T+A DAC 200

[Jud]

7 minutes ago, linuxprophet said:

Wow! Allan.

That wasn't a very nice brief! He ought to have been magnanimous and won you over.

Perchance you could purchase the cable as you suggest and try the upgrade yourself.

IMHO - I wouldn't buy stuff from that fellow. He obviously lacks business acumen and a spirit to win over a new customer.

 

I wish you the very best friend.

 

It's always amazed me how people to whom you would like to give lots of money do everything they can to avoid that.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, nmcleod said:

 

I guess that's subjective perception.  I have a hard time believing the entire PCM DAC sections of the May and T+A are completely inferior to their DSD.  I have used the dsd section of the May with various hqplayer settings and it's far too soft for my liking.  I know you design hqplayer so I won't even begin to argue on that as I'll lose on any technical front.  Nor am I criticizing hqplayer, I simply preferred the PCM side of the May.

 

I really doubt most people are buying these dacs solely to use hqplayer to upsample then convert to dsd then feed the dac.  That's a niche area and overly complicated for most general users.  The DAC should stand on its own in a normal streaming environment.   Maybe you could argue the T+A = Tambaqui with certain specific dsd settings, but that overcomplicates it for me personally.  They designed their own filters and own OS, so it should be fair to assess the DAC on those alone.  If that's not a fair assessment in someone else's eyes that's fine too.

It’s your preference, and that’s fine. I don’t really think it has anything to do with ‘fair,’ it’s just the comparison you preferred to do. That will be informative for anyone who doesn’t intend to use these DACs with HQPlayer.

 

Regarding soft vs. more energetic, there are forms of low level distortion that will make music sound more energetic. Whether anything like that would be in play in your case I can’t know.

[Jud]

3 hours ago, Nkam said:

 

I prefer PCM as well.   It’s all a matter of taste.  And yes I find DSD too soft sounding as well. 
 

you mentioned I think that the May isn’t as weighty and the DS on the T+A?

 

is the May soft sounding compared to DS DACs in PCM?

 

Thank you 

Is this with volume carefully equalized? DSD is by convention -6dB from PCM, as you probably know. That would certainly account for it sounding softer.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, Nkam said:

As a musician of 40 years?   No 

sorry I didn’t mean to mention that as a snob.  
merely stating that I have trained ears.  Not just a casual listener. 
 

the attack is softer.   
 

the sound isn’t smoother.  You can hear texture fine.  Maybe a bit more than PCM.  

 

Filter choice may also matter here.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, bogi said:

Although I am not T+A DAC 200 owner I would like to add my subjective opinion to the DSD softness debate. It's just an opinion so I don't ask anybody to agree or fully agree with me.

IME instrument attacks (transients) usually sound 'softer' but at the same time more detailed with direct DSD than with oversampled delta sigma PCM. IMO the reason is additional distortion which PCM output contains and which is not present in the case of direct DSD. If that wouldn't be distortion, then with DSD input I couldn't hear more fine detail. That's the only reason why I like to upsample PCM content to DSD with HQPlayer.

I think that the mentioned distortion is result of intermodulation artifacts caused by unfiltered second oversampling stage of delta sigma DACs - that's what one can bypass with direct DSD (as well as with DSD signal fed to ESS chip based DACs). I perceive that additional distortion as some additional hardness on transients. My opinion is that most of people are already used to 'PCM sound' containing such a distortion and consider it to be correct (since we are listening to it for years everywhere). IMO that's the reason why sound coming from direct DSD may be perceived as softer, even if it provides more fine detail and is more accurate. If I am right then it is not by coincidence that such a 'PCM hardness' is not present when playing from vinyl on pure analog chain.

If 'soft' would mean less dynamics and 'hard' more dynamics, then IMO DSD256 or DSD512 is not softer.

OK, now I'm confused. I'm not a T+A 200 owner, so if my questions are too OT or impertinent, please just ignore them.

 

- What is 'delta sigma PCM'?

 

- I thought all oversampling stages had to be filtered?

 

Thanks.

[Jud]

34 minutes ago, bogi said:

I meant output of delta sigma DAC when it is fed by PCM signal. My post is not related to output of R2R DACs, since I never owned such one.

 

Every resampling creates images of audio band at multiples of target fs. Miska mentioned numerous times, that hardware oversampling of delta sigma DACs is realized in 2 stages. For the 1st one it may be possible to choose filter type. For T+A DAC200 they are FIR1, FIR2, Bezier1, Bezier2 and it is realized outside of DAC chip. High frequency content containing images of audio band is filtered in this stage. This is only up to some fs. Then the 2nd stage follows within delta sigma DAC chip which is simplified (usually sample and hold). See this Miska's post. High frequency content remains unfiltered and therefore images of audio band at multiples of last filtered target fs are coming to input of delta sigma modulator and should be filtered by analog filter behind the modulator. But that analog filter is usually not so steep that it could fully filter the nearest images, as shown many times in Miska's measurements.

For demonstration see for example 2th, 3th and 4th graph of old iFi Micro measuremens. https://audiophilestyle.com/blogs/entry/428-ifi-idsd-micro-measurements/. Images of audio band (a pair mirrored - non mirrored) appear around every multiple of 352.8k, which is the border fs between oversampling stages.

With DSD these images of audio band don't appear on measurements. The reason is that upsampling in HQPlayer filters these images digitally up to the target fs.

Yep, I had seen this and now understand exactly what you were referring to. It is of course possible to do something other than bad filtering at the 2nd or 3rd oversampling (8x oversampling is usual, so 3 doublings) though as you say the measurements appear to show it is not typical at least in those DACs for which Miska has released measurements.

[Jud]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

Both extremes are both right and wrong at the same time.

 

I do like this. 🙂