semente Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 1 hour ago, idiot_savant said: Well, if you’re feeding it 1.5MHz it probably is NOS. If you’re a red book NOS user it isn’t really your friendly neighbourhood idiot Sorry, you've lost me there. Are you referring to the Denafrips or to NOS in general which was what I was asking about? I had a 47Labs DAC once. I used the TDA1543 and it only allowed Redbook input over coaxial, it didn't oversample and it didn't filter (no digital filter), not sure if it had an analogue low-pass. "Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256) Link to comment
idiot_savant Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 Hi @The Computer Audiophile, it's just you've always seemed reasonable on the forum and I had seemed to wind you up - like I say, I had no idea at the time you had reviewed it. You're absolutely right not to revise your opinion on how this pairing sounds, You're absolutely right to try and avoid "gotcha" moments to embarass manufacturers, but there certainly is something that isn't quite as described here. The thing I'm finding interesting is that people are so set against a certain design - so e.g. R2R NOS people who hate D/S, but then use a PC to increase sample rate and reduce word depth to improve linearity... which is exactly what most D/S designs do... I've been very careful to try and talk in general terms, rather than specific products, so I'm hoping to be a positive rather than a negative your friendly neighbourhood idiot Link to comment
numlog Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 @The Computer AudiophileSorry but you keep repeating as if this could be some NOS/OS grey area. It is clearly OS, as confirmed by others based on all the evidence presented. If you think it isn't or have doubts, feel free to explain. A NOS DAC always plays exactly what you feed it without digital processing, be that hi res, red book or OS data at any sample rate, this is how every early Multibit dac chip operated and is where the definition came from. A grey area would be others forms of DSP like equalisation, OS, that is a process that increases the sample rate of the input and adds new samples, is obviously not one. Link to comment
idiot_savant Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 @semente - to clarify, it was asked if this product was a NOS or not. This had led us to two entirely separate users of NOS: Type A: This user wants to leverage the processing of a PC to do filtering and noise shaping to present very high rate processed data to the DAC, with as little DSP inside the DAC as possible to interfere with the PC processing ( so. e.g. The Computer Audiophile ) Type B: This user wants the original samples from the source presented directly to a simple DAC at the original sample rate, usually because the claim is this is "purer" or they just prefer the sound ( e.g. etane ) Both want a "NOS" DAC, but for entirely different reasons. The denafrips DACs *appear* to be doing a linear interpolate ( or average ) for sample rates below it's internal processing. This is probably ideologically incompatible with Type B, and the frequency response is (measurably) poorer than an already droopy NOS ( so exactly twice as droopy for point of reference - a "real" NOS is about 3dB down at 20kHz, a linear interpolate about 6 for red book ) For Type A users, however, they are probably feeding it at it's native sample rate, or at a rate where the linear interpolate is effectively not worth worrying about, so is completely OK. It's entirely possible that this linear interpolate thing could be corrected by a firmware update in the future, I have no idea if these units can be updated in the field, however as it stands it's a peculiarity that is definitely there, and we have had no response from the manufacturer. Does this make sense? your friendly neighbourhood idiot semente 1 Link to comment
PeterSt Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 3 hours ago, semente said: Are there different kinds of NoOverSampling? With discrete ladder DACs, I am afraid the answer can be Yes, although this will probably not be what you mean (to ask). ... I am pretty sure that this boils down to what Oversampling actually is, and this is not the same as Upsampling. Examples: Suppose I have that discrete DAC and it is 17 bits at least, then I would be able to UPsample the data in advance of the D/A, so 16/44.1 would become 17/88.2. The DAC would be NOS because, well, it is not OVERsampling. Technically there would be no difference with the in-DAC solution vs the outboard (PC playback software) solution, and the sound will depend of the kind of filtering used. Also notice that leaving out reconstruction filtering will make no sense. When I have an SDM (chip) based DAC and I feed that 16/44.1, it may OVERsample to whatever idiot rate, so the modulator works with decent feedback. The number of bits is not importance any more because that is how the modulator works (with 1 bit, or a few bits, whatever, but not 16 or 17 or 24 or 32). Although it may be hard to find proper definitions, I myself regard oversampling as a kind of sampling the samples (again). This should be done at a (way) higher rate than the original is. Also, from an SDM based DAC it will generally not be known what its sampling rate is, because it is unimportant. Notice that this is different from the INPUT rate of a DSD DAC. And as far as I can tell, that too can still oversample. Do I make sense ? Completely incorrect ? PCM-me. semente 1 Lush^3-e Lush^2 Blaxius^2.5 Ethernet^3 HDMI^2 XLR^2 XXHighEnd (developer) Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer) Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer) Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier) Link to comment
PeterSt Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 12 minutes ago, idiot_savant said: Type A: This user wants to leverage the processing of a PC to do filtering and noise shaping to present very high rate processed data to the DAC, with as little DSP inside the DAC as possible to interfere with the PC processing I am sorry, but it this is the way NOS is explained, than about everything is OS, if only "as little as possible DSP" is performed. So No, no DSP at all. One thing could be excluded, and this is volume control. That is, if we regard that DSP too. But on top of it all, the volume control, thus proposed as digital, should be lossless. I myself would not even incorporate dither. numlog 1 Lush^3-e Lush^2 Blaxius^2.5 Ethernet^3 HDMI^2 XLR^2 XXHighEnd (developer) Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer) Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer) Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier) Link to comment
numlog Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 2 minutes ago, PeterSt said: With discrete ladder DACs, I am afraid the answer can be Yes, although this will probably not be what you mean (to ask). ... I am pretty sure that this boils down to what Oversampling actually is, and this is not the same as Upsampling. Examples: Suppose I have that discrete DAC and it is 17 bits at least, then I would be able to UPsample the data in advance of the D/A, so 16/44.1 would become 17/88.2. The DAC would be NOS because, well, it is not OVERsampling. Technically there would be no difference with the in-DAC solution vs the outboard (PC playback software) solution, and the sound will depend of the kind of filtering used. Also notice that leaving out reconstruction filtering will make no sense. When I have an SDM (chip) based DAC and I feed that 16/44.1, it may OVERsample to whatever idiot rate, so the modulator works with decent feedback. The number of bits is not importance any more because that is how the modulator works (with 1 bit, or a few bits, whatever, but not 16 or 17 or 24 or 32). Although it may be hard to find proper definitions, I myself regard oversampling as a kind of sampling the samples (again). This should be done at a (way) higher rate than the original is. Also, from an SDM based DAC it will generally not be known what its sampling rate is, because it is unimportant. Notice that this is different from the INPUT rate of a DSD DAC. And as far as I can tell, that too can still oversample. Do I make sense ? Completely incorrect ? PCM-me. To make things clearer what we are all discussing here is upsampling incorrectly named oversampling or OS , would that be right? Oversampling wouldn't be something you see ever in PCM dacs? Link to comment
numlog Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 2 minutes ago, PeterSt said: I am sorry, but it this is the way NOS is explained, than about everything is OS, if only "as little as possible DSP" is performed. So No, no DSP at all. One thing could be excluded, and this is volume control. That is, if we regard that DSP too. But on top of it all, the volume control, thus proposed as digital, should be lossless. I myself would not even incorporate dither. Agreed, this is simply not NOS. no such thing as 'little bit NOS' Link to comment
Hensema Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 Oversampling is exactly the same as upsampling. It means that by some algoritme the sample rate is increased. Often in combination with an low pass filter like Sinc, FIR of even IIR. Oversampling by linear interpolation is a very crude way oversampling and should be avoided for hifi. Link to comment
semente Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 9 minutes ago, PeterSt said: With discrete ladder DACs, I am afraid the answer can be Yes, although this will probably not be what you mean (to ask). ... I am pretty sure that this boils down to what Oversampling actually is, and this is not the same as Upsampling. Examples: Suppose I have that discrete DAC and it is 17 bits at least, then I would be able to UPsample the data in advance of the D/A, so 16/44.1 would become 17/88.2. The DAC would be NOS because, well, it is not OVERsampling. Technically there would be no difference with the in-DAC solution vs the outboard (PC playback software) solution, and the sound will depend of the kind of filtering used. Also notice that leaving out reconstruction filtering will make no sense. When I have an SDM (chip) based DAC and I feed that 16/44.1, it may OVERsample to whatever idiot rate, so the modulator works with decent feedback. The number of bits is not importance any more because that is how the modulator works (with 1 bit, or a few bits, whatever, but not 16 or 17 or 24 or 32). Although it may be hard to find proper definitions, I myself regard oversampling as a kind of sampling the samples (again). This should be done at a (way) higher rate than the original is. Also, from an SDM based DAC it will generally not be known what its sampling rate is, because it is unimportant. Notice that this is different from the INPUT rate of a DSD DAC. And as far as I can tell, that too can still oversample. Do I make sense ? Completely incorrect ? PCM-me. I get the distinction that you are trying to make in regard to PCM -> R2R vs. PCM -> SDM. But why is one called UP and the other OVER? I can upconvert Redbook to PCM705.6 and the result can be fed to either a R2R D/A or an SDM D/A. The difference is that the latter will run the signal through the modulator. Is this process why you call feeding an RME PCM705.6 Oversampling and feeding a Holo PCM705.6 Upsampling? Also many SDM DACs will as far as I know Upsample PCM to the maximum admissible rate and then feed the modulator. Should I have written Oversample? And what the modulator does, is it Up-sampling, Over-sampling, of Modulating? Yes, I'm confused Peter... 🤔 "Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256) Link to comment
semente Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 13 minutes ago, PeterSt said: I am sorry, but it this is the way NOS is explained, than about everything is OS, if only "as little as possible DSP" is performed. So No, no DSP at all. One thing could be excluded, and this is volume control. That is, if we regard that DSP too. But on top of it all, the volume control, thus proposed as digital, should be lossless. I myself would not even incorporate dither. In other words NOS is pass-through from input to D/A chip? "Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256) Link to comment
PeterSt Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 1 minute ago, numlog said: Oversampling wouldn't be something you see ever in PCM dacs? This is something I am not good at, but I would say that this can exist, BUT then it is not a NOS DAC. Thus, PCM is not equal to NOS. The other day I mentioned the PCM1792 ad a hybrid D/A chip. IIRC it can upsample (???) and use its filters from there, or it may not upsample, but still the filter behind it can't be shut off. It would be a PCM DAC, that upsamples. I hope someone corrects me here. Possibly all DACs using PCMxxxxx chips should be called PCM DAC's. But this is then only because it is not an SDM based DAC. I should be looking in the datasheet for this ... The difference would be "no modulator" involved with the PCM based DAC. There is (was) only one chip which was able to "be" NOS at 24 bits, and this is the PCM1704. Officially that one was to be used with the filter chip behind it (DF1704 or something like that). Here the "trick" was that the PCM1704 was UPsampled towards that filtering chip, BUT that we could leave out that filtering chip and apply the upsampling IN ADVANCE. This is how the NOS1 emerged and how it can do 24/768. And the by now known specialty, do the upsampling/filtering in-PC. To be not too much confusing, I should emphasize that both Miska and me were working on the very same principle, say from of 15 years ago : overrule what the DAC does with PC software. And the nice division: I do it with PCM and he does it with DSD (or makes it that). This makes the target DACs inherently different (PCM vs SDM based, respectively). Tone Deaf 1 Lush^3-e Lush^2 Blaxius^2.5 Ethernet^3 HDMI^2 XLR^2 XXHighEnd (developer) Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer) Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer) Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier) Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 43 minutes ago, idiot_savant said: The thing I'm finding interesting is that people are so set against a certain design - so e.g. R2R NOS people who hate D/S, but then use a PC to increase sample rate and reduce word depth to improve linearity... which is exactly what most D/S designs do... This hobby, like most, is full of people along a continuum. If you look hard enough you’ll find people doing just about everything, even when it seems quite nonsensical. I don’t think it makes much sense to be against a design in general. It’s all about implementation and the end result. That’s just me though. Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 37 minutes ago, numlog said: @The Computer AudiophileSorry but you keep repeating as if this could be some NOS/OS grey area. It is clearly OS, as confirmed by others based on all the evidence presented. If you think it isn't or have doubts, feel free to explain. A NOS DAC always plays exactly what you feed it without digital processing, be that hi res, red book or OS data at any sample rate, this is how every early Multibit dac chip operated and is where the definition came from. A grey area would be others forms of DSP like equalisation, OS, that is a process that increases the sample rate of the input and adds new samples, is obviously not one. No. its NOS at 1536 kHz, which is how I use it. The world is full of gray areas. As much as you try to put everything in a black or white box, this doesn’t make it so. I don’t understand your push to be so rigid. We don’t have a category for this DAC. Can you be OK that, or must you call it OS which it clearly isn’t? Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
numlog Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: No. its NOS at 1536 kHz, which is how I use it. The world is full of gray areas. As much as you try to put everything in a black or white box, this doesn’t make it so. I don’t understand your push to be so rigid. We don’t have a category for this DAC. Can you be OK that, or must you call it OS which it clearly isn’t? No, that is only speculation. We have no idea if it overrides internal OS at 1.5Mhz, and if it does then it would also do so in OS mode. Perhaps they should they rename the OS mode to 'NOS mode 2', or more accurately rename NOS mode to 'OS mode 2' PeterSt 1 Link to comment
PeterSt Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 You can dive endlessly in the specs of this chip and still end up with not what you want: But look at the 8x oversampling digital filter. Nobody (datasheets) calls that upsampling. Now look at my or anyone's playback software. Nobody calls that oversampling. The PCM1792 is natively 768 (see above last line). The 8x oversampling exists outside of that. Does this make the 1792 a 6144K sampling chip ? no. Instead the 768 is "re-sampled" (hey !) and the result is for the filter (or it *is* that right away). Often the oversampling is related to the native sampling rate of the chip. For example, it can take 768, and o.s. 8x but if it is fed with 384 it may o.s. 16x. PS: While this is from 2006 edit 2003, the 1704 is from 1996 or whatever exactly. Still this 1792 is worthless for NOS. It is good for DSD, however (no 1704 can do that). Blurp. feelingears 1 Lush^3-e Lush^2 Blaxius^2.5 Ethernet^3 HDMI^2 XLR^2 XXHighEnd (developer) Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer) Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer) Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier) Link to comment
Popular Post The Computer Audiophile Posted May 21, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted May 21, 2021 Peter, as a manufacturer of competing products to Denafrips, please be careful in what you post. Most of the time it isn’t ok to boast about your products, like you’ve done in this thread. Please stick to facts unrelated to your specific products. feelingears and Blake 1 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
PeterSt Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 3 minutes ago, PeterSt said: The PCM1792 is natively 768 (see above last line). This is probably not correct and officially it is 192. Apologies. Similar (but other way around) with the 1704. This is officially 96 but can do 768. Lush^3-e Lush^2 Blaxius^2.5 Ethernet^3 HDMI^2 XLR^2 XXHighEnd (developer) Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer) Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer) Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier) Link to comment
Popular Post PeterSt Posted May 21, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted May 21, 2021 1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Most of the time it isn’t ok to boast about your products, like you’ve done in this thread. I understand. If I would have one other example, I would have used that definitely. But I know of no other example. I will also 100% definitely know about my own product. I'll be extra careful. Thank you for the warning. feelingears and semente 2 Lush^3-e Lush^2 Blaxius^2.5 Ethernet^3 HDMI^2 XLR^2 XXHighEnd (developer) Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer) Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer) Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier) Link to comment
semente Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 34 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: This hobby, like most, is full of people along a continuum. If you look hard enough you’ll find people doing just about everything, even when it seems quite nonsensical. I don’t think it makes much sense to be against a design in general. It’s all about implementation and the end result. That’s just me though. 29 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said: No. its NOS at 1536 kHz, which is how I use it. The world is full of gray areas. As much as you try to put everything in a black or white box, this doesn’t make it so. I don’t understand your push to be so rigid. We don’t have a category for this DAC. Can you be OK that, or must you call it OS which it clearly isn’t? I think that for the die-hard "bit-perfect" NOS fan wishing to playback his CDs or Redbook files the Denafrips should not be advertised as a NOS DAC if it is indeed doing interpolation or sample-hold or whatever. For someone like myself who uses HQP into a NOS DAC at its highest admissible rate Denafrips' DACs were strong candidates on my shopping list. So I would like to know if Denafrips' NOS mode is really NOS as in no processing is being done. From that perspective, which I am sure many will share, it doesn't matter whether or not the DAC sounds good, be that to you, me or anyone else. In other words, does it do what it says in the tin? "Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256) Link to comment
Popular Post idiot_savant Posted May 21, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted May 21, 2021 Erm, I've had a bit of a ponder about this, and I think there genuinely could be a problem here, but it's quite complicated so bear with me... So the big problem with R2R DACs is matching the ladder, because the tolerances required are mind-bogglingly tight ( so the MSB has to be exactly 8 million or so times bigger than the LSB ). So the HQPlayer approach suggested by Miska, which is to effectively trade bit depth for sample rate ( much like D/S do ) relies on effectively turning off the bottom bits, and using this noise in a noise shaper - this means that the noise floor changes, so it's actually as good as it was ( potentially better ) in the audio band, but higher in the inaudible region, and the LSBs that effectively only contribute noise and disortion products are removed from the equation. Clever, eh? Now the problems come if the DAC does any further processing, as *if* it does, *any* kind of processing will turn on those pesky bottom bits again - think digital volume control, linear interpolators... Now I'm guessing that it *is* genuinely NOS at 1.5MHz, but we *know* it isn't at say 192k, so when the linear interpolate is active the PC provided noise shaping is effectively ruined. If someone has one with test equipment and HQPlayer, we could do some measurements which would be fun. To be fair, PeterSt saying he didn't think volume control was proper DSP kind of triggered this... As I keep repeating, this *should* be fixable in firmware, and is not particularly obvious... and if anyone from denafrips would like to buy me a drink, that'd be grand. your friendly neighbourhood idiot. semente, PeterSt and numlog 3 Link to comment
botrytis Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 39 minutes ago, PeterSt said: I understand. If I would have one other example, I would have used that definitely. But I know of no other example. I will also 100% definitely know about my own product. I'll be extra careful. Thank you for the warning. Thank you for that. I appreciate manufacturers, like you, who do try to play fair. Current: Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590 Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects Link to comment
PeterSt Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 Quoting from a very good post: 11 minutes ago, idiot_savant said: Now I'm guessing that it *is* genuinely NOS at 1.5MHz, but we *know* it isn't at say 192k, so when the linear interpolate is active the PC provided noise shaping is effectively ruined. I wonder whether you/someone noticed this from the Stereophile measurements: The early roll of (L/R) is from the 192KHz sampling rate. The later (but still strangely early) roll of is from 96KHz. So again I just see a bug in the (FPGA) software somewhere. But otherwise, I.S., maybe this gives you a clue somewhere ? semente 1 Lush^3-e Lush^2 Blaxius^2.5 Ethernet^3 HDMI^2 XLR^2 XXHighEnd (developer) Phasure NOS1 24/768 Async USB DAC (manufacturer) Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear PSU (manufacturer) Orelino & Orelo MKII Speakers (designer/supplier) Link to comment
Popular Post GoldenOne Posted May 21, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 21, 2021 I think this topic may have gotten sidetracked slightly :P Firstly, what happens BEFORE the dac does not inherently change what the DAC itself is. The Phasure NOS1 is a true filterless NOS DAC, and the Holo May is a true NOS dac with some analog reconstruction. Both of these are genuine NOS, and both of these can be used with oversampling software such as XXHighEnd or HQPlayer. In fact the NOS1 it's specifically recommended to use XXHE. But using software oversampling does not change the fact that the DAC itself is indeed NOS. So this discussion about software is separate. There are lots of different things that can alter the output. PERSONALLY, I'd consider NOS to be anything that in terms of the actual input to the DAC, adheres to non-oversampling/sample-and-hold. Meaning it moves to the value of the sample, and then holds there until the next sample. Anything else is not NOS as there is additional interpolated data being created and used. Though I would say that subsample correction like what Audio GD mentions doing is probably still fine. Correcting for ladder inaccuracies whilst still leaving the actual sample data unaltered is probably fine. Though I suppose up for debate. And analog reconstruction is...well...analog, so there's no question that it's unrelated to digital sampling. Impulse from Phasure NOS1, complete true NOS with no filter: Impulse from Holo May, true NOS with analog reconstruction: Impulse from Denafrips, OS, Linear interpolation: 🎵One of these things is not like the others🎵 (And again, to be very clear, this isn't at all me 'bashing' denafrips. I like the ares 2 a lot. But I do believe their description of "NOS" is untrue. It is linear interpolation as all evidence shown demonstrates. I'm also NOT implying that either NOS vs OS or the variations of either is "best". I like both NOS and OS for different situations and think both have merits.) semente, feelingears and PeterSt 2 1 https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
idiot_savant Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 @GoldenOne do you still have the Ares 2 there? your friendly neighbourhood idiot Link to comment
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