[ironmine]

Yes, it IS technically difficult, but also technically necessary for proof. This has been debated to absolute death. Expectation bias is incredibly powerful. It's why placebo tablets "cure" disease. However, I will also say that placebo is completely valid for the same reason. If you think your DAC has made a positive improvement, and you enjoy it, then it actually has. I'm not going to force you to do the actual scientific controlled test to prove or disprove it. Frankly, I don't care. But your argument, as valid as it seems, lacks proof, other than your own belief system. And frankly, that trumps an ABX test because an ABX test is so difficult to do that it can be ignored in favor of a strong belief, which is not only very easy but already is in place.

I am all for double blind tests, but to say that all the dacs sound the same is really dumb.

 

[pinnahertz]

You are so wrong and what you say runs so contrary to my experience that I don't even want to argue with you. I heard many DACs (and CD-players and sound cards), compared them in the same setup and all of them sounded different.

I feel sorry for you, truly, that you don't hear a difference. Work on your speakers, amps and room (room acoustics). If it does not help go to a doctor and let him check your ears.

Classic. "I hear a difference, so your gear/hearing must be bad".

Your comparisons included bias and potential level mismatch. You've got nothing but biased opinion there, and apparently, a lot of it.

But enjoy your DAC.

 

[pinnahertz]

I am all for double blind tests, but to say that all the dacs sound the same is really dumb.

Why? Have YOU done any ABX tests on DACs?? Why would you say something someone says is dumb when you've never tried it yourself? Have you ever done any ABX testing...at all? Ever?

 

[pinnahertz]

OK, what if I modify my "dumb" statement and instead say, "MOST DACS sound the same."?

See, given the job a DAC has to do, they should sound the same. If they don't, they're doing something that falls outside of their purpose. Whatever that is could be preferred, but should not be there.

 

[gregorio]

But the moment I replaced one dac for another, I instantly heard a difference ...

And what did you do once you replaced one DAC for another? I'm guessing the first thing you did was to listen for a difference and then, you"instantly heard a difference". Of course you did, that's how human hearing works, that is how it's supposed to work. Even if, unknown to you, what you heard was exactly the same DAC played twice, if you are listening for a difference and expecting a difference, you will hear a difference! That's why we need double blind tests, to eliminate expectation and show us when the difference we're hearing is just in our head rather than in what the equipment is actually producing.

You are so wrong and what you say runs so contrary to my experience that I don't even want to argue with you.

No, unless you're not a human being, it does NOT run contrary to your experience. You are not accounting for how human hearing works and therefore you are misinterpreting your experience. Maybe you like your misinterpreted experience and don't want to know the science or the facts about how human hearing/perception works but that's ENTIRELY your choice. However, that choice is NOT an acceptable basis for an argument here in the sound science forum and you're not going to get any further than making yourself look ignorant and foolish, which I presume you'd prefer to avoid? If you want to know the actual facts and why your misinterpreted experiences are misinterpreted, ask away, we're happy to help.

G

 

[reginalb]

No, that's not correct. First, that "switch box" has to be a bit more than a switch in a box, it has to include a true blind X position, equivalent to A or B, but unknown to the tester. And nothing about how the box works can provide a "tell". It's not easy at all, and actually fairly expensive. Level matching...that will elude every casual and most serious hobbyists because it requires knowledge of electronics and test and measurement.

ABX/DBT of a pair of DACS is one of the most difficult things to pull off correctly, and that's why it's almost NEVER done. That doesn't mean it can't be, and certainly those that have been done support my assertions.

To have a test that's valid for publication? Sure. To have a test that's generally reliable enough for yourself takes an ADC, some software to help you line match, and a partner controlling an A/B box. It's not scientific, and I'd never publish the results, but that doesn't mean it can't still be illuminating for you personally, it sure as heck was for me.

I am all for double blind tests, but to say that all the dacs sound the same is really dumb.

There is a link in my signature with a silly little example that shows you the underlying issue with sighted listening tests, even instances where you think the differences are obvious.

The job of a DAC is to take the digital signal that it is handed and transform into a waveform. Not only is this trivial for modern equipment, but testable without even doing a listening test. If the resulting waveform is identical to the one before it hit the ADC then you know both the ADC and the DAC are completely transparent. And again, with today's tech this is trivially easy.

That said, that doesn't mean that there aren't differences, though they would typically be caused by amplification. Too high an output impedance causing havoc for your low impedance iems, distortions that reduce transparency, but that some "audiophiles" like so a manufacturer might intentionally add in distortions, filters that perform EQ (that you could also just perform with EQ), etc. But again, most of that is more likely to happen during amplification.

 

[ironmine]

OK, what if I modify my "dumb" statement and instead say, "MOST DACS sound the same."?

See, given the job a DAC has to do, they should sound the same. If they don't, they're doing something that falls outside of their purpose. Whatever that is could be preferred, but should not be there.

If Digital-to-Analog converters sound the same, then, logically, the reverse is also true, right? Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) also sound the same?

If DACs sound the same, why don't you simply connect the output of your smartphone or a cheap made-in-Taiwan computer sound card to your hi-end rig and listen to it like that? Smartphones and sound cards also have DACs inside, right? Hey, even motherboards have DACs inside and nice little audio outputs on the back of your PC. Why don't you use those?

I had many friends, who bought a new DAC, coming to my apartment many times (because I have a nice system and an acoustically treated room) wanting to compare their new purchases against my DAC. Everybody heard a difference from the very first minutes. You should see a person's face when he says: "Turn if off. I cannot stand it. Your DAC is so much better. There's no comparison. Just turn if off."

DACs are not cables, they are much more complicated pieces of machinery: they can be oversampling or upsamping or none of that. They have different DAC chips inside, different USB input implementations, different digital filters and analog filters, different power supply units. They can be multibit or delta-sigma. They can be 1 kg in weight or 9 kg. They can differ in million things from each other.

Why do DAC chip manufacturers keep releasing new chips? Don't they know that their new chip is going to some exactly the same as the previous one? Tell it to Sabre, AKM, Wolfson, Burr Brown, etc. They live in ignorance.

You guys are funny in your beliefs.

I unsubscribe from this idiotic thread. Keep talking to yourselves.

 

[bfreedma]

You gotta be kidding.

My current W4S DAC-2 ($1500) sounds very different (better) than my former April Music Stello DA100 ($900).

When my friend offered to me his W4S DAC-2, I took it for auditioning and comparing against April Music, but I was highly skeptical. I thought that I already had the dac that was "expensive enough and good enough".

But the moment I replaced one dac for another, I instantly heard a difference (more presence, better separation, superior soundstage). That difference mattered to me, I bought W4S DAC-2 and sold Stello DA100. With the new DAC, escaping from my room into a new audio reality is just easier. It's more convincing, W4S fools my brain faster and more masterfully.

With April Music, achieving the same "trance-like" state was more difficult: everything had to be just perfect (my physiological mood and physical condition, the recording had to be superb, etc.). Even then it took my mind longer to "adjust".

But with W4S, I am able to get involved into music almost every time I sit down for a listen. It just opens a door to it and invites me to step into it.

The W4S DAC2 has a number of filter options. Are you sure you or the previous owner didn't have the DAC2 set for one of them?

 

[reginalb]

The W4S DAC2 has a number of filter options. Are you sure you or the previous owner didn't have the DAC2 set for one of them?

Good catch.

If DACs sound the same, why don't you simply connect the output of your smartphone or a cheap made-in-Taiwan computer sound card to your hi-end rig and listen to it like that? Smartphones and sound cards also have DACs inside, right? Hey, even motherboards have DACs inside and nice little audio outputs on the back of your PC. Why don't you use those?

The output on PC's is often fine, though sometimes there are noise issues - these are unrelated to the DAC. But otherwise, yeah, I use those things. In fact, I've measured and shown that my Nexus 6 cell phone works better with my CIEMs than a Sony ZX1, or Astell & Kern AK300. So yeah, nothing wrong with that.

I had many friends, who bought a new DAC, coming to my apartment many times (because I have a nice system and an acoustically treated room) wanting to compare their new purchases against my DAC. Everybody heard a difference from the very first minutes. You should see a person's face when he says: "Turn if off. I cannot stand it. Your DAC is so much better. There's no comparison. Just turn if off."

So, unlike other parts of the forum, we're allowed to talk about blind testing here. Did you test blind? Have you watched the video in my signature? Bigshot has a good one in his too about human perception during sighted listening.

DACs are not cables, they are much more complicated pieces of machinery: they can be oversampling or upsamping or none of that. They have different DAC chips inside, different USB input implementations, different digital filters and analog filters, different power supply units. They can be multibit or delta-sigma. They can be 1 kg in weight or 9 kg. They can differ in million things from each other.

Yet every one of those technologies has advanced to the point of transparency.

Why do DAC chip manufacturers keep releasing new chips? Don't they know that their new chip is going to some exactly the same as the previous one? Tell it to Sabre, AKM, Wolfson, Burr Brown, etc. They live in ignorance.

You guys are funny in your beliefs.

I unsubscribe from this idiotic thread. Keep talking to yourselves.

Practically they can reduce power consumption, etc. In reality, they keep making money, off of people duped by an extremely dishonest market.

Note you've also been lecturing some audio engineers in here.

 

[pinnahertz]

If Digital-to-Analog converters sound the same, then, logically, the reverse is also true, right? Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) also sound the same?

If DACs sound the same, why don't you simply connect the output of your smartphone or a cheap made-in-Taiwan computer sound card to your hi-end rig and listen to it like that? Smartphones and sound cards also have DACs inside, right? Hey, even motherboards have DACs inside and nice little audio outputs on the back of your PC. Why don't you use those?

I had many friends, who bought a new DAC, coming to my apartment many times (because I have a nice system and an acoustically treated room) wanting to compare their new purchases against my DAC. Everybody heard a difference from the very first minutes. You should see a person's face when he says: "Turn if off. I cannot stand it. Your DAC is so much better. There's no comparison. Just turn if off."

DACs are not cables, they are much more complicated pieces of machinery: they can be oversampling or upsamping or none of that. They have different DAC chips inside, different USB input implementations, different digital filters and analog filters, different power supply units. They can be multibit or delta-sigma. They can be 1 kg in weight or 9 kg. They can differ in million things from each other.

Why do DAC chip manufacturers keep releasing new chips? Don't they know that their new chip is going to some exactly the same as the previous one? Tell it to Sabre, AKM, Wolfson, Burr Brown, etc. They live in ignorance.

You guys are funny in your beliefs.

I unsubscribe from this idiotic thread. Keep talking to yourselves.

Well, he's gone, so perhaps there's no point. There's more to a PC sound card than just the DAC, hence why they sometimes are great, sometimes not. There have been a few smart phones that ended up with audiophile quality DACS. The rest is all audiophile blah-blah-blah.

Glad it's over. (If only!)

 

[csglinux]

You guys are funny in your beliefs.

I unsubscribe from this idiotic thread. Keep talking to yourselves.

I totally understand the sentiment. The problem is, all counter-arguments then disappear and this leaves an echo chamber. This thread has taken on an almost religious fervor, with people posting strong opinions that have nothing to do with science. IMHO. The 24bit myth thread went the same way. It used to be really interesting and then got hijacked by the acoustic jihadi squad and posts got increasingly unpleasant. I'm afraid I unsubscribed from that one

The ABX/DBT argument is valid - I know the power of placebo, but one suggestion here. If anybody has a DAC with variable filter switches, it's easy to do SPL-matched blind testing, by having someone else flip the switch (or not). Some differences in filters are subtle and need good high-frequency hearing. Others are much more obvious. Unless and until all DACs reproduce the analog waveform to machine precision, it's debatable where the border of transparency is - and it will vary from person to person.

Suggesting ABX/DBT is fine. But it's presumptive to tell somebody else what they do or don't hear.

 

[reginalb]

I totally understand the sentiment. The problem is, all counter-arguments then disappear and this leaves an echo chamber. This thread has taken on an almost religious fervor, with people posting strong opinions that have nothing to do with science. IMHO. The 24bit myth thread went the same way. It used to be really interesting and then got hijacked by the acoustic jihadi squad and posts got increasingly unpleasant. I'm afraid I unsubscribed from that one

The ABX/DBT argument is valid - I know the power of placebo, but one suggestion here. If anybody has a DAC with variable filter switches, it's easy to do SPL-matched blind testing, by having someone else flip the switch (or not). Some differences in filters are subtle and need good high-frequency hearing. Others are much more obvious. Unless and until all DACs reproduce the analog waveform to machine precision, it's debatable where the border of transparency is - and it will vary from person to person.

Suggesting ABX/DBT is fine. But it's presumptive to tell somebody else what they do or don't hear.

I agree with that to an extent. But when you then see that so often people know they hear a difference, then when it comes to blind testing they disappear, you start to see a pattern. And when someone comes in, says everyone in here is an idiot, and they "Just know," then it should rightly be pointed out to them that there are major fallacies in that claim. You had a real discussion in this thread - the person you're quoting did not.

Furthermore, I can tell you that you don't perceive sound correctly during sighted tests. That's not presumptive, that's a fact. Your brain plays tricks on you all the time (just watch the video in my signature) when you can both see and hear something.

Nobody doubts that filters can make things audibly different (intentionally) it has been pointed out by myself and others as the possible explanation to the differences he (might be) hearing. Of course it's true that if you intentionally set out to make something audibly different, then it's possible.

The question of transparency, however, is an easy one. It does not take ABX testing, either. You just need to measure the waveform before it's converted, and then after again. Did the waveform change? If it didn't, then you have confirmed transparency. If it did change, the question becomes sticker, as you must then determine how much it changed, and the threshold of audibility in regards to the specific change. Much messier, but doable.

 

[csglinux]

I agree with that to an extent. But when you then see that so often people know they hear a difference, then when it comes to blind testing they disappear, you start to see a pattern. And when someone comes in, says everyone in here is an idiot, and they "Just know," then it should rightly be pointed out to them that there are major fallacies in that claim. You had a real discussion in this thread - the person you're quoting did not.

Furthermore, I can tell you that you don't perceive sound correctly during sighted tests. That's not presumptive, that's a fact. Your brain plays tricks on you all the time (just watch the video in my signature) when you can both see and hear something.

Nobody doubts that filters can make things audibly different (intentionally) it has been pointed out by myself and others as the possible explanation to the differences he (might be) hearing. Of course it's true that if you intentionally set out to make something audibly different, then it's possible.

The question of transparency, however, is an easy one. It does not take ABX testing, either. You just need to measure the waveform before it's converted, and then after again. Did the waveform change? If it didn't, then you have confirmed transparency. If it did change, the question becomes sticker, as you must then determine how much it changed, and the threshold of audibility in regards to the specific change. Much messier, but doable.

I think you and I are mostly on the same page. Your last paragraph is the key to all this, IMHO. I'd bet any money that right now, with any DAC on the planet, the output waveform would not match the original analog waveform. Not exactly. You'd want to take a very high sample rate and store the differences in 64-bit floats, just to be sure. But then you'd find a difference. (Audio Diffmaker could be useful at that point.) Would you have the equipment to conduct an experiment like that? It sounds tricky, because it seems you'd either need infinite processing speed, or you'd need the ability to store and perfectly play back the original analog signal. And if we had the latter, this thread wouldn't even exist

 

[reginalb]

I think you and I are mostly on the same page. Your last paragraph is the key to all this, IMHO. I'd bet any money that right now, with any DAC on the planet, the output waveform would not match the original analog waveform. Not exactly. You'd want to take a very high sample rate and store the differences in 64-bit floats, just to be sure. But then you'd find a difference. (Audio Diffmaker could be useful at that point.) Would you have the equipment to conduct an experiment like that? It sounds tricky, because it seems you'd either need infinite processing speed, or you'd need the ability to store and perfectly play back the original analog signal. And if we had the latter, this thread wouldn't even exist

I'd take your bet.

And if that is true right now doesn't matter, people won't believe it. It's shocking in the audiophile community how often marketing is believed over literally any other source of informaiton. With regards to waveform measurement I would say that you don't need that level of precision in measurement. Machines can hear differences more reliably than humans, can they not? The US Army has robots that will tell find a sniper that shot at them, painting them with a laser before the smoke from the shot disappears, and tell the soldiers with it what weapon was used to take the shot. I know the average person can not do this, and I doubt there are any outliers than can, not with that level of precision.

 

[pinnahertz]

You actually don't need anything exotic to prove what a DAC does to the input waveform because that can be generated digitally, so the ADC step can be eliminated and the input be generated with extremely high accuracy. And you don't need extremely high precision to analyze the difference between that way form and the output of a DAC.