Differences in sound: DAC vs. DAC + Pre-amplifier

[barrows]

24 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Maybe here:

 

https://6moons.com/: "pioneer of DSD streaming"!/lumin8/

 

and here:

 

 

Matt

Thanks for the links.  A lot of plain wrong info in the 6moons blurb on it though, oh well.  Heck if folks like it. great!  But it does not appear to offer any real advantages vs a 64 bit volume control, such as implemented in Roon (although that does not work on DSD either as Roon will not enable it for DSD).  Also, I am a bit taken aback by the false statement in the 6Moons amp review that Lumin is the "pioneer of DSD streaming"!  I guess this reviewer needs to do a little more homework before making such untruthful statements.

It looks like the only advantage of the LeedH VC is if one is attenuating to -60 dB or more, and then, only vs. the volume controls built into DAC chips like ESS that typically are 32 bit.

What a lot of people never seem to talk about when criticizing digital VC is they get right the idea that at high levels of attenuation you will lose some low level details, but they do not point out that if one is listening that quietly, there is no way one would hear details that low in level anyway.   The only real world exception to this would be for those system with very, very poor gain matching, where folks are regularly turning it down to -60 dB or more for regular volume levels.

[barrows]

1 minute ago, mevdinc said:

At one point it was said that Audirvana would be one of the early adapters. But, still no news.

Perhaps Damien (a pretty smart dude) realized the LeedH actually offered no real improvement.

[matthias]

1 minute ago, mevdinc said:

At one point it was said that Audirvana would be one of the early adapters. But, still no news.

 

Joel who wrote the review for 6moons told me they are not interested.

 

Matt

[matthias]

8 minutes ago, barrows said:

Perhaps Damien (a pretty smart dude) realized the LeedH actually offered no real improvement.

 

Yes maybe and Audirvana does upsampling to DSD as well so they would have to apply Leedh VC before this stage.

 

in the case of Lumin streamers without DAC they have to apply the Leedh processing before the signal enters the DAC which I do not find desirable.

 

Matt

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Yes maybe and Audirvana does upsampling to DSD as well so they would have to apply Leedh VC before this stage.

 

in the case of Lumin streamers without DAC they have to apply the Leedh processing before the signal enters the DAC which I do not find desirable.

 

Matt

What’s wrong with processing before entering the DAC?

[matthias]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

What’s wrong with processing before entering the DAC?

 

I am not sure if Leedh is perfectly lossless or lossless per definition of MQA.

IMO, the DAC should get the highest quality signal.

 

Matt

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

I am not sure if Leedh is perfectly lossless or lossless per definition of MQA.

IMO, the DAC should get the highest quality signal.

 

Matt

 

So no DSD upsampling either?

[matthias]

6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

So no DSD upsampling either?

 

I would not go so far.

But when you look at the Taiko Extreme they started with upsampling to DSD a few years ago and now they go for bit-perfect playback because it seems to be superior in their eyes or better ears.

 

Matt

[barrows]

I prefer the opposite way:  As much processing as possible before anything gets to the DAC, and then the DAC just converts to analog and buffers the signal for delivery to an amplifier stage.  In any case, a digital VC inside a DAC still makes its attenuation before the conversion to analog...  Everytime I reduce processing done internally in the DAC, I hear a step in the right direction in sound quality.  This is why I oversample to DSD 256 in a computer isolated by an optical Ethernet Renderer and then the ESS chip in my DAC does less processing on the signal.  Less processing in the DAC (all other things being equal) always results in a more natural sound for me. 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

I would not go so far.

But when you look at the Taiko Extreme they started with upsampling to DSD a few years ago and now they go for bit-perfect playback because it seems to be superior in their eyes or better ears.

 

Matt

There are many eyes, ears, and DACs in this world. 

[matthias]

11 minutes ago, barrows said:

I prefer the opposite way:  As much processing as possible before anything gets to the DAC, and then the DAC just converts to analog and buffers the signal for delivery to an amplifier stage.  In any case, a digital VC inside a DAC still makes its attenuation before the conversion to analog...  Everytime I reduce processing done internally in the DAC, I hear a step int he right direction in sound quality.  This is why I oversample to DSD 256 in a computer isolated by an optical Ethernet Renderer and then the ESS chip in my DAC does less processing on the signal.  Less processing in the DAC (all other things being equal) always results in a more natural sound for me. 

 

 

Yeah, I know and understand your POV.

But there are some partly expensive R2R DACs which do not need any processing before conversion.

At least clients of the Extreme and their DAC manufacturers seem not to prefer upsampling before the DAC.

 

Matt

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Yeah, I know and understand your POV.

But there are some partly expensive R2R DACs which do not need any processing before conversion.

At least clients of the Extreme seem not to prefer upsampling.

 

Matt

No DAC needs processing prior to the unit. It’s all preference. 

[matthias]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

No DAC needs processing prior to the unit. It’s all preference. 

 

OK, for some DACs processing helps as @barrows mentioned.

 

Matt

[barrows]

29 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

OK, for some DACs processing helps as @barrows mentioned.

 

Matt

Well, indeed...  And the R2R DAC you mention will perform better (if it does not OS onboard) with an oversampled signal objectively.  Whether a listener prefers the sound of a totally NOS approach is a different matter, but such a preference is not one for accurate conversion.

 

The one thing that is unavoidable though, is that a computer will always be able to run a more sophisticated, and more precise, oversampling calculation than any DAC due to much more processing power available.  And it is much easier to avoid problems caused byt the processing (mostly processor noise/RF) if that processing is done far away from the audio system.

[mevdinc]

Leedh digital volume is supposed to be lossless that's why the reviewer seems to be very impressed by what he heard. As he says even the best preamp does something to the sound and alters it in someway. Whereas the lossless digital volume inside the DAC seems to provide the best result.

Hopefully Chris can review the new Lumin X1 and share his findings.

And, also hopefully @damien78 can shed some light on the Leedh situation as far as Audirvana implementation is concerned.
Having Leedh in software player such a Audirvana would be another great option to have. This option would work with any DAC.

[barrows]

10 minutes ago, mevdinc said:

Having Leedh in software player such a Audirvana would be another great option to have. This option would work with any DAC.

The above is only true if the LeedH volume control was actually superior to what Audirvana already does.  As the 6moons article says, LeedH is only superior to a 32 bit volume control (not 64 bit) and, only when there is a lot of attenuation (-60 dB).  to license the LeedH, Damien woudl have to raise the price of Audirvana and as far as the descriptions go, there is no advantage.

Now i will admit that the descriptions given are rather cryptic and not precise.  I do not think it would be a "great option" to pay ore for a volume control with no actual advantage in use.  I suspect this may be why Damien did go forward with LeedH.

 

But we should not just view this so simplistically,  LeedH is not "lossless", it just has less loss than a typical 32 bit volume control when operating at -60 dB or less.  So, if one is using already a 64 bit volume control, as in Roon, for example (I cannot remember if Audirvana is 64 bit) there is no advantage at all to LeedH.  Additionally, if one does not regularly need -60 dB of attenuation, there is also no advantage to LeedH-At leads that is what the description of how it works at 6 moons says...

 

It would be interesting to hear @Miska's analysis on this, as he is one who could certainly offer a more considered and detailed view, and he could add his thoughts via a vis LeedH vs HQPlayer VC.

[Miska]

1 minute ago, barrows said:

It would be interesting to hear @Miska's analysis on this, as he is one who could certainly offer a more considered and detailed view, and he could add his thoughts via a vis LeedH vs HQPlayer VC.

 

There is nothing special in the LeedH volume control, I find it pretty funny if it really is granted a patent somewhere. Quite typical though, explain a simple thing in very complex way to make it sound complex and fancy and in a way fool the application examiner (and anybody trying to read it), such happens a lot in patent field. But it is notable that it doesn't work when you have any other DSP involved that produces samples that have higher precision than the original integer samples. So the integer way they do volume control means that it is useless for example when upsampling, digital room correction, eq, headphone processing or any other DSP is involved.

 

The way they do volume control with integer data is nothing new and it works only when you have max 24-bit input, do volume control and have 32-bit output. Nothing else. Volume control range is the amount of extra headroom you have due to extra number of bits.

 

[matthias]

34 minutes ago, barrows said:

Well, indeed...  And the R2R DAC you mention will perform better (if it does not OS onboard) with an oversampled signal objectively.  Whether a listener prefers the sound of a totally NOS approach is a different matter, but such a preference is not one for accurate conversion.

 

The one thing that is unavoidable though, is that a computer will always be able to run a more sophisticated, and more precise, oversampling calculation than any DAC due to much more processing power available.  And it is much easier to avoid problems caused byt the processing (mostly processor noise/RF) if that processing is done far away from the audio system.

 

I am not strictly talking about NOS DACs. There may be DACs which take a benefit from software upsampling but certainly not all. Even in lower price ranges like Schitt Yggdrasil the from Schiit implemented OS algorithm might be better than software upsampling. The Yggdrasil seems to work extremely well with Redbook content. Other DACs in higher price ranges like the APL, Emmlabs, Ypsilon, Chord etc. have either implemented their own OS or the manufacturers recommend playing bit-perfect for best SQ. 

The Taiko keeps computer activity at minimum for best SQ on the other side do exist the EC filters and modulators from Jussi which are so demanding that no consumer computer is able to reproduce in DSD512. 

 

Matt

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, matthias said:

There may be DACs which take a benefit from software upsampling but certainly not all.

Absolutely true.

[barrows]

22 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

I am not strictly talking about NOS DACs. There may be DACs which take a benefit from software upsampling but certainly not all. Even in lower price ranges like Schitt Yggdrasil the from Schiit implemented OS algorithm might be better than software upsampling. The Yggdrasil seems to work extremely well with Redbook content. Other DACs in higher price ranges like the APL, Emmlabs, Ypsilon, Chord etc. have either implemented their own OS or the manufacturers recommend playing bit-perfect for best SQ. 

The Taiko keeps computer activity at minimum for best SQ on the other side do exist the EC filters and modulators from Jussi which are so demanding that no consumer computer is able to reproduce in DSD512. 

 

Matt

 

 

 

This way off topic, but I feel it is OK because the topic is mostly dead anyway, if the OP minds, please ask me to shut up and I will.

 

I do not entirely disagree, but I would suggest that it is possible to implement a better oversampling algorithm in a computer than that which is done inside a DAC.  The advantage of using a much more powerful processor allows for a better oversampling algorithm than what any of these DACs you mention can do.  You can believe in "magical" formulas by DAC makers, or you can believe the actual truth, that any oversampling algorithm used by any of these DACs, can be done better, with more precision, in a powerful computer.  The other factor is that any processing done inside a DAC has the potential to pollute the DAC with noise, as these processors, especially the more powerful FPGAs such as used by Chord are quite noisy: Chord themselves admits that the reason they make the mScaler, as a separate component is to remove it as noise source inside the DAC.

 

Yes indeed, the noise produced by a  computer is a problem if not dealt with.  The best way to do this is to isolate the computer from the audio system: This why Jussi makes NAA.  By locating the computer in another room of the home, it can be as massive and noisy as necessary tor any kind of oversampling, and can have fan cooling, and hooking it all up over Ethernet (optical Ethernet is the best) isolates all the computer noise from the audio system and DAC.  This approach also makes crazy expensive "audiophile" servers unnecessary, saving cash (take your girlfriend out for some nice meals perhaps).  All you need is the best ultra low noise Renderer you can get in your system, and all the other computer gear can be basic commercial stuff, as the optical Ethernet connection isolates all the noise.

[matthias]

3 minutes ago, barrows said:

The best way to do this is to isolate the computer from the audio system: 

 

As I said I understand your POV and this is the statement of Sonore as well. 

 

BUT when the computer is of a certain quality this "endpoint concept" comes to an end. So far the experiments with the Extreme had as result that a combo with the Extreme and a very good endpoint does sound inferior to the Extreme alone, the same is true when the Extreme itself is endpoint and gets its signal from another server.

Some others on this forum made the same experience with servers of a lesser quality than the Extreme.

 

But as always YMMV 🙂

 

Matt

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, matthias said:

 

As I said I understand your POV and this is the statement of Sonore as well. 

 

BUT when the computer is of a certain quality this "endpoint concept" comes to an end. So far the experiments with the Extreme had as result that a combo with the Extreme and a very good endpoint does sound inferior to the Extreme alone, the same is true when the Extreme itself is endpoint and gets its signal from another server.

Some others on this forum made the same experience with servers of a lesser quality than the Extreme.

 

But as always YMMV 🙂

 

Matt

The total number of people suggesting endpoints are over is how many? 10?

 

I’m still firmly in the endpoint camp. 

[matthias]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The total number of people suggesting endpoints are over is how many? 10?

 

Chris,

there has always been a small number of people who make certain experiments and big numbers who accept the status quo.

 

Matt

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Chris,

there has always been a small number of people who make certain experiments and big numbers who accept the status quo.

 

Matt

With all due respect, you accept a tiny number of people's statements as fact very easily. 

 

Experiments don't make them right.

 

total number of people can still be counted on two hands?

[barrows]

I have only one more thing to say and then I shall bow out.  Extraordinary claims, which go against the laws of physics, require extraordinary proof.  Extraordinary proof would be actual measurements showing improved DAC performance (I would accept a measurement of noise floor and an accurate jitter spectrum) in a addition to blinded listening tests which correlate with the measured results in a statistically significant fashion.  While I generally believe in subjective evaluations, I am highly suspicious of such when it comes to claims which are clearly violating the actual engineering concepts which are at play here, especially when we are talking only about digital data and not analog factors.