Article: LessLoss Echo’s End Reference DAC Full Review

[Danny Kaey]

3 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

you don't seem to understand my post - I listed 2 very low cost labor countries in Europe

 

Apparently, I didn’t - that said, generally speaking, most all of Eastern Europe is low cost. Though with that come a plentitude of other factors such as skill levels, work ethics, language barriers, cultural implications, regulations, etc. that have a potentially massive impact on manufacturing. 

[Jud]

1 minute 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. 

 

If you have a particular work by a particular artist available in multiple resolutions, it may be that this is meaningless, yes.  Or the best version may be available only in some form of hi res, such as DSD (my preferred versions of Tommy and Gaucho are in DSD resolution).  Or, granted, it may be the CD version, but I don't know of many DACs that won't work with RedBook.  Or that particular work by that particular artist may not exist in a RedBook version, as with the recording I linked in my last comment.

 

So absolutely agreed that on a general level, people may pay too much attention to "resolution wars."  On the other hand, I don't like the idea of being barred from recordings I might enjoy because of my equipment.

[Axial]

20 minutes ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

Certainly something you can ask for; that said, I’m not an audiophile and I’m certainly not an aware audiophile. The last few feet of HiFi (from the cone of your speaker to your ears) is all subjective anyway so even if a set of measurements where provided, who’s to say that you or I won’t hear otherwise. Psychologically speaking, the power of suggestion is immensely powerful a force. 

 

Yes I understand. It's just that we like to have more food in our plates, so we can taste and eat more after a hard day's work @ the office pushing pencils. ☺️

[Axial]

22 minutes ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

Right. When I bought my first mechanical watch that I saved up for, I asked the salesman for a 24h +/- second measurement cycle. Ummmmm. No, I didn’t. 

 

It's not the same; it's a time piece movement. 

[Danny Kaey]

3 minutes ago, Axial said:

 

Yes I understand. It's just that we like to have more food in our plates, so we can taste and eat more after a hard day's work @ the office pushing pencils. ☺️

 

Haha, true!

 

 

 

[Danny Kaey]

2 minutes ago, Axial said:

 

It's not the same; it's a time piece movement. 

 

It is - same implication... 

 

 

 

[Axial]

25 minutes ago, Danny Kaey said:

... Psychologically speaking, the power of suggestion is immensely powerful a force. 

  

Danny, you are doing a credible job @ it. I have no reproach on your task force. 

[Axial]

25 minutes ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

Man, where have you been bro? 20k is chump change in high-end land these days. I’m not even joking. 

 

True, it's small peanuts for most of us. It's just that we also like to think about the ones below us; the regular audiophile clientele. 

 

Anyway, money is irrelevant today in most rich societies. 

[Danny Kaey]

13 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

If you have a particular work by a particular artist available in multiple resolutions, it may be that this is meaningless, yes.  Or the best version may be available only in some form of hi res, such as DSD (my preferred versions of Tommy and Gaucho are in DSD resolution).  Or, granted, it may be the CD version, but I don't know of many DACs that won't work with RedBook.  Or that particular work by that particular artist may not exist in a RedBook version, as with the recording I linked in my last comment.

 

So absolutely agreed that on a general level, people may pay too much attention to "resolution wars."  On the other hand, I don't like the idea of being barred from recordings I might enjoy because of my equipment.

 

Valid point - hence why most DACs today do DSD/PCM, (MQA), etc. personally, and in this day and age, I’d much prefer a Roon endpoint DAC with built in Ethernet streaming - put differently, if I had the choice of 2 DACs, one with all formats and the second with limited formats but Ethernet streaming, I’d take the second option. I’m sure @Louis Motek - LessLoss Is perhaps even working on just such a solution. 

 

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

I would be interested to know how this DAC compares to something such as the Aqua Acoustic La Scala MKII Optologic DAC which retails for 8k.

 

Edit, I see we are apparently done talking about the DAC.  My bad... 😉

[Axial]

22 minutes ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

Haha, true!

 

 

 

 

I like video humor ...

 

[Axial]

21 minutes ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

It is - same implication... 

 

 

 

 

 

[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.

[AudioDoctor]

17 hours ago, Louis Motek - LessLoss said:

 

The S/PDIF standard only goes up to 192 kHz sampling rate, and that is the limit we published on our website. The USB input, however, does play 384 kHz sampling rate files, not that any truly exist. 

This type of talk about sampling rates has absolutely no correlation with sound quality. One can easily devise ways to create lower sampling rate files which sound obviously superior to their higher sampling rate counterpart. All you need to do is tweak the upsampling/downsampling algorithms in order to do this, and the market is chock full of available algorithms. Each has its own sound.  The unsuspecting listener often never knows, nor even takes the time to try to inquire, what the originally recorded sampling rate was in the first place. The general mentality and experience in this regard is so narrow and fragile that it is an embarrassment to the entire art of audiophile culture that this topic ever exploded the way it has. Remember the scandalous sampling rate hacks on HDTracks? The publishers would upsample to a higher rate and charge more for the downloads just because somebody passed the file through an upsampling algorithm, something that most any DAC today does in real time anyway, including Soekris. 

These days, most people listen to conversion being carried out at 384 kHz without their even knowing it. They play what they think are different sampling rate files (not knowing the original recording's sampling rate in the first place, nor having any way of finding out), then listen as their DAC upsamples in real time to 384 kHz, without even knowing it. 

 

Those who are quickly excited about sampling rates very quickly get turned off by the math and engineering behind it. It is ironic. 

 

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.

 

The whole numbers race in digital audio can be traced back to the analogous numbers race in the competitive field of computer processing. The big difference is that the concept of audio quality is strictly a real-time process, whereas computer processing is always a break-neck speed of churning out of crunched numbers with error correction algorithms with no recourse to perfect timing in real time. Like, why do I have to wait for my cursor on my screen to show me the word I typed half a second ago? I think you get the picture. Latency and multi-tasked resource allocation vs. the smooth flow of real time. The prior easily marketable with faster and faster speeds. The latter boring as hell from a marketing perspective. 

 

This is why the higher sampling rate numbers are so much more attractive to those in the selling business.   

 

 

 

 

It was just a question regarding my own curiosity about whether or not we were actually talking about the same DAC board is all.

[Archimago]

1 hour ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

Man, where have you been bro? 20k is chump change in high-end land these days. I’m not even joking. 

 

Hi Danny,

Yeah, well that's the thing isn't it? Many companies are pricing their devices way beyond what I suspect 99% of audiophiles are likely willing to pay. If one places "sound quality" as the #1 priority, it is I believe realistic to say that there is no need to own a beautiful sounding DAC anywhere approaching that 20k price figure.

 

Those kinds of prices are chasing the luxury market. The company knows they will sell very few; and they only need to sell a few to make a profit. What I've for years called "non-utilitarian" features of the device like how it looks, the exotic materials they're made of, or pride of ownership of something "special". I have no problem if anyone buys a device with those goals in mind.

 

I know companies want to link the two: high-priced device made of unique construction/material = "better sound quality" and will create all kinds of "attribution theories" to explain why their device is special (such as the wood material having better vibration control). That linkage of ideas of course is not necessarily true. While I would love the look and feel of Panzerholz, there is as others have noted no reason to think this is any better than thick metal shielding for a DAC.

 

Yeah... Lots of companies with lots of high priced goods. Nice to have options. But "good sound quality" I think is best correlated to the physical characteristics of the sound waves in our rooms and the quality of the electrical signals. For me, that's where "job #1" lies when it comes to writing a review and impressing upon the the readers that the gear is worthy/valuable for their consideration...

[Axial]

34 minutes ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

 

 

 

Good tune for comparing DACs ... not necessarily this specific version ...

 

[jtnt]

My word that's gorgeous.

[esldude]

1 hour ago, Danny Kaey said:

 

Certainly something you can ask for; that said, I’m not an audiophile and I’m certainly not an aware audiophile. The last few feet of HiFi (from the cone of your speaker to your ears) is all subjective anyway so even if a set of measurements where provided, who’s to say that you or I won’t hear otherwise. Psychologically speaking, the power of suggestion is immensely powerful a force. 

$20,000 is enough to be powerfully suggestive.

[AudioDoctor]

I like the ideas, I like the looks, I love great sound... I don't love the price...

 

[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

[PeterSt]

6 hours ago, soekris said:

It's correct that a normal non sign magnitude DAC need very precise resistors as the MSB bit toggle all the time when the signal crosses zero, so THD is always relative to full level, while in a sign magnitude DAC ony the bits used by the signal changes, so THD is relative to the actual signal level. The PCM1704 was sign magnitude and so is the soekris line of DACs and DAC modules.

 

OK, so the debate about what's required for precision is still going on, eh ? 

To be clear, I was never involved in the initial DIYAudio thread - I only followed it.

Today's point is: you seem to suggest that I relate my "math" to MSB toggling. No idea where you got that from, unless you saw "MSB" in my Excel line. ... For monotonicity the MSB('s) need to be more precise than the LSB('s). That's all. People discussed it back then and maybe I am not attempting that today (why would I - and I am also not saying it is necessary), but all I talked about was that with the least possible words (mentioning IMD which refers to linearity which comes down to monotonicity, etc. and now try that with 24 bits) ...

 

6 hours ago, soekris said:

please do a little research before posting those claims....

 

that is, if you talked about that. Maybe I misunderstood.

I could also refer you to some larger thread about the glitching of some R2R DAC, but a few people won't like me for doing that. So I won't. Haha. But anyway, you must be talking about that (glitching). I was not ...

 

Maybe you referred to me implying (!) that the PCM1704 can measure better than your board showed at various places. So yes I sure implied that. But you know, I was trying to stay far away of being "competition" and just brought it in neutral fashion. That could have stayed like that until a. people start to bring forward claims which can not be justified and b. someone explicitly tells me to better stay out because being competition. The two don't go along well.

 

The main problem seems to be that we talk about the very same thing with the very same objectives. Spreadsheet time again:

   

 

... just to show that I am serious, including low resistance of the ladder (I put your 625R in there and it will be linear to the 24th bit but mind the required accuracy = "Tolerance").

 

I am not trying to be competition at all and merely appreciate what some people are capable of; When I finished my R2R discrete project and had all the 2700 parts in the house for a 2 channel trial, I just gave up because I knew it couldn't be better than the 1704 based proven design. It's up to you or anyone what to think of this, but one thing is relatively important: I don't have to make up any kind of justification for using a discrete ladder because the best chip ever made for the job went EOL. This is how you see me talking in the other direction: "the 1704 is better because ...".

(and the inside information is that I bought all the 1704's at some stage)

 

So you see, we talk about the same. My discrete design included all what was Sign Magnitude and more. Much more. But also too much because of that. Unmanageable (IMO). And obviously when I would not have had the idea that the discrete ladder would be for the better, I would not have started the whole project (kept me from the streets for 2 years).

I just don't see how the currently running design can be improved upon. And the stupid thing is: all I made up for the discrete design for improvement, can also be applied to (added to) the silicon design. I will always lose from myself. (THD+N is just too good)

 

Figures are not everything although for me it is a base. I always envisioned the sound of discrete as "analogue". And maybe I am jealous that some got there. You sure did.

Thanks.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

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

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

[firedog]

13 hours ago, Louis Motek - LessLoss said:

I mean that ADCs typically aren't used to convert at 384 kHz. 96, yes, this is ubiquitous, 48 kHz, too, but in recording scenarios it is not a professional standard to record at 384 and therefore anything you see on the music market which claims to be a 384 kHz sampling rate recording is likely a mathematically contrived version of the originally recorded material.  This is a heated discussion in the audio recording arena.

 

There might be some scientific applications for recording at 384 like recording bats, but in order for this to be justified, all the gear in the chain needs to have extremely low noise even at ultrasound frequencies in order for the intermodulation effects not to add even more noise to the audible spectrum that we humans can indeed hear. Maybe some rare labs have this capability but for the world of audio this type of extension of sampling rates simply does not add value and can even be (due to interpolation distortions) detrimental to the result. 

 

Try the 2L or nativedsd.com sites, where you can find albums recorded in 8X rates - not upsampled. 

[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 ...