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T+a dac 8 dsd


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Hi Robert,

 

Here is my post from the DSC 1, 2, 3 thread

 

The T+A DAC 8 DSD sounds superb converting DSD 512 material delivered by HQPlayer. The SQ jump from DSD 256 to DSD 512 was quite a surprise.

 

I have not heard the T+A PDP-3000, but for me the T+A DAC 8 DSD sets new standards for Soundstage, image precision, timbre, clarity, and resolution

 

 

Definitely worth an audition with the best audiophile PC you can lay your hands on. Converting PCM to DSD512 is very CPU hungry :-)

 

I have not listened much to the PCM on the DAC 8 DSD, and I have to confess not had the interest to take my DAC 8 out of the closet where it has been since the day my Exa E20 MkIII arrived, to compare to the DAC 8 DSD. I suspect on PCM, the two units are very similar. I recall that on PCM 352 KHz, the DAC 8 sounded somewhat better than the E20.

 

What was also very commendable about the DAC 8, was that its sound quality was NOT improved by having a Regen in the USB signal path, a sign that the engineers did a good implementation of galvanic isolation.

 

The only downside of the unit is that you can hear everything upstream of the DAC, so running HQP from a MacBook Air or a Windows desktop will not delivery the SQ potential of this unit.

 

This is fortunate for the Sound Galleries Music Server development team, our efforts over the last 9 months have not been wasted, but rewarded big time with the arrival of the DAC 8 DSD

 

"you have to be standing in the road to be hit by the lucky bus"

 

which in our cas has DAC 8 DSD written on the sides

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here is a video of the Chief Designer of T+A talking about the DAC 8 DSD

 

 

The Sound Galeries Music Server team has been listening to the DAC 8 DSD for about 6 weeks now, and it continues to amaze and never disappoints us

 

This DAC, converting DSD 512 with bit stream from HQ Player, simply leaves the top PCM DAC's in another sonic playground

 

It has driven us to put on the DSD 512 May Fest in Munich at BMW World during this year's High End.

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Are there any plans for T+A to demo this DAC at some of the upcoming audio shows in the US (AXPONA, The Show Newport, RMAF 2016)?

 

I'd like to hear it in action.

 

The DAC 8 DSD will definitely be at AXPONA, but in which listening room(s) is still being worked on apparently

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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FYI. I found this on the T+A web site. It is a PDF with info about the DAC 8 DSD and its companion Amp.

 

http://www.ta-hifi.de/fileadmin/pdf/dac8/DAC8_DSD_Amp8_GB_web.pdf

 

You might find some insights about it.

 

Hi Al

 

I am going to be in NYC next week with a T+A DAC 8 DSD in my hand luggage.

 

Send me an e-mail and let's try to meet up

 

Best Regards

 

Ed

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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If you have any questions regarding it let me know, I did listen to it at CES.

 

Chad,

 

Did you get to listen to the DAC 8 DSD converting a DSD 512 bitstream at CES ?

 

Are you or any of your colleagues going to be at Munich High End this year ?

 

We are doing an event at BMW World on Friday May 6th

 

DSD 512 May Fest in Munich

The set up will be the

 

PCM and DSD files > Sound Galleries Music Server SGM 2015 running HQ Player > DSD 512 > T+A DAC 8 DSD > to be announced electronics > Vivid Giya G1

 

The space at BMW World is 12 m x 13 m x 4.75 m

 

Send me an email at [email protected] if you would like a ticket or two

 

Lawrence Dickie, Jarred Sacks and other audio luminaries will be there

 

There is a walk in public listening time from 2 pm to 6 pm, after that it's ticketed guests only

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Lots of wordy info on their site. Where are the AP measurements?

 

Hi Jason,

 

Once we heard the DAC 8 DSD playing DSD 512 we did not need any measurements, it is so clearly superior to anything we have heard

 

AP does not do measurements in the 40 KHz - 100 KHz band where the magic is going on LoL

 

joking aside, the SQ difference between the two ultrasonic filters "Clean" and "Wide" is huge

 

For DSD 64 playback only "Clean" is allowed, for the higher DSD rates you are allowed to choose

 

After we heard our first unit, we put our money where our mouth is

image.jpg

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Edward,

Have you had a chance to hear the DAC 8 DSD play back PCM in PCM? I ask cuz it uses a different chipset and wondered how well it does native PCM vs upsampling everything to DSD512.

 

I'll ask Jared to be my ears at the Munich demo, thanks.

 

Hi Ted,

 

We did a few quick comparisons of its internal PCM to PCM upsampling and found that when using the Sound Galleries Music Server, HQP 16/44 > 24/ 352 sounded better than the DAC 8 DSD Bezier filter doing internal upsampling

 

I forget which PCM filter settings we used in HQP

 

All academic as we listen 100 pct to DSD512 as it is in another sonic ball park

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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That was the same Marketing statement from T+A at the time they presented the original DAC 8. I am really only interested in the difference in the PCM DAC section between the current DAC 8 DSD and its predecessor, does anybody here know more details?

 

Here is a picture, it's a PCM1795 as it was in the DAC 8

 

image.jpg

 

image.jpg

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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What if the sticker also did shielding? :P :P :P

 

the sticker is anodized aluminium, and it could well have a beneficial shielding effect

 

however even with the stickers on, DSD512 playback just leaves the nicest PCM playback this DAC can do in the parking lot for the sonic ball game

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Btw, I woul like to hear opinions about the matching amplifier, amp8.

Thanks.

 

You can put this link in Chrome and read about the duo of DAC 8 and AMP 8

Test T+A DAC 8 und T+A AMP 8

 

However the DAC 8 DSD being fed DSD512 by HQ Player is on a completely different sonic planet from the DAC 8, the AMP 8 is no longer an appropriate match at it's retail price of Euro 1,750.

 

You would do much better with one on the Hypex NC500 based amps

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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OK which of you guys has a DAVE or Mola-Mola? LOL

 

I think the DAC 8 DSD is a smart play at this time. Do the best circuits you can and let others do the best software they can. HQPlayer has world class modulators and filters and you couldn't add those to a DAC for the price (even + computer). And you can sell a lot more of them at the price point. :-)

 

We had a DAVE in house for 10 days

 

Dave is a very good solution for taking a 16/44 optical stream from a Sonos Connect

 

We have yet to find a way to feed Sonos into HQP, so DAVE wins the prize for Sonos SQ

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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If I were to rate the quality of the ears at the gathering on Saturday, I would definitely rate Al's the best and mine the worst

 

The good news is we were all touched, entertained and bewitched by the sound of the performance and the feeling of being there, facilitated by the audio cues listed by Al in the post above

 

A big thanks to Al for bring the still points, what a beneficial effect it had on the T+A. The stock feet are aluminium cones which look reasonably serious. The Stilpoints were amazing. My order for Stilpoint minis was delivered today :-)

 

In our testing of the T+A doing DSD 512, our suspicion is that this new level of sound quality is more sensitive to disturbances than we are used to with DSD 256

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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I tend to suspect that on the contrary, his DSD plus approach may squeeze so much from DSD 64 that its inherent limitations are becoming a bit too obvious to ignore.

 

With the DAVE, you get much much better SQ upsampling DSD 64 material to DSD 512 using HQ Player, than delivering the track untouched as DSD 64. It's clear to us that the DAVE's processing of DSD 64 cannot match that done by HQP. We did not do a comparison on DSD 128, but reasonably expect HQ Player to be better

 

I am repeating myself, but DAVE internal upsampling of 16/44 sounds better than HQ P upsampling to 24/352, so Kudos to Rob Watts

 

I have very simple taste, only the very best is good enough

 

The Sound Galleries Server team suffers from this malady too ! The treatment bills are horrendous

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Mmmm, putting it that way makes it easy for the naysayers to dismiss it as marketing propaganda for the upcoming device you are working on. I wish you were not right, I wish that the NAA solution was the better one but now that I am reading about the microRendu I realize you are so right.

 

That is because DSD is a very strange animal, in fact it is analog signal that is handled as a digital one. And where actually it becomes analog is not very easy to say. So you experience that the place where it all happens - upsampling right there on the computer site and the need for good PSUs and precision clocks is unfortunately very very right... And it was so nice to think that the NAA is the easy solution, it is indeed very important but when you are doing the upsampling on a computer sadly you will be very right that you need to squeeze every single bit. Sadly is not the right word as truth cannot be sad, more appropriate is expensive... :)

 

IMHO you have hit the nail on the head , + 1

 

It's why we spent so much time and effort on the OCXO to get 10,000 times better frequency stability, and the lowest possible low frequency phase noise at a sub astronomic cost.

 

It's also why we have had to spend endless hours to get the OS to be as process timing friendly as possible

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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I am kinda thinking why not stick with the native DXD?

Can it really get any better and more accurate than the actual master anyway?

 

What we have found is

1) With Exasound E22 Mk1, DXD files delivered native sounded excellent, but when converted to DSD 256 with HQ Player 7th order filter these DXD files sounded noticeably even better.

 

Exasound's implementation of SABRE, which is minimal processing by design, delivers a clear SQ advantage to DSD. We have found a very similar relative SQ between hires PCM and DSD with the Merging NADAC (DSD256) and the Accuphase DC-37 ( DSD 128)

 

2) DAVE does PCM better than DSD

 

3) T+A DAC 8 DSD. Two quite separate DAC's.

 

On the PCM side, 4 x BB/TI 1795's. Sound is comparable to the best of the SABRE DAC's

 

On the DSD side, an in house designed, mostly discrete components 1 bit moving average converter. When delivered DSD 512 from the 7th order modulating HQ Player, the SQ is at another level from any other DAC. DAVE PCM is close, even more high frequency detail than the T+A DSD, but the T+A's mid range detail / texture, and the sense of space where the recording was made gives our unanimous vote to the T+A

 

Today, the DSD 512 DAC benefits from,

- fewer processing steps

- lower parts count

- higher frequency low pass filters

negative is you need a high power PC to feed it

 

Whilst PCM DAC chips have a mass production cost advantage, it seems in the mid price range PCM is going to have a hard time catching DSD 512

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Can you please define what 'high power PC' is required in your experience? I guess you tried some configurations which were compromised before reaching the threshold of adequate performance, so could you please share this?

 

Thanks

 

 

Here is Miska's configuration

Upgrade GPU for more CUDA processing power - Blogs - Computer Audiophile

 

We have only being doing DSD512 for 8 weeks, so we don't know how many of our earlier PC configurations could actually handle DSD512

 

but as a general rule, pick the most powerful processor you think you can reliably cool

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Edward, I am 24 hours away from heading to my Microcenter to pick up most of the build list for Jussi's build (except I'm going i7 6700k). It will not exactly be a silent streacom-housed kind of thing; it will be a minitower with possibly a almost-silent Noctua case fan, etc. Why do I mention this? Cuz it then requires an NAA (as it will be sequestered to my home office due to possible noise). I know you mentioned a few times that you guys have found the single pc to have better sq, when done right. I am not sure I can build a multichannel-upsample-ready power pc and keep it silent enough to be my single pc, but the NAA approach (which I currently do except my HQP i7 3770S machine died) works perfectly. But..I am still all ears if you have info I should know. :)

 

Hi Ted,

 

I suspect your 3770S may have died from being overworked. It does happen depending on how intensive the computation is (closed form fans please note) and how long it's been running

 

Your old PC might make a good NAA with a new CPU

 

After our DSD 512 Fest in Munich, let's talk about what we have on our overflowing shelves which might work for you for multichannel

 

Recently we have been testing out a Octocore i7, which does not cut it SQ wise for 2 channel, but might be interesting for you for multichannel. (no easy way to attach an OCXO)

 

Best

 

Edward

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Well yes but it is all relative. I have an exaSound E20 MK III .082 Clock (up for sale here on CA) and when I had my Mac Mini power supply replaced with an Uptone MMK and used an Uptone JS-2 to power the mini it was a big improvement.

 

But the PC we used at lmitche to demo the T+A DAC 8 DSD was not heavily modified. Just as bare bones as we could but with enough processing power to do the up-sampling to DSD512. Total cost was around $600-700.

 

Now, if we went further and tricked out the PC with better this and that, yea another step up in sound improvement.

 

But the sound of the T+A with just a plain bare bones PC, No special power supply, was way above my exaSound.

 

What's nice about the T+A DAC 8 DSD, is that the sound it delivers can be enjoyed at so many levels of PC tweaking and optimization. This DAC at DSD 512 reveals everything. We hear the differences between Haswell and Skylake, standard crystal, TCXO and OCXO, RAM tweaks, BIOS tuning, and OS optimizations

 

At Larry's get together the sound quality that impressed was being delivered with a BOM of around $ 700, but it was with no HDD or SSD. Larry had the machine loading the Win 10 OS from his network, very elegant and great for SQ.

 

DSD 512 seems to lower the noise floor so that all the rocks are revealed, and then you can have the fun of removing the rocks one by one :-)

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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How can running closed form algorithms destroy a cpu? Do we even know for sure it's the cpu that's dead? Would love miska's input on this :-D

 

One of our team members has extensive experience with a University computing center server farm. When you are doing intensive computing, the CPU's don't last for ever, especially if the cooling is not adequate and the individual core temperatures get too high. RAM also does not last for ever.

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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I'm glad someone else said it, you don't need a super tricked out pc to make this work it's best. Besides, if the pc is really that noisy and difficult to stabilise, why not use something else that's designed for the job of audio performance first?

 

Quite correct, you can get super results with $ 700 worth of parts + case. We did that 2 weeks ago at Larry's

 

But when you have a mobo power supply with microvolt ripple, add a OCXO with its own power supply, a dedicated power supply for the SSD, select the best sounding RAM, tune the RAM settings, build a optimized OS for the software that's running, the sound quality rises to another level

 

That's what we have been doing since July 2015, and will be announcing is 3 weeks time :-)

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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Edward, did you have a chance in the meantime to compare Lampi 512 vs the T+A?

 

Hi Christoph,

 

We have not had the chance to hear the Lampi with the DSD 512 module fitted. We are hoping to have a chance after Munich High End in London, where we will be doing a demonstration of the Music Server

 

Looking forward to seeing you at the DSD 512 May Fest in Munich

 

Cheers

 

Edward

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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  • 2 weeks later...
Stereoplay (a respected magazine in Germany) also did a review and gave it high grades. But to put thinks in perspective, they ranked the Ayre QB9 DSD and the Mcintosh D150 higher in their ranking system.

 

Reading the Stereoplay Review, it looks like the reviewer did not use the T+A DAC 8 DSD to play any DSD512 material. The music piece in the review which is mentioned is a 24/192 track from 2L

 

This absence of trying out the DAC 8 DSD in DSD 256 and DSD 512 playback mode, sadly does not surprise me. About 9 months ago, Stereoplay did a review of player software including HQ Player, where they seemed to miss that one of the key features of HQ Player is its ability to convert PCM to DSD realtime.

 

On the Bryston Forum in the BDP-3 thread, I have repeated asked new owners if they have tried using HQ Player to convert PCM to DSD 256, so far no one has posted

Sound Test, Monaco

Consultant to Sound Galleries Monaco, and Taiko Audio Holland

e-mail [email protected]

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