Which DAC do you prefer?

[esldude]

Yes so I cheated. One was a 44 to 48 kHz upsample of the original file. Leaving 4 DACs and a ringer or hidden reference take your pick.

 

Or did you mean you have FIVE DACs? I have a couple in a couple systems. I have some recording boxes with DACs which normally are used for recording or mixing of music. And my laptop's, desktop and phone have DACs in them.

 

I don't know what a "recording box" is, and as they used to say about Japanese bicycle parts, " the Japanese don't make bicycle parts, they make parts that look like bicycle parts." In short, a DAC in a cell phone is a DAC, but not worthy of critical investigation.

 

A recording interface or box as I called it is what many, many people use now to make recorded music. It includes some number of ADC and DAC while interfacing with a computer. Here is one of the playback units I used.

http://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Scarlett-Interface-Microphone-Preamplifiers/dp/B00AZLA9VY

 

And the one used as a recording ADC.

http://www.amazon.com/Focusrite-Premium-Portable-Interface-Windows/dp/B009AS1EO4/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1463178228&sr=1-1&keywords=focusrite+forte

 

 

But then so many audiophiles are influenced by price bias, reputation and expectation bias they seem to have difficulty actually listening for sound quality sometimes. Not that it is any different with non-audiophiles.

 

As one of the files is actually an upsample of the original you have the chance to compare the original file vs one that has gone through the DAC/ADC loop to see just how much fidelity loss has occurred. If the gear is awful the difference should be very obvious. If the gear is pretty okay it may be hard to determine. Votes at least the few we have are almost evenly split between the choices.

 

As for a DAC in a cell phone not being worthy of investigation results would indicate otherwise. I included it as I thought it would be an eye opener to some. Both about what they can hear and how good some inexpensive items are. There are people who have listened carefully to the files in this poll and then chose the cell phone as their preferred DAC. Have you listened to these files, does the cell phone stand out like a sore thumb unworthy of investigation? You still have time to vote if you haven't.

 

As for Japanese bicycle parts, my favorite bike feels that its Shimano drivetrain has been insulted. I also have a custom frame bike with Campy gear so it isn't like I don't know the difference. I suppose my cell phone is too low brow and too over-performing to care.

[NOMBEDES]

As for Japanese bicycle parts, my favorite bike feels that its Shimano drivetrain has been insulted. I also have a custom frame bike with Campy gear so it isn't like I don't know the difference. I suppose my cell phone is too low brow and too over-performing to care.

 

No insult to your bike intended, as I stated, they used to make such snobbish statements. I was never able to afford Campy back in the day and all my gear was Shimano.

 

As far as music on a cell phone, I don't know how to connect my turntable to the phone. ?

[esldude]

No insult to your bike intended, as I stated, they used to make such snobbish statements. I was never able to afford Campy back in the day and all my gear was Shimano.

 

As far as music on a cell phone, I don't know how to connect my turntable to the phone. ?

I can tell you how to connect the TT to the phone. You probably could even use it to do needle drops for digitizing LPs. Don't know how good your phone is for that. [emoji12]

[esldude]

Okay the poll is closed. For those who voted, thank you for your participation.

 

Here are the identities of each choice.

 

A. The Lenovo T410 laptop.

B. Nexus 6p smartphone

C. Up sampled original via Sox.

D. Focusrite 18 i20 recording interface.

E. Tact RCS 2.0

 

One person voted D as most and least preferred because they all sounded the same. That leaves us with 2 or 3 choices for each one for most and least preferred. I had about twice that many who in the thread or in PM said they heard no difference. Making no difference (which I should have had as a choice) the most popular. As the other results were about evenly split I guess you can draw your own conclusions. I find that an interesting result along with the limited participation in the poll. I find it especially interesting that the smartphone wasn't obviously different to people.

[JohnSwenson]

For me the phone DID standout as being different, it sounded better than any of the others. I went back and re-listened after knowing which was which and the phone still sounded better.

 

Now the fun part, WHY?

 

So what did the phone do (or NOT do) that the others did not, including the upsampled original.

 

One hypothesis is that with the others high frequency components were exciting resonances in the ADCs digital filter, since the phone doesn't have anything above 15K it may not be exciting said resonances.

 

Then what about the original no DAC file? Well it wasn't the original, it was upsampled from 44.1 to 48, that process almost certainly used a digital filter in the upsampling, maybe it was being excited in a similar way to the ADC?

 

An interesting piece of information for analysis would be getting a hold of the original non-upsampled 44.1 files.

 

Of course it could be something completely different.

 

John S.

[esldude]

For me the phone DID standout as being different, it sounded better than any of the others. I went back and re-listened after knowing which was which and the phone still sounded better.

 

Now the fun part, WHY?

 

So what did the phone do (or NOT do) that the others did not, including the upsampled original.

 

One hypothesis is that with the others high frequency components were exciting resonances in the ADCs digital filter, since the phone doesn't have anything above 15K it may not be exciting said resonances.

 

Then what about the original no DAC file? Well it wasn't the original, it was upsampled from 44.1 to 48, that process almost certainly used a digital filter in the upsampling, maybe it was being excited in a similar way to the ADC?

 

An interesting piece of information for analysis would be getting a hold of the original non-upsampled 44.1 files.

 

Of course it could be something completely different.

 

John S.

 

If you will download the same file I used in the 8th generation test, those are original non-resampled files at 44.1 khz. I did chop some samples off the front of those so a simple checksum wouldn't give away the results. If you think it matters, I can supply the exact original file used for the recording.

 

Also for what its worth the playback DAC uses conventional symmetrical FIR filters. The recording ADC uses apodizing filters with all the ringing after an impulse.

 

I also would note, one assumes the other voters thought the file they voted for stood out as different as well or they wouldn't have voted. And you are the second person to communicate to me that even after knowing which was which they found their choice sounded better (and worse) than the other choices.