A comparison between two DACs, one R-2R, the other ES 9038-based.

Hi simna... .I did not take you to be a smart arse.... Not at all.
I just do not know the two DACs you mention, except to note that the LAB12 has a tube in the output section and the Hegel does not, so maybe that makes for the noticeable difference you hear.

I thank the Forum members who have responded to my “Comparison of DACs” post. Here are some comments:

Janehamble aptly suggests that I should specify the music, file quality and equipment I used with a possible word about my “music listening skills.”

 

Music [all on redbook CD]:

·    Large ensemble jazz: Eberhard Weber, 
“The Colours of Chloe,” ECM.

·    Piano jazz: Jean Beaudet, “Seul au Piano, Elephant Records.

·    Large ensemble classical: B. Bartok. “Concerto for Orchestra,” Charles  Dutoit, EMI.

·    Small ensemble classical: B. Bartok, String Quartet #6, Emerson Q, DG.

·    Pop/jazz vocals: Billy Childs, “Map to the Treasure: Reimaging Laura Nyro,” Sony Masterworks.

 

Equipment… First Test:

·    Transport: Nuprime CDT-8 [one test NOS, another OS @ 96Hz].

·    DACs to be compared: Denafrips Pontus, OPPO Sonica.

·    Preamp: PS Audio PCA-2 with HCPS power supply--- For the RCA inputs comparison

·    Cables: PS Audio

·    Amps: Anthem MCA 20

·    Speakers--- one test: Emerald Physics EP 2.8, another test: Magnepan 1.7. 

Music listening skills:

·    It’s not for me to say, is it?

 

Equipment…Second Test:

 

Everything the same, except for---

·    Preamp: Wyred4Sound STP SE--- For XLR inputs comparison.

 

georgehifi wants to know if I limited the test to PCM redbook CD.

Yes, in the test described in the OP… But later I did a test involving 2 different DACs fed by Spotify/USB. I’ll describe that later.

 

junzhang10 maintains that one’s budget should be allocated

60% on speakers, 30% on amplification and 10% on CD players, DACs. 

I am starting to agree with this.

 

falconquest insists that the Pontus is way overpriced and generously offers to take it off my hands. 

I shall have to think about this. Thanks, falconquest.

 

ethan_bennettstresses the importance of “extremely sensitive instrumentation” to detect “the extraordinarily subtle” differences between DACs. 

I do not doubt the importance of using good equipment with any DAC. However, I am starting to doubt that those “extraordinarily subtle differences” really exist. Thus the OP.

 

musichead speculates that my preamp may be “imposing the same character on both [DACs].”

Perhaps he would like to explain how a preamp can perform that sonic feat; and, even more, how such uniformity can be imposed by two different preamps [the PS Audio and the Wyred4Sound] in two different tests. Interesating.

 

anwar has beat me to the punch already by conducting a comparison of his Denafrips Terminator [lucky man] and his OPPO 205. He opines that my comparisons would be more valid only after the Pontus has had a chance to break in for a few months.

Re test: What were the results of your comparison, Sir?

Re break in: One does not want to awaken needless controversy, but the whole idea that electronic equipment requires break in time seems to be…. Well, open to doubt. But I have no axe to grind; anwar may be correct. 

 

gosta and roberjerman find the reported results of my tests plausible.

That encourages me to think that I am not going crazy. 

 

simna needs only 10 seconds to hear palpable differences between two of his DACs.

It would be interesting to learn more about the test conditions and the nature of the dramatic differences.

 

A bit more of FWIW--- another comparison, this time with Spotify Plus as the source, via USB.

 

Music:

·    Essentially the same as above.

 

Equipment… Third Test:

·    DACs to be compared: Denafrips Ares, Audioengine D2 [BB PCM 1792A-   DAC].

·    Preamp: PS Audio PCA-2 --- For the RCA inputs comparison

·    Cables: PS Audio

·    Amp: Talk Electronics Toronado 2.2.

·    Speakers--- Martin Logan Spires.

 

Result of comparison--- The same damn thing: Two differently configured DACS [R-2R vs delta-sigma] sound exactly the same from a streamer via USB.

 

Thanks, jaybe.... What makes for the right conditions?

Hi jaybe. What makes you "question the capability of the supporting equipment"?

To to jaybe again...on a less defensive note:

What sort of "supporting equipment" should we base a comparison of DACs upon?

And when you heard "plenty of differences between DACs," what precisely did you hear?

Thanks.....OP

To gosta:

You are so right about the importance of maintaining the same volume control across the comparison---
This is pretty easy to do by... 

• keeping XLR/XLR and RCA/RCA input switching constant from the preamp during the A/B comparison, and 
• leaving the volume control set at one point, and just switching from one DAC input to the other. [Actually, I had my wife do it, to retain that "double-blind" aspect of the tests.] 
  

Thanks, gosta, for making the point about volume control explicit. I should have mentioned it in the OP?

To jaybe again....

No offence taken re your comments on my PS Audio PCA-2 preamp [though I think that Paul Gowan really would bristle at the "mid-fi".... and I note that the other preamp employed, the Wyred4Sound STP SE, is a current design], nor on my Anthem MCA 20 amps.

 .... And I do not really want to get into a tussle [here, anyway] about whether there are dramatic differences amongst preamps and amps....

I thought that the point of an A/B comparison of DACs would be to keep everything else in the signal path constant, as long as a decent level of electronic quality was maintained, not necessarily to use the latest and most expensive preamps and amps. 

The questions to you are, I guess, these:

• In order to get a realistic and accurate comparison between DACs does one really need to use the the latest and most expensive preamps and amps?
• Would that be the only way to reveal audible differences between DACs?

Thanks for your comments.   

Very interesting, wtf. Thanks.

• May I ask what the four DACs are?
  
• Re your point about detecting differences via a "lengthier listen," I find that I have virtually no real "auditory memory" of the kind that would permit me to make any meaningful comparison between any two audio components across significant lengths of time, say, anything over a minute or so. Perhaps you simply have more retentive auditory memory.

Hi simna...

Your English is fine....

I must say that I do consider a tube[s] in the output of a DAC a "kind of cheating," since tubes do tend to cause a second-order harmonic distortion of the original acoustic signal. I do think that this is no longer a particularly controversial claim. In any event, if you like the sound of a tube in the output, enjoy....

That said, I have to confess that for many years, I was a fervent fan of tube preamps--- Sonic Frontiers, Aesthetix, Audio Research, Conrad-Johnson--- for what I thought at the time would "soften" the sound of the rest of the signal path. I now think that I was very wrong.

Thanks for your comment. 

A question for celander:
Where can I find the jitter rate of 190 psec that you quoted for the Nuprime CDT-8?
Thanks....

To celander:

• Thank you for the datum on the Supreme CDT-8 jitter. I'll look into this aspect of my signal chain. 
• Possibly changing transports or adding re-clocking would be in order. 
  

To jond:

• Both DACs in the comparison have the same output voltage, 4v for the XLR outputs, 2v for the RCA. I controlled for that.
  
• As for your interesting version of the earlier poster's "leisurely listening" approach, I tried to address that above, by noting that human "auditory memory" is probably not retentive enough to enable a very meaningful A/B comparison of components in a signal path. In my earlier response I referred to my own weak auditory memory, but is was just a weak attempt at false modesty; I really meant all human beings. Psychodynamic studies show that we just cannot remember enough about a sound series we heard as little as a few minutes ago to make accurate comparisons with one we are hearing now. [I'll dig out a study if I can. It's been awhile.]

Again, a general note a thanks to responders. I am finding these comments on my OP very useful.

Thank you for retrieving that datum, celander. Helpful.

• Did you inadvertently reverse the "greater than" symbol in your second to last sentence, since 120 is larger than 5-10?
• I suppose that Mr Lim would argue that any good DAC [perhaps his DAC-9 or DAC-10?] has on-board jitter reduction that substantially improves upon 120 psec from the transport output. Of course, that is no argument in favour of his specs vs those of transports with lower jitter output.
• I do note, re my OP comparison, that both the Pontus and the Sonica do have substantial jitter reduction capabilities. I suppose that these days any good DAC does.

Best wishes......   

To celander:

• I take your point about "compensating input jitter reclocking circuits." No marketeer of a stand-alone transport should rely on that point. "Stand-alone" means stands-alone, after all. 
• I gather that your "back and forth" with Mr Lim was about the acal measurement of the jitter output of their CDT-8.... Yes?
  
• You are quite correct about the difference between the anti-jitter capabilities of the Pontus, on the one hand, and of of the Venus and Terminator, on the other... Femto clock in the latter, not in the former. When I bought the Pontus I did know that.... but a budget is a budget.

Hi emcdade:

Sorry, but if your post is directed at or to me, I confess that I can make neither head nor tale of it.
What are you trying to say?

Perhaps rootmann can explain, since he agrees so heartily.

Best wishes.....OP

Good to hear from you, wtf.
Maybe the Sonica.... I'm still absorbing the insights offered in response to the OP.  
Stay in touch.