Article: LessLoss Echo’s End Reference DAC Full Review

[fas42]

As good an example as any of the importance of the 'auxiliary engineering'. Same board, pulled out of that box, and attached to the usual "other bits" and inside a conventional case will highly likely sound nowhere near as good - I note people are still hung up on the core bits "being everything", and "measurements tell the full story".

 

Having worked from the other direction, that is, using very ordinary circuits from cheap audio gear, and improving the enviroment they work in - to excellent effect - I have no doubt that it delivers the goods.

 

People have great difficulty appreciating that low cost electronics get all the key aspects of high SQ right - which is then wrecked by cheap and nasty implementation in the final package. Meaning, the high cost is justified, because of the knowledge component in the construction of the full product; Swiss gear uses a similar philosophy, to great effect.

[fas42]

15 hours ago, Louis Motek - LessLoss said:

Meanwhile, we and like-minded audiophiles are still discovering deeper and deeper depths in good 'ol 44.1. The whole question of sonic discovery in digital always was and always will remain the further and further reduction of jitter. It is just that simple.

 

 

Yes. Except, I don't like the word "jitter", because it parcels up all the degrading influences into one convenient grab-all - turn the anomalies or noise interference into 'jitter equivalents' if you like, but it may distract one from addressing "non-jitter" areas.

 

It was very obvious, to me, 35 years ago, that CD was indeed "perfect" - but playback chains were, and still to a large degree are, weak as sh!t, and only highly focused efforts could, can overcome the numerous flaws in the path; sloppiness and lack of attention to detail will undermine precisely what one is trying to achieve.

[fas42]

32 minutes ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

I do love classical music, which is likely a candidate for such resolution. That said, I could care less of the kilohertz and megahertz wars. To me, this is the equivalent of arguing over megapixels on a camera sensor. There are so many more relevant factors impacting music reproduction that this is generally speaking utterly meaningless noise. 

 

Yes, the "format wars" are a nonsense - what 44.1 through barely 16 bit capable DACs can deliver is convincing SQ of the highest level, and this can been the case for decades - those "other things" are the killers of subjective quality, and unless addressed are massive handbrakes, holding back the potential of what a particular setup is capable of.

[fas42]

Price, and looks, bear almost no relationship to the capability of audio, in the now - a favourite memory is hearing the most expensive, triple box dCS rig a decade and a half ago checking every box for why people hate digital sound - scrawny, scratchy, unpleasantness to the n'th degree - having heard the same following rig, just prior, achieve superb quality from a high end TT source rubbed salt into the wounds even deeper

[fas42]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

You're the guy who judges sound quality based on YouTube videos right? 

 

I'm the guy who listens for giveaways in the YouTube video that there's something wrong with the sound - get together a dozen YouTube clips, half of live music making; and half of recordings of audio rig playback - and have someone not interested in audio separate them into the two groups, from listening to the sound only.

 

If the clip makes it very difficult to identify that it is in fact capture of a system playback, then more things are right than wrong.

 

[fas42]

The interesting thing is that many audiophiles need a rig to sound like a rig; they don't like it when the playback doesn't impart strong personality to what they hear ... the makeup is more important than the skin underneath ...

[fas42]

8 hours ago, mav52 said:

Agree Chris. Listeners listen to what they like, they like their system regardless of what some might want them to think.  It ain't about them that's for sure.  Like you said, who cares, only the ones that want you to be just like them. 😉

 

The point is, what are you after? If one enjoys the slant that a particular rig applies to everything it plays that's perfectly OK - but some then confuse that with the concept that "it's better at playback than other systems!".

 

My own interest is in hearing what's on the recording, less additives - the rig is merely a means to an end.

[fas42]

4 hours ago, Axial said:

Serious question regarding the casing: Would it influence the audio signal a wood enclosure versus an aluminum/metal enclosure? ...Say in an audio rack in proximity of other audio components and in the vicinity of audio interconnects, AC power cords and outlets, etc. ...Even a display nearby, or a laptop. 

 

Most assuredly, Bob. Every time I do an major run at tweaking it turns out "everything matters"; one would be swamped by the number of things that one can experiment with, so I tend to focus on a different batch of areas with each effort.

 

I end up pushing a particular combo of gear into what I consider an acceptable level of performance - I could always go much further, but there are only so many hours in the day ... .

[fas42]

I got my first round of "blow me over with a feather" SQ with a CDP that used a single PCM56, not even the premium version, per channel. This old warhorse chip has pretty miserable specs by today's standards - but that didn't get in the way of the system projecting massive soundstages, etc.

[fas42]

Components sensitive to vibrations are one of the factors preventing one achieving convincing SQ - shtf is a member here who has spent great effort in investigating and addressing this factor. There are numerous ways of dealing with such matters, I've experimented and evolved my own techniques - one of the principles I use is to couple where I believe it has value, parts of the setup to high density, high mass energy 'sinks'. The earth itself is the extreme example - something shaking tries to make the earth shake; game over!

 

To my mind the panzerholz is contributing this to the design - I would use other approaches.

[fas42]

If one wants to play with esoteric 'solutions', because it's a fun thing to do, go for it! However, if the goal is to  get the circuitry to be robust, meaning it always behaves the same no matter what's happening in the environment, then experimenting and thinking it through will likely lead to better outcomes ...

 

IME, very conventional methods do enough to get the parts of a playback chain into an acceptable status. What many don't realise, or don't want to understand, is that issues in many, unrelated areas may all have to be dealt with, for best sound - there is never, ever, a single "magic bullet" - a fantasy many audiophiles don't want to let go of.