Which DACs bypass digital filtering?

[fas42]

Interesting paper that describes the "state of the art", on the ADC side; which can always do a touch better than DACs, and what one has to deal with ... https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nikolai_Beev/publication/325285614_Analog-to-digital_conversion_beyond_20_bits_Applications_architectures_state_of_the_art_limitations_and_future_prospects/links/5b680228299bf1b9303caac9/Analog-to-digital-conversion-beyond-20-bits-Applications-architectures-state-of-the-art-limitations-and-future-prospects.pdf?origin=publication_detail

[fas42]

Back in the real world, 😉, 16 bits, and something approaching 90dB resolution, is all that's required for a listening experience that can be "better than real life" - chasing numbers might be fun, as an intellectual exercise, but has almost nothing to do with achieving emotionally satisfying dynamics from audio reproduction ...

[fas42]

2 hours ago, semente said:

 

His lab testing may be fine but his listening assessment is fatally biased by taste.

This review of the £96k Audio Note DAC5 is a good example:

 

 

Biased by taste?? ... Meaning, if his "taste" is to get closer, subjectively, to what's on the recording, that's a fatal error?

 

2 hours ago, semente said:

But my basic task is to observe and report, and my finding is that this CD ‘transport’/DAC is outright marvellous, newly defining the inherent quality of Red Book digital audio, which can be so much better than we had imagined was possible. It poses the question: “Why has it taken a specialist valve audio manufacturer to achieve this after 30 years of highly informed digital engineering by the audio industry as a whole?” While there is some hi-res audio material now, it is also clear that CD has been potentially ‘hi-res’ all along, but we never truly experienced it (and you never will with such low-fi CD playback equipment) Instead we’ve suffered the distortions and masking of digital filters, op-amps, and accompanying digital noise, for all these years. (WTH)

 

Amen. ... He could have "taken the words right out of my mouth" ... 🙂.

[fas42]

7 minutes ago, semente said:

 

"to get closer, subjectively, to what's on the recording"...

 

Did you think before you typed this?

 

Indeed I did. What's your problem with what I said?

[fas42]

1 minute ago, semente said:

 

You have no idea of how the recording should sound like. You can't "get closer, subjectively, to what's on the recording".

 

The recording should sound like a group of musicians plying their trade, as if positioned in front of a single or multiple microphones - assuming that's what the recording is of - rather than a watered down, pale imitation of that. Since that is how the recording was made, it's fairly reasonable to assume that hearing that should be possible.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, semente said:

 

We live in different planets.

 

Indeed we must ... if you have not heard what a competent playback is capable of presenting, then me describing the sensation will be of little value ...

 

38 minutes ago, barrows said:

 

While I certainly agree with this for the most, it is not true for every aspect of playback performance, specifically detail retrieval.  If a component change enables one to actually hear details which were previously not heard, then one can be confident that the new component has increased resolution.  As to things like tonality, and such though, I agree.

 

Typically, increased resolution, bringing out more detail, also contributes a good dollop of unpleasant distortion, courtesy of playback chain weaknesses. It takes attention to detail to eliminate the latter, while still retaining the detail ... this is what highly tuned rigs that people hear, which create 'magic' in the room are achieving ... it's rare that this happens, because so few individuals go to the lengths necessary to make this occur.

 

A simple principle ... the more the acoustic world changes, in front of, and around you, when you change the recording you listen to - the closer you are to the recording ... have a good think about it ....

[fas42]

16 hours ago, semente said:

 

No, measurements tell us that their DAC is rubbish.

And if you are able to even roughly correlate measurements with listening then you will be capable of antecipating whether you are likely to enjoy the way it sounds. Having had prior listening to roughly identical topologies as well as with other equipment of the same brand helps too. Call it an educated guess.

 

Talking about topologies, I immediately thought of Lampizator, which is in a similar area of design thought to Audio Note. And I have experienced what a stock Lampizator can do, courtesy of the last audio show I went to - and it was a positive experience. Playing a Yello track, there was nothing I could pick untoward in the sound - it indeed was letting me get "closer to the recording", 😁.