Thoughts on "Professional Audio" DACs

[ajvare]

I was preparing a detailed post on my LP ripping project and weak links in the chain from LP to computer playback (see below) but came up with a more immediate question:

 

With so many DACs out there and many of them coming from small companies that I have never heard of I'm wondering if we would't do as well or better using pro audio gear.

 

I started thinking about this as I was looking at audio interfaces for recording; most of them play back and it seems logical that if I rip an LP with a certain A/D box that the same box should do a good job going D/A as well. I bought an Apogee Duet from Sweetwater (no plugging but they seems like a good pro audio source) and have been very happy with the results so far. I visited my local pro music store (Bananas at Large in San Rafael CA) and they made a strong argument for pro gear. They say they sell all manner of recording gear to pro studios, including AD/DA boxes and that the ones they sell (Pre-Sonus, RME, Apogee, ...) are validated by the people making the recordings and should get a more through shake out as products than consumer stuff. Depending on what you buy it seems that pro stuff is cheaper too.

 

So: is it possible to get a DAC (that is also a AD/DA box) form a pro audio source that is as good or better than a Berkeley Alpha or Weiss et al?

 

Thanks (comments on the recording screed below welcome as well).

 

------------------

LP Ripping Project

 

 

Analog

 

1) Rega Planar 25 w/Stock Tonearm

2) Dynavector 10x5 High Output Moving Coil

3) Stock Interconnects to Phono Preamp

4) Moon LP3 Phono Preamp

5) Medium quality Audioquest Interconnects to Duet

 

Digital

 

6) Apogee Duet (XLR line-in, set to “XLR Mic” for adjustable gain)

a. Duet is 24bit/96Hz max

b. Connects to Mac over Firewire 400

7) iMac

a. 3.06 GhHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB SDRAM

b. OSX v. 10.6.5

8) Peak LE v. 6.2.0

a. Records 24bit/96Hz AIFF files (need to upgrade to do other formats)

b. I do very little editing in Peak, some times increase gain a bit

9) Click Repair v3.3.1 (great tool)

 

Playback

 

10) From the iMac – not the critical listening location

a. Duet back out to an Old NAD 3020

b. B&W Book shelf

11) Using AirPlay over the Airport – Main listening area for now

a. Airport to DAC with Toslink, decent quality cable (Note: As some point I’ll get a Mac Mini or other server with its own hard drive and copy of the library to feed the DAC and playback directly. Using Airplay I understand that everything gets down sampled to 16bits/44.1 Hz)

b. Cambridge DAC Magic, RCA to Creek with high quality Audioquest cables

c. Creek 4330SE

d. Vienna Acoustics Mozart speakers

 

 

Questions

1) Without respect to playback, where is the weakest link in the analog to digital file chain? I’m ripping my 500+ albums slowly and don’t want to regret a poor choice later.

2) Is there much to be gained from upgrading to 24bit/192Hz?

a. Cost could be high for new A/D, D/A, Recording S/W (Peak Pro is $500), etc.

b. Thoughts on using a Professional DAC for both the recording now and later move it to the main kit for playback? (Something like the Apogee Ensemble [http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Ensemble/ ] or the RME Babayface [http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Babyface/ ]

3) While not too worried about storage this means a much bigger library when done (most of the CDs are in AIFF right now)

 

 

[Panelhead]

The Ensemble is Gerry closeto the Duet. Just it has eight channels. The Rosetta 200 is an upgrade to your Duet.

 

George

 

[ajvare]

George,

 

I think the Ensemble will do 24/192 while the Duet tops out at 24/96, wondering about the value of more Hz? How do you rate the AD/DA quality of the Apogee stuff vs high end audiophile brands? Thanks.

 

[Panelhead]

The Ensemble does do 192K, while the Duet only does 96K, But that is not conversion hardware related. The Ensemble does not have mic pres, but is self powered.

The Duet MAY be slightly better sounding. The circuit board is SOTA. Six layer with great layout. Small things like layout pay off.

I think the Apogee line is comparable to anything in the same price range. The Rosetta 200 would be a great upgrade to your Duet, it will need a FW card, so 1200.00 -1500.00 to get 2 great channels of A/D and D/A. Better than an Ensemble.

The Weiss and Metric Halo lines are Pro gear. SoI have to think the pro gear can sound just as good as the audiophile. Even the BADA is listed as pro, but is too dated as just a dac without USB or FW.

My latest dream is the Apogee Symphony I/O. List with two modules is 5600.00. I hear it is an big jump above the Rosetta. But the mic pre module is not out. And I have no need for the current module with 8 opticals.

I am just too cheap to spend that much on an interface. I missed a deal on a Rosetta 200 with FW X Card a month ago. That is more my area of comfort.

Looks like even Apogee and Apple are giving up on FW. Too bad, but there may be interfaces soon that use USB3. This will end all the discusion of USB vs FW. Miscrosoft won this one.

 

George

 

 

[waltzingbear]

to consider pro audio dac's you need to look at

 

first tier:

Mytek

Benchmark

Lynx Aurora

Apogee

Crane Song (HEDD or Avocet)

 

second tier:

Lavry Engineering

Dcs

Weiss

 

 

there are of course more, but these are the more commonly used.

 

Alan

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

dCS has been out of the professional market for years.

 

[Bob Stern]

dCS, Weiss and Lavry Gold should be in the top tier, or even above the top tier.

 

[waltzingbear]

I guess sadly you are right, I thought they were still double marketing themselves, but a quick look at the site tells me otherwise. Its sad they stopped designing ADCs. I guess the mass market (?) was too appealing. I was at a couple of sessions with Andy McHarg at the Frisco AES a month ago and they are still very much pursuing advances in digital audio delivery.

 

 

Alan

 

 

 

[waltzingbear]

there is no above the top of the tier, at best we are just beginning to approach a point were we have good reliable quality conversion available with reasonable cost and understanding.

 

Converters are still "broken" because they don't have reliable nor consistent resolution within their system parameters. You don't really believe we have a 24 bit system do you? I think the absolute best available will still only give 23 bits resolution (and that's the Gold Lavry's and Dcs's). Its getting better, but at a slower pace.

 

By the way, I'm the guy that if you ask me which computer OS is better, I'll tell you they are all broken.

 

Alan