.

 

[Koei]

Can you link me to R2R vs DS tests?

Im suggesting the difference lies outside the measurement, if inaudible distortions were the cause then the R2R would still be worse.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-measurements-of-holo-audio-spring-dac.10047/

This is the best one I've seen measurements of. You won't hear the difference, but this measured performance can already be hit by $200 DS DACs with ease. SOTA SINAD for DS is at 120dB.

Most R2R DACs have distortions that seem to hearable, but this one hasn't.