HOW DOES A PERFECT DAC ANALOG SIGNAL LOOK DIFFERENT THAN A CHEAP DAC

[fas42]

27 minutes ago, barrows said:

The point is that elsdude seemed to be suggesting that audio systems are already so good that the human ear/brain system cannot discern any differences.  This is absurd as the delta of performance between even the best systems and live music is still quite large and easily to discern.

 

The story is that systems have the potential to be so good that the "human ear/brain system cannot discern any differences". However, and unfortunately, this potential is very rarely realised - the need for attention to detail is something that very few have ever had the interest in pursuing, and so they always fall short - the desire is "to buy a solution", or have someone else do the hard work of supplying easy answers - the status quo of the current 'dilemma' will remain until there is an interest in pursuing things otherwise.

[beerandmusic]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

The point is that elsdude seemed to be suggesting that audio systems are already so good that the human ear/brain system cannot discern any differences.  This is absurd as the delta of performance between even the best systems and live music is still quite large and easily to discern.

oh, ok...yea, i agree that to suggest that all systems are already so good....there is vast differences in speakers and amps especially..... i still don't get the hoopla with dacs (at least in the $300 to 2k range)....and with technology moving so rapidly in this area, i would caution anyone to make any huge investment in a dac....this lks with dual es9038 chips seems like a good landing point though, for a baseline under $2k....my guess is someone will have a better flavor out for under $1K in less than 2 years.

Hell it wasn't barely a year ago when engineers realized that isolating the usb 5v would make such a difference....and the LKS dual es9038 suggests it is like having 32 es9028 chips for separation....this almost sounds enticing and worth checking out, but i will wait a little longer.

[beerandmusic]

38 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

The story is that systems have the potential to be so good that the "human ear/brain system cannot discern any differences". However, and unfortunately, this potential is very rarely realised - the need for attention to detail is something that very few have ever had the interest in pursuing, and so they always fall short - the desire is "to buy a solution", or have someone else do the hard work of supplying easy answers - the status quo of the current 'dilemma' will remain until there is an interest in pursuing things otherwise.

there will always be an interest wherever money could be made.

[dean70]

A CHEAP DAC WILL SHOUT AT YOU. A perfect DAC would be more polite 

[Speed Racer]

@beerandmusic,

 

Why do you keep posting about this stuff when your opinions are so entrenched? You should buy a $300 DAC and be done with it.

 

Look, I recently acquired a Pioneer M-22 amp. It is a solid state all Class A power dual mono amp with "only" 30 watts per channel. It sounds absolutely stunning with my 98.82dB 2.83V@1m efficient speakers. It's alleged to be one of the best sounding solid state amps ever made. This amp is supposed to sound better than the McIntosh 6500 you own. So I am working with a quality amp here.

 

When I use my Schiit Audi Modi Multibit DAC as the source for my 2 channel system with the Pioneer M-22 amp, it sounds really good. But it sounds spectacular when I use my Schiit Audio Yggdrasil as the source. The quality of the sound stage is a huge difference. The clarity and level of detail is much better too. The difference in timbre of voices and instruments is quite noticeable.

 

The better the source, the better the sound when using a quality amp. The source will limit what the amp can do if it the source does not match the quality of the amp. In other words, you can have the best amp in the world. But, if the source is not so good, the amp may not sound all that much better than a lesser amp because the source is limiting it more than the lesser amp.

[esldude]

9 hours ago, barrows said:

As long as I can hear a vast difference between live music and even the very best audiophile systems, I would suggest that the human ear/brain system is quite capable of discerning differences.

You are simply confusing the point.  That live music sounds different than audiophile stereo systems in no way invalidates my point about DACs.  They could be (and I believe are) transparent to the input signal.  Two speakers still aren't going to recreate the live sound field.  So no your experience says nothing about your ability to discern DACs.

[esldude]

8 hours ago, barrows said:

The point is that elsdude seemed to be suggesting that audio systems are already so good that the human ear/brain system cannot discern any differences.  This is absurd as the delta of performance between even the best systems and live music is still quite large and easily to discern.

I did not suggest audio is so good you can't tell the difference between live and reproduced.  Nice way to change the subject and pretend you win.  Speakers obviously sound different from each other.  Amps some though much less so.  Otherwise unless someone intentionally designs a sound character or designs incompetent gear there isn't much there to hear. 

[esldude]

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/dac3-introducing-the-new-es9028pro-converter

 

You seem sold on these DAC chips.  Read this paper about things it brings to the table like THD compensation.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

9 hours ago, barrows said:

As long as I can hear a vast difference between live music and even the very best audiophile systems, I would suggest that the human ear/brain system is quite capable of discerning differences.

 

+1

There is something startlingly real about live acoustic music.

 

Then again, after being weaponized by the 'sound man' (to paraphrase Barry Diament), not so real!

[beerandmusic]

35 minutes ago, esldude said:

You are simply confusing the point.  That live music sounds different than audiophile stereo systems in no way invalidates my point about DACs.  They could be (and I believe are) transparent to the input signal.  Two speakers still aren't going to recreate the live sound field.  So no your experience says nothing about your ability to discern DACs.

 

I know you were talking to op, but I never suggested I can't discern differences between dacs.  I am saying that I can't say without any uncertainty that one sounds better than the other, at least between dacs between $300 and $2000 that i have tried...and even suggest that some dacs sound better with some songs where other dacs sound better with other songs and recordings...again can't say one dac sounds "better" than the other, and certainly not on the scale of difference an amp makes.

 

[beerandmusic]

6 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

@beerandmusic,

 

Why do you keep posting about this stuff when your opinions are so entrenched? You should buy a $300 DAC and be done with it.

 

Look, I recently acquired a Pioneer M-22 amp. It is a solid state all Class A power dual mono amp with "only" 30 watts per channel. It sounds absolutely stunning with my 98.82dB 2.83V@1m efficient speakers. It's alleged to be one of the best sounding solid state amps ever made. This amp is supposed to sound better than the McIntosh 6500 you own. So I am working with a quality amp here.

 

When I use my Schiit Audi Modi Multibit DAC as the source for my 2 channel system with the Pioneer M-22 amp, it sounds really good. But it sounds spectacular when I use my Schiit Audio Yggdrasil as the source. The quality of the sound stage is a huge difference. The clarity and level of detail is much better too. The difference in timbre of voices and instruments is quite noticeable.

 

The better the source, the better the sound when using a quality amp. The source will limit what the amp can do if it the source does not match the quality of the amp. In other words, you can have the best amp in the world. But, if the source is not so good, the amp may not sound all that much better than a lesser amp because the source is limiting it more than the lesser amp.

haha, m22>ma6500...haha...not worth commenting on.

[beerandmusic]

48 minutes ago, esldude said:

https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/dac3-introducing-the-new-es9028pro-converter

 

You seem sold on these DAC chips.  Read this paper about things it brings to the table like THD compensation.

I am not sure what your point is...benchmark is praising it. engineering thd compensation is probably not a bad thing?

 

[pkane2001]

3 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

I am not sure what your point is...benchmark is praising it. engineering thd compensation is probably not a bad thing?

 

Beer, I have an $800 ESS 9028 DAC. It's awesome, sounds great, and is a big step up from a state of the art $3k DAC I was using from 15 years ago. Buy it, and enjoy it. I'm sure that a properly engineered 9038 DAC is in some ways even better, at least on paper.

[beerandmusic]

10 hours ago, barrows said:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mn5PrnZV-k

 

There are a couple of links for you beer.

ok, thanks.  I actually watched that video a long time ago, but I did have a few take-aways this time that i didn't the first time.  (I admit that most of it is over my head and technical jargon that I don't really want to dive into)..but the few take-aways I did get is that

 

1. Many people cannot hear the differences including himself, cto, president, leading engineers, and it seemed like they inferred that is a very minute population that can.  I doubt that I am in that small percentage.

 

2. They also suggested that the reason that some can is that because of something about the hair in our ears that is not measurable and that it is above the nyquist threshold of hearing.  This i believe and can accept and proves my point i have made in past, where others have suggested that DSD is a waste because the very hirez files is above the nyquist level of hearing. I have always been pro hirez years back when i was laughed off the board when i said DSD is here for awhile, and that I believed that even cheap recievers would support dsd in the future.

 

3. They also suggested once they made a change to something (forgot what), that double blind tests could no longer discern the differences.  My suggestion is that has been done now,  even in cheap dacs, and even if only a very small percentage could tell any difference initially, and then they couldn't...that suggests to me that today, using their current chips, that very few, if ANY, can discern the differences, and even if they could, it would be on such an extremely tiny scale.

 

Anyway thanks for the link, it was more enlightening.

[beerandmusic]

13 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

Beer, I have an $800 ESS 9028 DAC. It's awesome, sounds great, and is a big step up from a state of the art $3k DAC I was using from 15 years ago. Buy it, and enjoy it. I'm sure that a properly engineered 9038 DAC is in some ways even better, at least on paper.

THANKS for this.  This is my thinking too.

I probably will buy it, but will wait for things to settle a bit more.

Very possible a few more enhancements (hoping galvanic isolation at least).  I am in no rush at this point.

Seriously contemplating the LKS dac mh-da004.  You may want to sell yours and look into this.  The technology that is selling me on it is the idea of more separation by using 2 ES9038 in parallel (first and only dac currently doing that), that is the equivalent of 32 ES9028.  Reading about it, actually sounds plausible to me.  Technology in DACs right now is moving at a very fast rate right now.  I need to get my dacs sold (including my schiit multiibit) grin..

[pkane2001]

4 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

THANKS for this.  This is my thinking too.

I probably will buy it, but will wait for things to settle a bit more.

Very possible a few more enhancements (hoping galvanic isolation at least).  I am in no rush at this point.

Seriously contemplating the LKS dac mh-da004.  You may want to sell yours and look into this.  The technology that is selling me on it is the idea of more separation by using 2 ES9038 in parallel (first and only dac currently doing that), that is the equivalent of 32 ES9028.  Reading about it, actually sounds plausible to me.  Technology in DACs right now is moving at a very fast rate right now.  I need to get my dacs sold (including my schiit multiibit) grin..

 

I've looked at LKS 9038 DAC, but for double the price of my 9028 DAC, I didn't think it would have double the performance.

 

I think the point you and others are making in this thread is that the differences between modern, well-designed DACs are getting to be nearly impossible to tell. I agree. Just find a DAC that satisfies your system requirements and is well engineered at the lowest price point. That's how I bought mine

[beerandmusic]

9 hours ago, opus101 said:

 

I would agree with you, based on my own experience of engineering DACs. Its fairly pointless to sweat much over DACs (other than going for multibit rather than opamp-based S-D types) without establishing the amp you have is relatively transparent. I'd also caution against using price as a metric for quality.

 

BTW the videos in question are by Martin Mallinson, not Mark (his brother).

I agree with price point...i am certain that cheaper dacs of today sound much better than older much more expensive dacs of yesterday.

I have both schiit multibit(bifrost) and DSD dacs, and so I am not so much in agreement with your other statement, especially where sound can be improved by adding a "usb toy" (I am sorry, but that should be built into the dac). 

[beerandmusic]

8 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

I've looked at LKS 9038 DAC, but for double the price of my 9028 DAC, I didn't think it would have double the performance.

 

I think the point you and others are making in this thread is that the differences between modern, well-designed DACs are getting to be nearly impossible to tell. I agree. Just find a DAC that satisfies your system requirements and is well engineered at the lowest price point. That's how I bought mine

 

I believe that dacs can be improved much more, but i do believe that in this phase (probably for the next 5 years anyway), that things will settle where there won't be much more improvement and that they will soon be less than $1k with engineering costs paid for and mass production....and i believe it will be very similar to the LKS i mentioned above in relative design.  The concept of parallel chips for separation, just makes sense in my mind.

I am going to be a little more patient though, as they (ess9038) are still relatively new and may prove to be buggy, prone to heat, or other issues....plus with time, prices come down....so wait for them to work out any bugs, make a few more enhancements (hoping galvanic isolation), and pricing lowered....my guess is less than a year...

[pkane2001]

Just now, beerandmusic said:

 

I believe that dacs can be improved much more, but i do believe that in this phase (probably for the next 5 years anyway), that things will settle where there won't be much more improvement and that they will soon be less than $1k with engineering costs paid for and mass production....and i believe it will be very similar to the LKS i mentioned above in relative design.

 

I'm sure that ESS and AKM chips will become better, more complex, with more filters, more balanced operation, maybe even more bits. I seriously doubt that there will be a major step-up in SQ, there's just not that much that a DAC must do beyond what it can do already with 18-20 bits of resolution, some oversampling and a properly designed filter.

 

R2R DACs are interesting to me as they don't rely on complex digital pipelines for the D2A conversion. Of course, the complexities of manufacturing a precise resistor ladder that maintains its precision over time is itself a major complication in that design. 

[opus101]

2 hours ago, beerandmusic said:

 

I have both schiit multibit(bifrost) and DSD dacs, and so I am not so much in agreement with your other statement

 

I wasn't writing about DSD DACs, rather integrated single chip solutions (like WM8741 for example) which are multibit S-D with opamp output stages.

[beerandmusic]

^^^ok, i didnt know what s-d was...i thought you were saying sigma delta....i will research that more.  I thought i recently read that it is better not to have opamp output stages...really don't know, and really I don't think i care so much how the engineers get there, just that they do get there (grin).  What technology does the LKS mh-da004 have that you think is "bad" or not as good?

 

[beerandmusic]

8 minutes ago, opus101 said:

Its fairly pointless to sweat much over DACs (other than going for multibit rather than opamp-based S-D types) without establishing the amp you have is relatively transparent.

can you clarify this more?  which amp, the dac opamp or the main amp in our system...i am not sure exactly what you are saying here?

also see above.

[opus101]

7 minutes ago, beerandmusic said:

  which amp, the dac opamp or the main amp in our system...i am not sure exactly what you are saying here?

 

Where I wrote 'amp' I meant main amp (poweramp) in the system. S-D does indeed mean sigma-delta but DAC chips these days aren't DSD (which is single bit S-D) rather multibit (5 or 6 bits) S-D. I would agree its best not to have opamp output stages but its also crucial what replaces those opamps. I'm not familiar with the DAC you mentioned so I'll have to go learn a bit more and then maybe edit my post...

 

<later> OK I see its using the latest and most expensive ESS DAC chip which I know very little about as its datasheet is under NDA. I'll investigate what its using for output stage and filtering.

[Speed Racer]

3 hours ago, beerandmusic said:

haha, m22>ma6500...haha...not worth commenting on.

 

Is that all you took away from my post? All that proves is that you are here to promote your agenda....that DACs don't make a big difference. Anyone that says something different is just plain wrong.

 

Oh, I will be more direct this time: The Pioneer M-22 is a better sounding amp than the McIntosh 6500. So I am in a very good position to evaluate the affect DACs quality level has on a very high quality amplifier. Source quality is critical if you want to get the best out of your amp. The fact that you don't get that is mystifying.

[barrows]

4 hours ago, esldude said:

I did not suggest audio is so good you can't tell the difference between live and reproduced.  Nice way to change the subject and pretend you win.  Speakers obviously sound different from each other.  Amps some though much less so.  Otherwise unless someone intentionally designs a sound character or designs incompetent gear there isn't much there to hear. 

Els, please go back and read your previous post, you made no distinctions there.  But, hahaha, it appears that you may be a lower awareness type human, As you presuppose there is some kind of competition here?  Just pushing your buttons a bit, no real need to name call, sorry.

Anyway, indeed I can easily hear differences between DACs, but I do agree that those differences can be minute, in comparisons to the differences between say, speakers (or microphones on the other side of the recording chain).  Even the very best speakers are highly compromised devices.

In fact, right now I am listen testing a handful of different USB cables for use in Sonore's demo system at RMAF.  This experience reinforces for me the simple fact that even with USB cables there are easily noticeable differences in sonic performance, anyone who could not hear these things is not a discerning listener at all.  This is a long process as I will only compare two at a time (of course), and although the differences are (often) easy to hear, determining which cable is better is much more difficult.

Sorry to digress guys... and no, we do not need to get into (another) cable debate here!