Article: The Denafrips Design Philosophy Part 1

[firedog]

Not so impressed. There mostly isn't an "original analog recording". There's a digital recording. So there's no analog record to reproduce, just a digital one to undergo D/A conversion.

And if there is an analog recording such as a tape, please don't tell me that tape recording isn't distorted and full of noise by definition. It was that way before it was digitized.

 

Simplistic measurements don't tell the whole story. But better designers do more sophisticated measurements that tell them more.

 

There's a lot of equipment that measures horribly and is regarded as "good sounding" or even "audiophile". I don't buy it. Why pay good money for someody else's euphonic distortion? 

 

This post sounds in part like an excuse for people who can't properly engineer equipment. 

 

I want products that measure well AND sound good. The best equipment does that. That's real accuracy. Anything else is substandard, and you are fooling yourself that you are listening to something that's "high fidelity". You aren't. You are listening to something inaccurate  that "sounds good", but doesn't actually properly recreate the original.

 

 

[firedog]

7 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Wow, tell us what you really think :~)

 

I enjoy publishing stuff like this because it gives everyone helpful insight about products. The info is useful to people who agree with the approach and for those like you who don’t. 
 

I think you may be reading into things a bit or at least taking decades of audiophile experience and piling it into one response, whether it fits or not. 
 

The gist I got from reading this is that Zhao doesn’t believe measurements are everything. Only a data point. 
 

We should also keep in mind that English isn’t his first language and I adjusted many sentences for grammar. I don’t believe that changed anything he said, but audiophiles tend to hang on every word and that should be done carefully here. 
 

Anyway, thanks for the honest reply. No product is for everyone. I like having options. 

I've got nothing against his products, and I didn't comment on them. I've never heard them. Based on both objective and subjective reviews, I'm sure they are very good. AFAIR, they actually measure well also. 

 

"Measurements" is a catch all term that can mean different things. Bruno Putzey has talked about how he can do a suite of measurements on amps - including some unconventional ones that test the amp in various extreme or unusual scenarios - and can tell which ones will sound good. And those are amps of all types - Class D, Class A/B, even tube. He says if you actually know how to measure the true performance, the measurements are a good predictor.

 

He's also talked about how you can voice an amp to get the sound you want - for instance, he said he could make his Class D amps have a "Macintosh" sound if he wanted to.

So I'm not arguing that listening to an amp and creating the sound you want is meaningless or wrong. That's fine. But it should ALSO measure well.

 

The answers here are a bit of a straw man argument: "let's talk about a simplistic set of measurements and then conclude that measurements can't tell us meaningful stuff about a device".

 

My problem is that there's a lot of expensive equipment sold under the extreme "trust your ears" philosophy that actually measures poorly. IMO, it's just an exercise in creating expectation bias so that sighted listening gets people to put out big bucks for something that isn't sonically superior - and possibly sonically inferior. If people like the sound of that stuff - that's great. I'm not trying to protect them from themselves or tell them what to like. But just don't tell me that your colored playback is somehow superior. It isn't - it's just your personal taste. And btw, I do the same thing with lots of my listening if I don't like the sound of the source material - I color it to sound how I like with DSP and PEQ. But I don't claim that it's anything but a personally euphonic, less accurate form of playback.

 

And don't get me wrong. I don't think the measurements over at ASR or Soundstage or Stereophile are the end all and be all of choosing a component. But I also think there's a lot of well designed, relatively inexpensive equipment that measures extremely well and and also sounds good.

 

Is it as good as the best stuff?

 

No. But it's not that far off. My Chinese DAC/streamer in my second setup that costs under a $grand is as good as some more expensive stuff. It's not the ultimate, but it's very good.

 

There are lots of "trust your ears" people who couldn't pick out some of these less expensive components in a blind test vs. some of the much more expensive audiophile stuff. Partially b/c some of the expensive stuff isn't actually better, and partially b/c few audiophiles actually have the "golden ears" they think they do. They just are afraid to setup a situation where that will be shown to be true.

[firedog]

6 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

Do you mean Denafrips? Then take a look at Amir's measurement results: https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?threads/denafrips-ares-ii-usb-r2r-dac-review.11166/

 

His conclusion: 

 

I have great respect for engineers who think outside the box and are humble. And that's what this article is about, as I understand it: Not everything we hear in reality can be measured. 😉

Again, I made no comment about Denafrips equipment. I was reacting to the ideas expressed in the post, which were general and also didn't specifically reference his DACs.

[firedog]

9 minutes ago, StreamFidelity said:

Not everything we hear in reality can be measured. 😉

Especially expectation bias.. Very hard to measure.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Summit said:

 

Your expectation bias here is easy to spot 😉.

 

Do you actually no what the term means? Apparently not, as no expectation bias of mine has been expressed. But your bias has.