[chesebert]

Hard hard disagree here. That is fine to find the flavor of the dac to a certain extent but it simply doesn't have the technicalities to truly evaluate the finner details of dacs in the dave/mola/emm/etc range imo

I said up to about $10k in dac. Please read more carefully.

 

[tutetibiimperes]

I’ve actually seen the opposite, it seems like a much wider variety of DACs get talked about around here than in the 2-channel world from what I’ve seen.

In addition to the Chord, Holo, Denafrips, Rockna, etc stuff there’s RME, Schiit, Benchmark, Topping, Gustard, SMSL, JDS, Gedhelli, iFi, and probably a bunch more I’m forgetting. Sure, not all are Uber-buck TOTL stuff, but they’re all out there and popular in the hobby.

It seems more often in 2-channel I see people defaulting to whichever DAC is built into their integrated amp or preamp.

 

[penguinofsleep2]

We need some names, because that's the first time I have heard anyone say this.

I don't have a ton of experience with this, but here is some of the experience I had that made me think this is very possible. I do not know how to "scientifically" characterize this with the common graphs that people currently use to measure audio gear, this is all just subjective opinion. I also didn't try to extensively isolate for stuff such as room setup, etc. Obv the individual transducers, amps, wires, or whatever else you believe in will still sound different and I only tried to isolate out these factors in my head, I didn't go into any of this expecting to conduct a proper scientific experiment, etc.

Schiit Ygg A2 (mine) and Bricasti M3 (extended private loaner) - didn't sound better or worse on 2ch or headphones, but they had a noticibly different spatial presentation (ex: staging + layering) to me between 2ch and hp. A few other minor differences too.

All 3 of the below were in the same room with the same speakers and HP setup so those extraneous factors were probably drastically reduced. This experiment is what pushed me over the edge into holding my opinion about this:
Holo Spring1 (someone else's, but I heard the spring1 already a few times before this experience) - It was much easier to hear the flaws and shortcomings of the Spring on the speakers than HP setup. On the flip side, HP setup made the spring sound more slow and mushy and smoothed out vs speakers.
Holo May - sounded about the same, but "NOS sound" in NOS mode was much easier to hear on the HP setup vs the speaker setup. Speakers also sounded slightly more natural vs on HP the same tracks sounded more artificial.
Wavedream - sounded about the same with HP or speakers.

Aurender A10 (dealer demo) - sounded about the same with HP or speakers (again, only mentally isolating sound of different transducers, not scientific experiment).

Schiit Modi2, SDAC, and a few other inexpensive DACs frequently used in the hp world - sound great for the price on HP, didn't like the sound at all with any speaker setup.
Chord DAVE - similar result to above but at a much $ price point - tried on speakers once, didn't like it, but not bad at all on HP.

1 MSB, 1 Nagra, and 1 Technics DAC (I don't remember the model names as I had no intention of buying, the potential buyer was cool and had me go into the demo room with him during his demo) heard at a dealer - different price points (2 of which were on the high end), but all 3 were IMO overpriced for what you get on speakers, but still good absolutely speaking. When I tried the MSB with headphones, I didn't think it was good for the HP (my headphones and their amp). Staging and layering were all messed up relative to other more $$ DAC options talked about here that don't cost nearly as much as the MSB. I remember I didn't like the Technics with HP either but I don't remember what exactly I didn't like.

There are a few more examples I have, but point is as one person my experience has been that some DACs do sound better to me on either HP or speakers while others are about the same.

 

[chesebert]

I don't have a ton of experience with this, but here is some of the experience I had that made me think this is very possible. I do not know how to "scientifically" characterize this with the common graphs that people currently use to measure audio gear, this is all just subjective opinion. I also didn't try to extensively isolate for stuff such as room setup, etc. Obv the individual transducers, amps, wires, or whatever else you believe in will still sound different and I only tried to isolate out these factors in my head, I didn't go into any of this expecting to conduct a proper scientific experiment, etc.

Schiit Ygg A2 (mine) and Bricasti M3 (extended private loaner) - didn't sound better or worse on 2ch or headphones, but they had a noticibly different spatial presentation (ex: staging + layering) to me between 2ch and hp. A few other minor differences too.

All 3 of the below were in the same room with the same speakers and HP setup so those extraneous factors were probably drastically reduced. This experiment is what pushed me over the edge into holding my opinion about this:
Holo Spring1 (someone else's, but I heard the spring1 already a few times before this experience) - It was much easier to hear the flaws and shortcomings of the Spring on the speakers than HP setup. On the flip side, HP setup made the spring sound more slow and mushy and smoothed out vs speakers.
Holo May - sounded about the same, but "NOS sound" in NOS mode was much easier to hear on the HP setup vs the speaker setup. Speakers also sounded slightly more natural vs on HP the same tracks sounded more artificial.
Wavedream - sounded about the same with HP or speakers.

Aurender A10 (dealer demo) - sounded about the same with HP or speakers (again, only mentally isolating sound of different transducers, not scientific experiment).

Schiit Modi2, SDAC, and a few other inexpensive DACs frequently used in the hp world - sound great for the price on HP, didn't like the sound at all with any speaker setup.
Chord DAVE - similar result to above but at a much $ price point - tried on speakers once, didn't like it, but not bad at all on HP.

1 MSB, 1 Nagra, and 1 Technics DAC (I don't remember the model names as I had no intention of buying, the potential buyer was cool and had me go into the demo room with him during his demo) heard at a dealer - different price points (2 of which were on the high end), but all 3 were IMO overpriced for what you get on speakers, but still good absolutely speaking. When I tried the MSB with headphones, I didn't think it was good for the HP (my headphones and their amp). Staging and layering were all messed up relative to other more $$ DAC options talked about here that don't cost nearly as much as the MSB. I remember I didn't like the Technics with HP either but I don't remember what exactly I didn't like.

There are a few more examples I have, but point is as one person my experience has been that some DACs do sound better to me on either HP or speakers while others are about the same.

Which headphone and amp? I think it was just that day and you were under a bit of a listening fatigue after doing all the abx work.

 

[eskamobob1]

I said up to about $10k in dac. Please read more carefully.

All of these are sub 10k new in reality. Rrp means nothing.

 

[chesebert]

All of these are sub 10k new in reality. Rrp means nothing.

You are taking things way too literally. I just put out an arbitrary dollar number to denote certain quality of dacs from which you will need better equipment to assess. If you can get Dave for like $5k new then all the power to you.

 

[eskamobob1]

You are taking things way too literally. I just put out an arbitrary dollar number to denote certain quality of dacs from which you will need better equipment to assess. If you can get Dave for like $5k new then all the power to you.

If it was arbitrary then why were you mad that the dacs I spoke of were above it?

 

[penguinofsleep2]

Which headphone and amp? I think it was just that day and you were under a bit of a listening fatigue after doing all the abx work.

Possible, but it was different headphones and amps with each setup, mostly what they had available although Clear OG, Utopia and HD6xx was present at most of the above, spread out over a different listening sessions that were a few years apart hence why some of the very specific details are a bit fuzzy for me too. I didn't go into this with my own gear looking to test the stuff, it was more of me wanting to listen to stuff and then noticing the differences. I was also able to consistently tell them apart blind when the 3 DACs were compared on both HP and speakers and some of the same differences I mention above queued me in each time.

Or someone can just try the above themselves and decide if they hear a difference or not... IDK, just sharing what I heard.

 

[Articnoise]

I don't have a ton of experience with this, but here is some of the experience I had that made me think this is very possible. I do not know how to "scientifically" characterize this with the common graphs that people currently use to measure audio gear, this is all just subjective opinion. I also didn't try to extensively isolate for stuff such as room setup, etc. Obv the individual transducers, amps, wires, or whatever else you believe in will still sound different and I only tried to isolate out these factors in my head, I didn't go into any of this expecting to conduct a proper scientific experiment, etc.

Schiit Ygg A2 (mine) and Bricasti M3 (extended private loaner) - didn't sound better or worse on 2ch or headphones, but they had a noticibly different spatial presentation (ex: staging + layering) to me between 2ch and hp. A few other minor differences too.

All 3 of the below were in the same room with the same speakers and HP setup so those extraneous factors were probably drastically reduced. This experiment is what pushed me over the edge into holding my opinion about this:
Holo Spring1 (someone else's, but I heard the spring1 already a few times before this experience) - It was much easier to hear the flaws and shortcomings of the Spring on the speakers than HP setup. On the flip side, HP setup made the spring sound more slow and mushy and smoothed out vs speakers.
Holo May - sounded about the same, but "NOS sound" in NOS mode was much easier to hear on the HP setup vs the speaker setup. Speakers also sounded slightly more natural vs on HP the same tracks sounded more artificial.
Wavedream - sounded about the same with HP or speakers.

Aurender A10 (dealer demo) - sounded about the same with HP or speakers (again, only mentally isolating sound of different transducers, not scientific experiment).

Schiit Modi2, SDAC, and a few other inexpensive DACs frequently used in the hp world - sound great for the price on HP, didn't like the sound at all with any speaker setup.
Chord DAVE - similar result to above but at a much $ price point - tried on speakers once, didn't like it, but not bad at all on HP.

1 MSB, 1 Nagra, and 1 Technics DAC (I don't remember the model names as I had no intention of buying, the potential buyer was cool and had me go into the demo room with him during his demo) heard at a dealer - different price points (2 of which were on the high end), but all 3 were IMO overpriced for what you get on speakers, but still good absolutely speaking. When I tried the MSB with headphones, I didn't think it was good for the HP (my headphones and their amp). Staging and layering were all messed up relative to other more $$ DAC options talked about here that don't cost nearly as much as the MSB. I remember I didn't like the Technics with HP either but I don't remember what exactly I didn't like.

There are a few more examples I have, but point is as one person my experience has been that some DACs do sound better to me on either HP or speakers while others are about the same.

I have a bit of a hard time following your reasoning here. But if I understood you correctly and what you describes is more about how good synergy there is between the DAC and the rest of the audio system than that many DACs that sound good with 2ch do not sound as good with headphones and vice versa.

MSB and Nagra make some of the best DACs in the world but no DAC, no matter how good it is, can make up for the rest of the system, bad rooms acoustics or wrong speaker setup.

 

[iFi audio]

So you are talking about system matching issue and not a scaling issue, correct?

When one component bottlenecks other products in the same setup, I think that it's a scaling issue and that's what I meant in my previous post. But when there's no synergy between components that would otherwise work well, then I'd consider that setup as a mismatch.

 

[F208Frank]

Though the head fi world have their few popular "go tos" I do feel the community did a pretty good job in choosing the select few overall.

And of course for that, I am sure many people are grateful to have such a helpful community.

I always fear one day slowly and surely shills and fake posters or paid shills take over the forums by seeping through, that would take a lot of magic out of the forums, and of course we should always be alert about that as when there are potential profits involved, always got to stay on the defense. It would be naive in my opinion to not be alert regarding this subject.

*puts on football helmet*

^despite not ever had played football

 

[iFi audio]

Though the head fi world have their few popular "go tos" I do feel the community did a pretty good job in choosing the select few overall.

And of course for that, I am sure many people are grateful to have such a helpful community.

Agreed, I think that this community does a fantastic job in highlighting great audio products regardless of their type.

I always fear one day slowly and surely shills and fake posters or paid shills take over the forums by seeping through, that would take a lot of magic out of the forums, and of course we should always be alert about that as when there are potential profits involved, always got to stay on the defense. It would be naive in my opinion to not be alert regarding this subject.

There's something there for sure, but I think that Head-fi's audience is too large to fall for that.

 

[bfreedma]

There's something there for sure, but I think that Head-fi's audience is too large to fall for that.

Happens here multiple times every day.

 

[chesebert]

Happens here multiple times every day.

Lol. Looks like people are jumping ship from Dave… I am guessing Holo May is next

I think before those there were Topping, Denefrips, Schiit, Esoteric, Benchmark, Lavry, Zhaolu, Shanling, Eastsound and bunch others I don’t remember.

 

[iFi audio]

Happens here multiple times every day.

I imagine, but do you think that such presence has any impact of folks here?