Affordable DAC That Doesn't Resample High Rate DSD?

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@Jud

The Singxer SDA-6 pro ticks all your boxes - except the preamp.

Its design focus is on the excellent internal clock, the elaborated USB isolation and the high quality output stage (class A, so it gets somewhat warm) - built around the AK4499. In DSD it's alsways AKMs direct DSD mode (bypassing internal on chip processing). Up from DSD256 it runs completely filterless. Fully balanced. Lots of inputs (also for external clock). And that's it - no feature set to speak of.

Extremely detailed sound. Not "velvety", actually neutral. With a lot of energy in the higher frequencies, which makes them not shrill or pronounced in any way - but super precise.

Given the quality parts assembled in this unit I don't think you can get anything comparable at this price point (around €1100).

This safes money for a preamp.

Just a thought...

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15 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

You can set it fixed or variable. It is in the Menu.

 

 

 

 

R26_manual_V1.27513.pdfFetching info...

But with volume control enabled -  is it still „direct DSD“ in this case? Doesn‘t volume control root the DSD stream through internal processing stage?

Or am I confusing things?

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3 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

Honest answer - I have no idea. 

 

Gustard support is about as fun to deal with as a loan Shark that you owe money to and he decided his boys will teach you a lesson.

I‘ve looked up the manual you‘ve posted:

 

“DSD DIRECT:
Default is OFF. Turn on to bypassing the internal interpolating FIR filter. The raw DSD stream is sent into the R-2R ladder directly.
*the volume adjustment is bypassed in this mode, so it is better to decrease the volume of amplifiers before enter this mode.“

 

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and isn‘t this pretty much always the case with volume control in a DAC - that it defeats the idea of „direct DSD“ ?

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3 hours ago, Jud said:

 

As noted in my profile, I tend to listen most often with Audirvana. Use of the software volume control there is restricted to directly connected DACs, so if I wanted to use software volume control exclusively, I could not.

Since when? Former versions of A+ provided to select software only volume control. Later versions unfortunately undithered - but if you upsample to DSD anyway the noise shaping is of course included in the DSD modulator.

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35 minutes ago, copy_of_a said:

Former versions of A+ provided to select software only volume control

A+ Version 3.5.5

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2 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Though it's there in the UI, I recall reading it does not work with UPnP/DLNA. That solved a mystery, because I had tried it, and though the UI changed it had no effect on actual loudness.

Ah, okay, I see! Wasn't aware of this.

Too, it probably doesn't work when upsampling to DSD!?

I've dropped A+ 2 years ago or so - remebrance is getting weaker ;-)

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3 hours ago, Miska said:

DSD64 is pretty bad for putting through any D/A conversion without upsampling first.

Sorry for going off topic for a moment ...

But, Miska, why do you think DSD64 is bad? In fully understand that DSD256 and higher eliminates the need of a reconstruction filter. In fact with my latest DAC I prefer DSD256. But especially with HQPlayer the noise level of the modualtor at DSD64 is way below 60db (with ASDM7/EC - with ASDM5/EC it's even below 70db - if I am not mistaken?) so that even with a wide and relaxed reconstruction filter DSD64 actually sounds really nice (at least for me). Now, with my former DACs I actually prefered DSD64 over higher rates; first with my latest DAC I prefer DSD256.

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9 hours ago, Miska said:

Because the noise shaping slope is so close to audio band that it is hard to design a DAC that would work well with it.

Sorry, I possibly should have asked the other way around.
Why exactly should we worry about -60db ultrasonic noise level that gets slowly filtered out by a gentle LPF with a corner frequency of 50kHz (or even higher) when it actually does not affect the audio band and downstream devices?

I am thinking about this quote from Tom Caulfield @ NativeDSD:
https://help.nativedsd.com/en/articles/94836-nativedsd-s-take-on-dsd64
„every time you double the bit rate (64fs > 128fs > 256fs etc.) of DSD, you shift the un-correlated noise envelope one octave higher. That is, with 64fs where the noise was -120dB at 20KHz and -60dB at 50KHz, at 128fs, it will become -120dB at 40KHz, and -60db at 100KHz. At 256fs those -120dB and -60dB frequency numbers double again. The unfiltered overall noise energy remains the same, regardless of bit rate, its beginning presence just gets shifted proportionally higher in frequency as the bit rate is increased. This makes it easier to passively filter in the audio stages after the D/A conversion.
So what does this do to the audio signal fidelity and accuracy within the audio band? Nothing, in my experience.“
and:
„high frequency noise (…) can affect downstream equipment. That being marginally stable amplifiers principally. This is where it gets its bad rap about the effects of high frequency noise. However, this is actually quite rare, and more an urban legend.“

 

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6 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Why would you have so much output noise, if you can have much less, or even nothing? You get much better conversion results if you upsample DSD64 to DSD256/DSD512/DSD1024, or even just DSD128 before D/A conversion.

 

As always, first question would be what DAC do you use? How well it works with DSD64 compared to DSD128 or DSD256?

 

Well, yes - „peace of mind“ is great!
If there‘s nothing to worry about, enjoyment will be even greater 🙂
I don’t question the benefits of higher rates but wonder why you strictly rule out DSD64.
As said above on my current AK4499 based DAC I prefer DSD256. But DSD64 also sounds really, really good - it‘s not „bad“ at all. Differences are there but they are far from being like night and day, quite the contrary.
 

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37 minutes ago, Miska said:

You also have two D/A conversion filter settings that are effective at lower DSD rates, use the lower one...

On my Singxer SDA6 Pro you can‘t change the filter - it‘s set to the higher one (65kHz @ DSD64) 🙄🙂

Still: DSD64 sounds great! DSD256 sounds even better, though (more „liquid“?)