[estreeter]

I still want to hear the dCS Pagannini stack, regardless of how poorly it 'scales' in bang-for-buck terms and the degree to which we shouldnt equate quality with price. Forget the reviews, forget the marketing - just put the thing behind a curtain, hooked up to some quality speakers, and leave us alone for an hour or two, would you ?

 

[vert]

The thing about DACs is that if you do a quick A/B you'll think they're more similar than not. But once you spend time with the DCS at home, you won't be able to go back to the lesser DAC. I'm just using the DCS as an example, but once you get used to the refinement and musical flow DACs on that level can reproduce, you can't go back. I know, because I've tried.

 

[DimitrisZ]

Anyways… after a year of exploration, sonically wiser, can the OP now find the reason that people buy expensive DACs?

 

[spkrs01]

+1  

 

[RedBull]

I like 'sonically wiser' though

 

[hionhifi]

I think there are several room related issues that can dealt with that would yield easier to discern sonic differences than the differences between DAC's. Between DAC's your looking at, let's say 10% difference. In a properly calibrated room, your likely to improve SQ on the order of 10% +.

 

[No Disc]

I would imagine anyone spending big bucks on a DAC would of auditioned that unit in their own system and heard the sonic improvements themselves.  I know my system pretty good, I've spent a lot of time tweaking it and finding where the weaknesses are.  You would probably wouldn't be able to appreciate a high end DAC if your source was not up to par, so your transport or digital feeding the DAC would need to there, and of course the recorded material.  
 
My digital setup never could approach my analog setup, no matter what I did.  Never did I hear  the quality of timbre, decay and naturalness of the struck piano key, as I head with my vinyl rig.  Vinyl can be a pain in the butt to get right, but once it's setup right, with great material, high quality cartridge and amplification, you can be rewarded with sound that brings you emotionally involved with the music, almost an intoxicating effect.   Now, if I found a DAC that could do that, like my analog setup, I would buy that DAC.    Since I've listened to great vinyl, I got spoiled, and just could not sit and listen to digital that just didn't sound natural.  I could listen to it, but it just didn't bring the emotional involvement that analog brought me. 
 
I don't really want to buy an expensive DAC, but it's probably going to take a $2000 plus DAC to get the level of refinement that will produce that naturalness I've come to expect from my analog. I'm hoping the Audio-GD ref 7.1 will do that for me, that's the one I have my eye on and it's at the upper end of what I can afford, so if that don't do it for me, I doubt I would continue to dump coin into digital.  

 

[leeperry]

...coz they can

 

[IPodPJ]

Quote:

I don't really want to buy an expensive DAC, but it's probably going to take a $2000 plus DAC to get the level of refinement that will produce that naturalness I've come to expect from my analog. I'm hoping the Audio-GD ref 7.1 will do that for me, that's the one I have my eye on and it's at the upper end of what I can afford, so if that don't do it for me, I doubt I would continue to dump coin into digital.  

 
It will, providing you have an equally good transport.

 

[drez]

Quote:

I would imagine anyone spending big bucks on a DAC would of auditioned that unit in their own system and heard the sonic improvements themselves.  I know my system pretty good, I've spent a lot of time tweaking it and finding where the weaknesses are.  You would probably wouldn't be able to appreciate a high end DAC if your source was not up to par, so your transport or digital feeding the DAC would need to there, and of course the recorded material.  
 
My digital setup never could approach my analog setup, no matter what I did.  Never did I hear  the quality of timbre, decay and naturalness of the struck piano key, as I head with my vinyl rig.  Vinyl can be a pain in the butt to get right, but once it's setup right, with great material, high quality cartridge and amplification, you can be rewarded with sound that brings you emotionally involved with the music, almost an intoxicating effect.   Now, if I found a DAC that could do that, like my analog setup, I would buy that DAC.    Since I've listened to great vinyl, I got spoiled, and just could not sit and listen to digital that just didn't sound natural.  I could listen to it, but it just didn't bring the emotional involvement that analog brought me. 
 
I don't really want to buy an expensive DAC, but it's probably going to take a $2000 plus DAC to get the level of refinement that will produce that naturalness I've come to expect from my analog. I'm hoping the Audio-GD ref 7.1 will do that for me, that's the one I have my eye on and it's at the upper end of what I can afford, so if that don't do it for me, I doubt I would continue to dump coin into digital.  

 
This is very true - the quality of the transport is essential to getting high performance out of digital.  If you are using a computer, that is even more work to get to sound good.  Just hooking up a mac mini to a high end USB transport is far from the best that is possible.
 
I would never have kept my current equipment if it didn't make a clear improvement upon my previous equipment.  I would not get caught up with the "shoulds" thrown around by many people of objective bent.  There is no absolute certainly to be had about anything in this hobby, its best just to demo gear and get a sense for what you like.  If you like what you hear (as long as the levels are matched) and the difference doesn't disappear over a couple of months then you are onto a winner.
 
Some people have more money than time (or hearing) so they throw money at the problem in order to "assure" success - and thus you have DAC's that cost more than new cars.  There are a few DAC's costing $5k+ that apparently perform better than my gear, but better is a subjective term, and there are always other things to spend money on, especially $5k (like a nice long vacation) so I think that sort of price of equipment will remain out of my reach for a number of years yet.  I can live with that.  That said I would love to hear the new NAD DAC

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Quote:

the quality of the transport is essential to getting high performance out of digital.

 
That's simply not true. 
 
Provided the drive is not broken in some way you will get the same sound out of a $15 combi drive as you will out of $2000 unit. It might not last as long, it might not look so nice, it might not have such good customer support if something goes wrong but it will still transfer data bit perfect. If it didn't your computer wouldn't work at all.
 
I mean, Windows can do some very peculiar things at times but but you don't get 'deeper blues' or 'tighter borders' or 'more vivid icons' depending on which brand of optical drive you used to install your operating system. It's either bit perfect or it's broken.
 
To be honest it's a pretty similar story with DACs and Amps nowadays as well. You can measure differences with sophisticated gear but for really not much money at all those supposed differences will be well below the ability of the human auditory system to differentiate.
 
That said I can well understand that have come to appreciate the coloured sound being produced by your all single analogue rig and prefer it to the flatter, more accurate signal coming from a digital set up.
 
If you want to get a particular sound signature out of your digital equipment it makes much more sense to get your hands on a decent software EQ and plug in suite and use that to design a sound that you find pleasing rather than wasting cash on digital gear that has been designed to be inaccurate. 
 
Not that I'm looking for a row or anything mate. Best of luck to you in your search for your favourite sound. I only mention this in case anyone reading is misled.

 

[No Disc]

Are you referring to a transport for a computer or CD player?    A transport that measures lower jitter, and less read errors, should produce a better reconstructed analog waveform.
 
See here. http://www.stereophile.com/content/cd-jitter-errors-magic-page-3
 
Not trying to mislead anyone, just want to be clear that some are still using DACs attached to CD and SACD players, not ripping the data and playing it off hard drives.  In any case, the point of my post was for the topic starter, when deciding to go with an expensive DAC or not.  That person will only be able to value a high end DAC if the rest of the system can take advantage of it. I'm a firm believer that the quality needs to start at the beginning of the chain, otherwise no matter what amp and speakers you have, you won't get a good result.   The best advice for anyone evaluating a heavy cost piece of audio gear, is to find a way to evaluate it in your own system.  In some cases, that's just not possible, and we have to buy on assumptions and comparisons from others.  In my case, I don't have a high end DAC, so I''ll either buy one from a vendor that has a liberal return policy, or from a local retailer that allows take home trials. If I like the home trial, I have validated that a higher end DAC will make an improvement, then I can use comparisons to determine which DAC is right for me. 
 
- No Disc

 

[drez]

Quote:

 
That's simply not true. 
 
Provided the drive is not broken in some way you will get the same sound out of a $15 combi drive as you will out of $2000 unit. It might not last as long, it might not look so nice, it might not have such good customer support if something goes wrong but it will still transfer data bit perfect. If it didn't your computer wouldn't work at all.
 
I mean, Windows can do some very peculiar things at times but but you don't get 'deeper blues' or 'tighter borders' or 'more vivid icons' depending on which brand of optical drive you used to install your operating system. It's either bit perfect or it's broken.
 
To be honest it's a pretty similar story with DACs and Amps nowadays as well. You can measure differences with sophisticated gear but for really not much money at all those supposed differences will be well below the ability of the human auditory system to differentiate.
 
That said I can well understand that have come to appreciate the coloured sound being produced by your all single analogue rig and prefer it to the flatter, more accurate signal coming from a digital set up.
 
If you want to get a particular sound signature out of your digital equipment it makes much more sense to get your hands on a decent software EQ and plug in suite and use that to design a sound that you find pleasing rather than wasting cash on digital gear that has been designed to be inaccurate. 
 
Not that I'm looking for a row or anything mate. Best of luck to you in your search for your favourite sound. I only mention this in case anyone reading is misled.

 
If you wont want people to be misled I would suggest not offering definitive advice especially concerning audio setups and equipment which my guess is you are presuming to understand purely from a theoretical basis.  I would leave that to experts personally, still its good to have a working understanding of the technologies but in the end I trust my ears, and they can very quickly tell me whether a particular digital change in my system is for the better or worse.
 
Differences in digital transports are in fact very easy to compare as the levels are already matched for you, if you do get a chance I would encourage anyone to compare a basic Windows setup to something more ideal eg MAC, Linux (eg. Squeezebox) or highly modified Windows, or just to have a look at the DPC latency performance of your Windows computer - a typical Windows 7 system will vary in DPC latency by as much as 15 milliseconds which you will find is very audible.  If you get a chance the higher end USB transports also make a substantial difference as well, especially when paired with a well sorted computer set up as a music server.
 
As far as CD players are concerned I am not particularly familiar with CD transports so I will not comment on that area.  As far as bit perfection is concerned that is just the tip of the iceberg - you can have a bitperfect audio stream with massive jitter levels - enough even to cause audible distortion for the objective ppls to be satisfied.
 
Many higher end DAC's have very sophisticated jitter filtering, more sophisticated upsampling filters etc, some have asynchronous resampling, others use a standard adaptive pll, others still have an integrated hard drive playback system, other have nice chassis design to look like nice pieces of furniture in one's loungeroom, and manufacturers charge for these features.  You may be able to create a setup with similar performance by yourself for much less money but it will take time and effort, and some people have more money than time, so they will buy the high end setups.  Some of these higher end DAC's have such good digital sides that transport selection makes almost not perceptible differences (even to people who hear transport differences with other DAC's) for example the PerfectWave DAC and Antelope Audio DAC's (there are probably others in this category which I have missed) but this technology does not come cheap - manufacturers are not charities after all.

 

[Audio-Omega]

I bought Audio-GD NFB-8.1 because it sounded better than Sony XA3000ES.  Music is smoother, fuller, and more three dimensional.  However the differences are small.  

 

[RedBull]

Quote:

I don't really want to buy an expensive DAC, but it's probably going to take a $2000 plus DAC to get the level of refinement that will produce that naturalness I've come to expect from my analog. I'm hoping the Audio-GD ref 7.1 will do that for me, that's the one I have my eye on and it's at the upper end of what I can afford, so if that don't do it for me, I doubt I would continue to dump coin into digital.

 
I love Ref. 7.1 to death on top of Burson DAC, Calyx 24/192, Bifrost, NFB-2 that I've heard and owned. 
But she doesn't want to talk to me anymore, I didn't do anything wrong to her, I take care of her carefully, never move around, cover her with soft cloth when not in use, why of why .....
She can open her eyes, but no sound come out at all, from any input, Optical, Coax, never try BNC and AES/EBU though.
I'm so sad .........