The Best for the Least

[STC]

43 minutes ago, MetalNuts said:

There are 2 types of persons, one being idealistic, one being practical.  I, being the latter. Being restrained and confined by the space I have, I do not consider it practical to use resources into solving an extremely difficult if not impossible  room space.  Yes, you may be right there will be improvement but I do not consider it worthwhile to use quadruple or more effort to improve just a little bit.  Further, different items (not equipment) will be added/removed placed here and there and it does not make sense to me at all.  The only acoustic that I need which I can think of is to reduce the sound leaking to my neigbour next door. 

 

I understand your position. Dedicated listening room for the highest fidelity often not practical for some. 

 

But, if you want to be a recording artist, would you say that your studio acoustics is secondary to your equipment because it is not practical?  

 

You up high end hifi system is similar to your recording studio. Room acoustics comes first. Arguing otherwise will not get you to high fidelity no matter what equipment you use. You will always be the second best with someone with same equipment in a better room. 

[mansr]

7 hours ago, Spacehound said:

I think they are 'honest' as their DACs work on a totally different principle than anyone else's and it's all their own entirely original work

Such claims always make me suspicious. If they really had invented a superior method for D/A conversion, they would/could/should be making billions by licensing it to everybody else.

[Spacehound]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Such claims always make me suspicious. If they really had invented a superior method for D/A conversion, they would/could/should be making billions by licensing it to everybody else.

They've licenced part of it to Arcam, (which is hardly a big deal).

 

I don't fully understand the dCS  process but it has a 'ring' of simple hardware circuits which are all accessed, but   (pseudo) randomly, which supposedly evens the errors out with a small and they say insignificant noise increase. You will have to have platinum ears to perceive a convincing difference from the Chord Dave, which itself is not a massive improvement on the Mojo - Chord seems to be mostly competing with itself. But after hearing any of those three you won't go back to a standard 'DAC chip' box even if it has a couple of decorative tubes on the top. 

[mansr]

27 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

I don't fully understand the dCS  process but it has a 'ring' of simple hardware circuits which are all accessed, but   (pseudo) randomly, which supposedly evens the errors out with a small and they say insignificant noise increase.

That sounds like dynamic element matching. Everybody does it.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

Such claims always make me suspicious. If they really had invented a superior method for D/A conversion, they would/could/should be making billions by licensing it to everybody else.

It's far too expensive, large, and power hungry for other companies to be interested in licensing.

[mansr]

13 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

It's far too expensive, large, and power hungry for other companies to be interested in licensing.

I was talking about the D/A conversion core, not the whole device.

[The Computer Audiophile]

19 minutes ago, mansr said:

I was talking about the D/A conversion core, not the whole device.

As was I. The Ring DAC and it's components are expensive, power hungry, and large. Compare the core to what's in an iPhone or a portable device. Almost all DAC tech these days is small enough, cheap enough, and power efficient to work in a mobile. 

 

Anyway, I'm not the defender of dCS, the company can take care of itself. I just see them as a bit different from those buying a boatload of Sabre chips and dropping them in. 

[mansr]

16 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

As was I. The Ring DAC and it's components are expensive, power hungry, and large.

What if those components were put in an integrated circuit?

[mourip]

On 2/3/2018 at 9:08 AM, plissken said:

 

Looking at all the instrumented testing of various Schiit products from multiple people with Audio Precision and other analysis gear I have no idea how Schiit can be considered remotely competent gear. 

 

 

Have you ever listened to any of their gear?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, mansr said:

What if those components were put in an integrated circuit?

Good question. I really don't know. But, if we bring this back to your assertion that the company would have made tons of money through licensing if its tech was that good, I'll say that putting it in an IC may not provide the performance dCS wants and it would take staff the company doesn't have. 

 

Not totally sure though, just guessing. 

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Good question. I really don't know. But, if we bring this back to your assertion that the company would have made tons of money through licensing if its tech was that good, I'll say that putting it in an IC may not provide the performance dCS wants and it would take staff the company doesn't have.

There's a common perception among audiophiles that discrete circuitry is better than ICs. This is false. In fact, ICs often outperform their discrete equivalents due to shorter signal paths and better matching of components. If dCS really had discovered a fundamentally different way of performing A/D conversion, they could patent this and license to others who might create ICs based on it. dCS themselves wouldn't necessarily be involved in this process. Until someone shows me evidence to the contrary, I will continue to assume it is nothing but a standard design dressed up in audiophile marketing buzzwords.

[Kal Rubinson]

29 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

As was I. The Ring DAC and it's components are expensive, power hungry, and large.

 

10 minutes ago, mansr said:

What if those components were put in an integrated circuit?

Hmm.  Isn't that exactly what Arcam did a while back?

https://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/199arcam/index.html

[Shadders]

10 minutes ago, mansr said:

There's a common perception among audiophiles that discrete circuitry is better than ICs. This is false. In fact, ICs often outperform their discrete equivalents due to shorter signal paths and better matching of components. If dCS really had discovered a fundamentally different way of performing A/D conversion, they could patent this and license to others who might create ICs based on it. dCS themselves wouldn't necessarily be involved in this process. Until someone shows me evidence to the contrary, I will continue to assume it is nothing but a standard design dressed up in audiophile marketing buzzwords.

Hi mansr,

DIY Audio has a thread on this :

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-source/71888-ring-dac.html

The following is possibly the patent for the ring DAC :

http://www.google.com/patents/US5138317

It is old, so will have expired ?

Regards,

Shadders.

[adamdea]

Yes this does look like dynamic element mapping

[plissken]

56 minutes ago, mourip said:

 

Have you ever listened to any of their gear?

 

 

Why should I purchase a piece of gear with clear distortion, poor jitter suppression, left / right channel imbalance, susceptible to computer noise, vs one that does not. 

[BobSherman]

2 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

 

Why should I purchase a piece of gear with clear distortion, poor jitter suppression, left / right channel imbalance, susceptible to computer noise, vs one that does not. 

Why do you post consistent garbage?

[plissken]

1 minute ago, BobSherman said:

Why do you post consistent garbage?

 

Because, according to the subjectivists "everything matters". And data like this matters to me. 

[Shadders]

4 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

 

Why should I purchase a piece of gear with clear distortion, poor jitter suppression, left / right channel imbalance, susceptible to computer noise, vs one that does not. 

Hi,

It is possible that this is why products sound different, they purposefully add distortion. People like the LP - since it has reduced stereo separation, lower S/N, and multiple distortions.

Same with amplifiers - local feedback, reduced overall feedback, but a £40k amplifier sounds great, measures bad.

Regards,

Shadders.

[BobSherman]

9 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Because, according to the subjectivists "everything matters". And data like this matters to me. 

So you are not actually interests in listening to music, but just looking at audio measurements. lol

 

Oh and btw the computer noise comment is total BS. Someone tried to explain it on the clown board and he was abused, which is par for the course over there.

[plissken]

10 minutes ago, Shadders said:

Hi,

It is possible that this is why products sound different, they purposefully add distortion. People like the LP - since it has reduced stereo separation, lower S/N, and multiple distortions.

Same with amplifiers - local feedback, reduced overall feedback, but a £40k amplifier sounds great, measures bad.

Regards,

Shadders.

 

I 100% agree. I've stated before that these add on devices introduce noise and it's what people like. I have no problem with that.

[plissken]

4 minutes ago, BobSherman said:

So you are not actually interests in listening to music, but just looking at audio measurements. lol

 

I love music, just hate the distortion. 

[mansr]

50 minutes ago, adamdea said:

Yes this does look like dynamic element mapping

And this technique goes back to the 1970s: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1050820/

[BobSherman]

3 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

I love music, just hate the distortion. 

But distorting facts, is ok?

 

If you have not listened, how do you know that you would hear it?

[bigbob]

13 hours ago, GUTB said:

These little toy DACs suck because they don’t have the space to house quality analog sections. You need high performance amplifiers (FETs, triodes, op-amps, etc) and the power supplies to run them at a high performance level. 

 

And when a manufacturer can build a DAC, at a reasonable price, that doesn't "suck", we will be happy to embrace it, test it and have and voice an opinion. @GUTB seems to have an Audiophilia affectation related to the instinct of a newborn to suckle from its mother's breast.

Except in the case of a baby born to Royalty, who gets the milk without having to suck.

 

[plissken]

57 minutes ago, BobSherman said:

But distorting facts, is ok?

 

If you have not listened, how do you know that you would hear it?

 

I trusting Mike Moffets own words when they blind tested:

 

But this guy kept going. And going. And going and going and going (Note to other sites: this is what moderation is for.)

Finally, Dave says, “Well, we can fix the glitch. It’s just a ROM change.”

Mike, who by now is weary of reading about his “incompetence,” says, “Yeah, **** it, go ahead, let’s compare the two ROMs again and see if there’s any difference.”

So he did. And we compared. There was no sonic difference, just as there hadn’t been any difference during development. No big shock.
 

 

 They sell DACs on the premise  audibility characteristics.  But all of a sudden they could not hear changes to the distortion profiles of the DAC? If something that is clearly measured isn't audible, how about the rest of the differences?