Affordable DAC That Doesn't Resample High Rate DSD?

[Miska]

15 hours ago, Jud said:

Also: iFi Pro iDSD signature - Price over $3200, and it has tubes.  Those are a non-starter for me, because I can tell you for certain that the day we decide to have a bunch of friends over is the day one of those tubes will burn out.

 

Pretty much any iFi DAC that has TI/BB chip and supports DSD.

 

Two newer ones I have are NEO iDSD and xDSD Gryphon.

 

 

[Miska]

15 hours ago, firedog said:

More on topic: You are pretty much looking for an AKM DAC at your price level. ESS DACs don't do what you want, and other (non chip based) technologies that do what you want are going to be out of your price range.

 

Or anything with TI/BB DAC chip, iFi is biggest user of these.

 

But for discrete implementations, of course devices like T+A DAC 200. It has resistor ladder analog volume control.

 

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, Jud said:

Hi Miska, thank you. How do the measurements look for these, if you've had a chance to do that?

 

DAC 200 is more expensive, but also measures better, as one would expect.

 

I've only measured with my modulators. So if you intend to use something else, YMMV.

 

[Miska]

19 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

I mean it sounds pretty decent subjectively to my ears using dsd 44.1x256 with 7ECV2.

 

Yes, I'm using it with my iMac for testing Intel silicon Mac versions. I even use it in undocumented (?) way with just USB3 power, without external PSU, it actually works decently that way.

 

DSD256 is it's sweet spot and any THD is practically only second order, so the least disturbing type.

 

[Miska]

9 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Thanks Miska, saves me $2k for a PC upgrade to get to DSD512!!!  Cheers

 

My cheapest machine running doing DSD512 with ASDM7ECv2 is i5-11600 (non-K!), at 65W TDP. It can barely do it, but it can! And it doesn't cost $2k. But the nice thing is that you can do DSD256 using EC modulators with a lot of different kind of hardware, even my old totally passive cooled i5-7600T (35W TDP) server.

 

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Thanks Miska but I guess there’s not much of a point to go with dsd512 if dsd256 is the “sweet spot”? 

 

You lose about 3 dB in THD, but gain lower ultrasonic noise left-over. The difference is so small that you could prefer it one way or the other depending on system.

 

[Miska]

DSD256 is pretty much systematically better than DSD128. DSD64 is pretty bad for putting through any D/A conversion without upsampling first.

 

How good DSD512 is compared to DSD256 depends on the DAC and overall system, many times it is a balance thing where you choose between different aspects of performance.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Currawong said:

I'm surprised nobody suggested Audio-gd. Their R2R DACs have dedicated DSD ladders. Higher DSD rates I think are limited to I2S or USB input though.

 

Do you have any specific model in mind? By quick glance didn't look very promising with 0.1% THD spec.

 

5 hours ago, Currawong said:

For example, I was talking to a manufacturer of a streamer who, when asked why his streamer was limited to DSD128, he said that higher rates performed worse.

 

Performed worse on what kind of DAC?

 

[Miska]

9 hours ago, copy_of_a said:

Sorry for going off topic for a moment ...

But, Miska, why do you think DSD64 is bad?

 

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.

 

9 hours ago, copy_of_a said:

In fully understand that DSD256 and higher eliminates the need of a reconstruction filter.

 

No they don't. You always need an analog reconstruction filter.

 

9 hours ago, copy_of_a said:

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.

 

At DSD512 you can already get it well below -100 dB without too much trouble. At DSD1024 it is certainly all gone with correct design.

 

In measurements you can usually see notable improvements DSD64 -> DSD128 -> DSD256 and then it flattens out to DSD512 and over.

 

I know how to make a DAC where performance improve more for the higher rates, but I'm not a hardware manufacturer...

 

[Miska]

20 minutes ago, copy_of_a said:

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?

 

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?

 

[Miska]

30 minutes ago, semente said:

I have never compared DSD-direct to the signal going over internal DSP on the RME, @Miska if DSD-direct is not used would it be better to feed the DAC upsampled PCM?

 

Not necessarily, similar to ESS you would still benefit from proper 256x oversampling digital filters instead of just 16x.

 

But if you must send PCM there, use 705.6/768k input rates. This is much better than 8x it does internally when running from lower input rates.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, copy_of_a said:

I don’t question the benefits of higher rates but wonder why you strictly rule out DSD64.

 

DSD64 is a bit like 44.1/48k PCM content - sample rate challenged. Doesn't mean it's totally bad, but both require quite high efforts for D/A conversion. DSD64 of course lacks all the time domain problems of such PCM though.

 

2 hours ago, copy_of_a said:

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.

 

Those AK chips have more aggressive D/A conversion filter than what is strictly required for DSD. Higher DSD rates still make a huge difference though (20 dB per rate doubling (octave)). But AK4499 is different than the earlier ones. And AK4499 is certainly among that mixed bag where it is hard to choose whether to go with DSD256 or DSD512. You also have two D/A conversion filter settings that are effective at lower DSD rates, use the lower one...

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, DuckToller said:

@Jud

I would guess that it refers to a "balanced design" not including a dual mono DAC chip implementation.

 

You get fully balanced output also from a single DAC chip. But you gain 3 dB SNR improvement by using two chips in mono mode.

 

Some other DACs use four chips to do dual-differential balanced output. Where one chip is used for each side of balanced output.

 

I have NEO and it works as expected, no complaints.

 

[Miska]

I have of course also measured it. My only wish is firmware update that would let me choose from one of the four on-chip DSD analog conversion filters instead of the single one chosen by iFi. They already have that option for choosing PCM digital filters.

 

I'm running mine with USB3 cable from iMac, without external PSU. Since the device performs better that way and it is easier setup with less cables.

 

[Miska]

Both Spring and May of course.

 

T+A has currently at least five such devices on their lineup. DAC 200, HA 200, SD 3100 HV, SDV 3100 HV and PSD 3100 HV.

 

[Miska]

17 minutes ago, Jud said:

What is the final analog conversion filter used by the NEO? What (of the other 3 choices) might work better for DSD256 or DSD512 fed to the DAC?

 

I don't know which one of the four it is. I could have tried to figure it out for example based on the output level vs PCM, but I didn't bother.

 

At audio band NEO performs best at DSD256 although the difference to DSD512 is small. DSD512 naturally gives you lower out of band noise though.

 

[Miska]

7 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Or I pretty much need to step up to a Spring 3 @ $2199 USD?

 

Yes, that would be probably it...

 

Or if you can find one of those RME ADI-2's with AKM chips, it could be worth too. But those are hard to find, the latest ones are with ESS chips.

 

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

I can see the RME ADI-2 Pro FS R Black Edition with AKM 4493 for 1444 $ chez Thomann. (plus delivery)

 

I think Pro kept the AKM chips, while DAC moved to ESS (?). I guess they had enough stock only for the Pro model and didn't want to redesign it. While DAC was selling more and they had to switch the chip.

 

Now of course 4493 should be available again as improved version.

 

[Miska]

AFAIK, "B" at the end of ADI-2 DAC serial number should indicate AK4493 model, and "C" at the end of ADI-2 DAC serial number should indicate ESS model.

 

I have two Pro's, but no DAC's. Nowadays I use these solely for HQPlayer input feature (digital and analog) and the DAC side is unused. If one wants, it is possible to do up to DSD256 analog inputs to HQPlayer, along with up to 768/32 PCM inputs. But if the digital inputs are also in use (CC Multichannel mode), then maximum input rate is 192k PCM (or DSD64).

 

[Miska]

44 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

The Pro with dual AkM4493 chips doesn't do DSD256/DSD512 through digital inputs in dual channel mode?

 

ADI-2 doesn't do DSD512. But both DAC and Pro do up to DSD256 (48k x256) and 768/32 is CC Stereo mode.

 

And up to DSD64 (48k x64) and 192/32 PCM in CC Multichannel mode.

 

When in CC Stereo mode you cannot seamlessly switch between analog input (ADC), coax S/PDIF input, optical S/PDIF input and AES/EBU input. But instead you have to change it's configuration.

 

In CC Multichannel mode you can seamlessly switch between analog input (ADC), S/PDIF input and AES/EBU input. You still need to manually switch between coaxial and optical S/PDIF from the device menus.

 

DAC doesn't have AES/EBU input while Pro has.

 

44 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

And only DSD64 in multi channel mode?

 

Yes, this is mostly limitation of USB Audio Class. It runs out of bandwidth. That's why you don't find for example USB Audio Class DACs that would be able to do 8 channels of DSD256.

 

 

For example I have AES/EBU from iMac connected to AES/EBU input of ADI-2 Pro that is connected to HQPlayer Embedded machine. Thus any audio I play on the iMac goes through HQPlayer processing for output. And I can connect vinyl to the analog input and this also goes through HQPlayer processing (digital room/headphone correction etc). So I have no trouble playing for example Spotify through HQPlayer. I also have iPad connected through coaxial S/PDIF to the ADI-2, this allows me to play Apple Music with automatic rate switching through HQPlayer.

 

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, Jud said:

IIRC the RME DACs use DoP, so your computer would have to be capable of DSD512 with a DAC that does native DSD in order to send DSD256 to the RME.

 

DSD256 with DoP requires 705.6/768k PCM. This is what ADI-2 can do. Thus it can do all it's supported formats (DSD256 and 768/32 PCM) on all platforms, including macOS.

 

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

For example, my computer, which is a few years old by now (8700K chip, GPU not worth doing CUDA) can't do DSD512 with a native DSD DAC using preferred filter/modulator on HQPlayer. So I don't think it would be capable of sending DSD256 to the RME.

 

It could still do DSD256. It doesn't matter much from load perspective whether output is native or DoP. On your CPU the DoP handling takes probably something like less than 0.01% of CPU time.

 

[Miska]

10 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Hi Miska, can you please advise on a high level what the connection would be for multichannel mode to work?

 

say if I want to do a 2.2 system with digital crossover and separate channels to speakers and separate channels to subwoofers….

 

You would need something else if you need more than 2 channels at higher than 192k/DSD64 sampling rates. For me, this is sufficient with ADI-2 Pro for input (recording) device to HQPlayer. Since it covers the above mentioned use cases.

 

For such 4 or more output channels you could look at Merging Hapi, Merging NADAC, exaSound 8-channel DACs, or something like that. However it would be borderline not what this thread is about (many of these are ESS based).

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Kal Rubinson said:

exaSound.

 

Yeah, that's not a USB Audio Class device. (it uses USB bulk mode transfers and custom protocol and always needs a custom driver to work)

 

As I mentioned it earlier among some other multichannel DACs. But since most of those are ESS based, they are not bit-perfect DSD. Which is kind of point of this thread. ESS always runs everything through it's digital volume control and modulator.