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Addons, i.e. regen, reclock, isolate - are they needed?


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26 minutes ago, plissken said:

When are you going to blind A/B like you said you would at WBF?

 

Respectfully - what would that achieve? 

 

From what I understand John's working very hard making up testing gear to hopefully show (in measurements) the differences people have been hearing for a while.

 

Just personally, I couldn't care less if John himself failed a blind A/B test - his own hearing sensitivity is a completely separate thing to his Engineering knowledge and skills...
 

I knew a very talented and respected design engineer in the automotive industry who's never owned or driven a car in his life... and that didn't matter at all...

 

I don't understand the obsession with getting Alex to do a blind test - even if he himself said he would, it doesn't achieve anything.

 

His time and money is probably better spent on funding for John S to build the world's best A to D converter

 

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11 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

From what I understand John's working very hard making up testing gear to hopefully show (in measurements) the differences people have been hearing for a while.

They've been feeding us that line for how many years now?

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10 minutes ago, mansr said:

They've been feeding us that line for how many years now?

 

This is true. They have shared eye pattern pics before though? And recently John did share leakage current measurements.

 

Anyway, my ears have been very fond of John S's work.

 

And I know from a customer perspective this is a backwards approach by me (and others) but I do hope hope he's able to get his test rig done to be able to show more measurements.

 

Rob Watts is  building what he considers the greatest ever A to D converter (his Davina project), not only for potentially commercial purposes but to help his own research, to help with his own future DAC design work. 

 

 

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30 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

Respectfully - what would that achieve? 

 

From what I understand John's working very hard making up testing gear to hopefully show (in measurements) the differences people have been hearing for a while.

 

I don't need that. We just need people that have been hearing for a while to have bias controlled testing corroborate their claims. 

 

Quote

 

Just personally, I couldn't care less if John himself failed a blind A/B test - his own hearing sensitivity is a completely separate thing to his Engineering knowledge and skills...

 

So his only options are to do instrumented design (which they don't have the gear to do as I last recall), anecdotal hear / say design.

 

It took a hobbyist with and A.P. unit and about 4 months of constant bickering to get Alex to fess up.  

Quote

I don't understand the obsession with getting Alex to do a blind test - even if he himself said he would, it doesn't achieve anything.

 

Actually it would achieve a lot and there in lies why it's never happened. 

 

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9 minutes ago, mansr said:

What is the relevance of those without evidence that they correlate with something audible?

 

I get that, but how deep do you want to go?

 

How do you know any measurements you've done with your iFi DACs correlate with something audible?

 

Do you actually enjoy listening to music? Or just reading great Benchmark specifications?

 

Genuine question - I'm not asking in a rude manner. And obviously nothing against the great gear iFi and Benchmark make either.

 

You might be like the auto design engineer I knew that was a gun at his job but never had driven a car in his life and had no interest in it. Nothing wrong with that btw.

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1 hour ago, Em2016 said:

 

I get that, but how deep do you want to go?

 

How do you know any measurements you've done with your iFi DACs correlate with something audible?

 

Do you actually enjoy listening to music? Or just reading great Benchmark specifications?

 

Genuine question - I'm not asking in a rude manner. And obviously nothing against the great gear iFi and Benchmark make either.

 

You might be like the auto design engineer I knew that was a gun at his job but never had driven a car in his life and had no interest in it. Nothing wrong with that btw.

 

Bravo, well said. Credence belongs with those whose advice/solutions improve your success and enjoyment of the hobby. @Superdad    @austinpop   @vortecjr   I salute you for your contributions   to CA  

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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2 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

I get that, but how deep do you want to go?

Deep? I want to see a measurement demonstrating an effect with some plausibility of altering the sound to an audible extent. The analogue output of the DAC would be an obvious place to take such a measurement. A jitter measurement at the clock input of the DAC chip could also be useful. There are actual studies on the audibility of jitter, so if a difference could be shown there, it would be saying something. All we've been shown, however, is a single scope image of the USB signal with and without the Regen device. Without evidence that the admittedly clear difference seen there has an actual effect on the DAC performance, this screenshot is useless. We might as well be talking about the colour of the case. We also don't know if the "before" image is at all representative of computer USB ports. Maybe it is showing an exceptionally poor case.

 

In the absence of measurements, an acceptable alternative would be a properly conducted listening test demonstrating an audible difference. However, this alone will only show that there is a difference, not that there is an objective improvement. For that the measurements are still required.

 

2 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

How do you know any measurements you've done with your iFi DACs correlate with something audible?

Some things I've measured are readily audible, others are not.

 

2 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

Do you actually enjoy listening to music?

Yes, I do, both at home and live at various types of venues. I also like fooling around with electronics. That's why I became an engineer.

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While these guys are going on and on, back to my original topic:

 

So, with everyone saying to try toslink I decided why not. So I'm trying it again.

 

As I remembered, my "Audio Midi" setup in the Mac OS High Siera 10.13.4 shows 24/48 as the highest output for optical. There are higher resolutions on the menu, but I can't select anything but 24/48.

 

I thought I read earlier that that's what Mac OS says but it will actually feed the dac higher resolutions. Is that so?

 

I double checked and since my iMac is a 2011 it seems it does not support higher resolutions via Toslink. Darn. I guess there is a reason toslink don't sound as good as USB when I tested it previously.

Analog: Rega P8 > Ortofon Cadenza Black > Bob's Devices 20:1 SUT > EAR 834P Deluxe MM/MC tube phono stage

Digital: Shanling ET-3 CD Transport. Streaming via SoTM SMS200 Ultra Neo w/ SPS500 power supply > Chord Hugo TT2

Sound: PS Audio PowerPlant3 >  Naim Supernait3 > Harbeth P3ESR

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19 minutes ago, creativepart said:

While these guys are going on and on, back to my original topic:

 

So, with everyone saying to try toslink I decided why not. So I'm trying it again.

 

As I remembered, my "Audio Midi" setup in the Mac OS High Siera 10.13.4 shows 24/48 as the highest output for optical. There are higher resolutions on the menu, but I can't select anything but 24/48.

 

I thought I read earlier that that's what Mac OS says but it will actually feed the dac higher resolutions. Is that so?

 

I double checked and since my iMac is a 2011 it seems it does not support higher resolutions via Toslink. Darn. I guess there is a reason toslink don't sound as good as USB when I tested it previously.

 

So that means that Apple is adhering to the 24/48 standard for TOSLink. I'm not sure with all the shortcomings of TOSLink why anyone would recommend it.

 

While we are at it you can still get 3.5" USB floppy drives.

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  • 6 months later...

To OP - I have a DAC1 also and have been working on fine tuning to get the best sound. You need to look at the unit, the source, the recording and many other factors that bring the entire picture together. What this DAC sounds like in one system will be different than other. 

Here are some suggestions:

1. Adjust jumper settings if you are using XLR outputs directly to the amp. What are they set at? 

2. Get HIFi tuning fuse 

3. A cleaner power cable and supply 

4. Use Airport Express for AirPlay Apple Music and not Apple TV (subtle but noticible difference) 

5. Don’t use TOSLink - coax is always better (prone to noise though). Use a usb-SPDIF converter. 

 

I myself have heard great about dac3 - maybe worth the investment. I too find dac1 a little forward, digital sounding, and sometimes difficult to listen to. After a finite number of tweaks if still not satisfied - time to maybe look into dac3 or an R2R like BorderPatrol or Schitt Yggdrasil. 

 

Great posting though - very informative. 

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