A DAC that crushes price vs. performance ratio

I bet it wouldn’t sound better (more accurate) than a SMSL SU-8 or Topping D50.

@facten

Because those two are only a hair worse then the Benchmark DAC3, and the Benchmark is considered to be totally transparent (John Atkinson of Stereophile even said “Benchmark’s DAC3 HGC offers state-of-the-art measured performance. All I can say is "Wow!"”), and likely more accurate than the Pagoda.

Also, it’s a tube DAC, so it already will be colored, by initial comment was about accuracy. The Pagoda also doesn’t list any specs except of a crappy frequency response deviation, totally a joke for a >$1000 DAC, would be even a joke at $100, Schiit even provides the whole AP report for their $100 Magni 3.

Tubes don’t offer anything that can’t be done with EQ/DSP, so I’d rather have transparent gear and tune their sound to my preference rather than buy colored gear and hope it sounds good. 
 
For those that want to tune but can’t do it upstream and don’t want say a MiniDSP, the RME ADI-2 DAC has a good amount of tuning capabilities and is a good DAC.

@facten  
 
I am 98% certain the Pagoda is not more accurate than the Benchmark. If you have proof otherwise (as the company selling it sure doesn’t state anything meaningful), I would like to see it. I have proof that the <$300 DACs mentioned are pretty much audibly transparent.

@lordcloud

The new Benchmark DAC3 B is for you then, no volume control and no headphone out, $1700 I believe.

Measurements of Topping D50:

* SINAD (Signal over Noise & Distorion, more challenging that S/N) of 109dB
* Channel matching within 0.1dB
* Jitter-Test score of better than -125dBFS
* Linear performance within 1dB down past -120dB, so better than 20Bit
* THD below -107dB
* IMD at or below -65dB for content down past -55dBFS, and below -90dB for content down past -15dBFS
* 3rd and 5th harmonics below -115dB for a 1kHz tone


Show me where it audibly colors the sound. Keep in mind even the best rooms only allow for a dynamic range (loudest sound in the music down to the room’s noise floor) of like 60dB to 70dB, which is also why 24Bit usually has no audible benefit over 16Bit (which has >95dB or dynamic range).

Also, I^2 S offers no benefit over traditional connections (just like how DSD has no advantages over PCM), so it’s shouldn’t be a must have feature.

I state I am 98% certain as the Pagoda as effectively no specs and is a tube DAC, so near improbable that it would be as transparent as the DACs mentioned.

@lordcloud

@facten

Coloration from source equipment, source material, interconnects, etc. are all identical regardless of what DAC is used, so if any inherent coloration of the DAC itself are below audible, then there is nothing else to consider.

And again, none of those connections offer any benefit over coax/USB/Toslink. Benchmark set out to make the most transparent DAC without costing $10,000 like some other company’s products, if they believed it made a difference, they would have added them, as it doesn’t cost much to do so, there are DACs less than $100 that support I^2 S, it is nothing special, “bypassing conversion” offers no benefit, it is just marketing. If it were truly the best, every reputable high end DAC would have it, yet it’s a scarce feature.

And yes, my claims are on measured performance, which are way more telling than human reviews. Let me ask you, did you hear Yanny or Laurel, did you see a white+gold dress or a black+blue dress? Our brains are easily fooled. There is also hard proof that people review items better if they like the looks and/or know it is expensive, it’s the same reason people think $5000 Toslink cables are better than $20 ones. 
 
Unless talking tube gear, meaning only solid state, the concept of “system synergy” does not exist, a DAC either performs well or it doesn’t, what speakers you have or what your RCA cables cost is irrelevant.

@teajay

You finding the Benchmark sterile is a compliment to its transparency. If you want to add colorations, that’s your preference (just like how there are countless reviews raving of its performance, that’s why I don’t trust reviews with measurements as back up), I am merely stating that if you want to hear how the song is mastered, no hiding any blemishes or “improving” the songs by adding coloration, the Benchmark is an excellent product.

As for gear measuring good but sounding like “crap”, since you don’t prefer accurate reproduction, I wouldn’t suggest giving product endorsement unless you state that coloration is your preference. Since you recommend this product as a steal of a price, if someone favoring accurate reproduction bought it, I would imagine they may be disappointed.

@nonoise

Tone: Frequency response.

Timbre: Distortion.

Soundstage: Channel matching and channel separation.

Fullness: Frequency response.

Realism: Nonsense description.

The DACs I mentioned all do those well, behind human audibility.

MQA you can see, using terms like sterile or lifesless causes confusion, it’s best to actually talk about what the product is doing good or doing bad, rather than make up description words that actually don’t directly describe, like calling a Samsung TV’s picture as feminine and a Sony TV as masculine.

@nonoise  
 
If you read more about it, timbre is just about distortion, it’s why a guitar and a piano playing the same frequency key sounds different. 

Timbre is an inherent quality of real musical instruments, and a more correct analogy is that it’s what makes one piano sounds different than another piano. Timbre is not distortion; a piano is supposed to sound like a piano, not a pure tone from a frequency generator

 
 
So, harmonics? Do you know what THD stands for?

@lordcloud  
 
Amir of ASR and John Atkinson of Stereophile all publish their test gear, and measurements of the same products get very similar/identical results.  
  
And yes, if we measure all variables, we can accurately describe what it will (or won’t) sound like.

@lordcloud  
 
That’s not what Floyd Toole and Sean Olive has found. Toole said people picked the more ideal speaker every single time, no exceptions. 
 
Now, bass preference between trained and untrained individuals is like a 10dB difference, it’s still keeping with non-jagged responses, low directivity, etc.

@lordcloud

However, I do not believe, and have seen no evidence to suggest, that measurements dictate sound

Uhh, how about most every single double blind study that has been conducted in regards to psychoacoustics? Show me one double-blind study where the listeners did not pick the best measuring device as the most preferred. 
 
I’ll ask again, give just 1 reason why the measurements don’t tell the whole story. What could possibly be related to the sound output of a DAC that cant be measured or deviates from what psycho-acousticians believe is ideal.

@cleeds

That’s an extraordinary claim, and contradicts what many experienced designers of audio components think. Do you have a list of "all variables" that you would require to "accurately describe" what a component would sound like?

That’s odd, as every designer Inknow aims for measured excellence.

@janehamble

So what exactly are the variables that actually matter in order to achieve better sonic performance

It’s not something complicated, you simply want want distortion and other parameters below audible levels:

* Frequency response linearity: You want the frequency response to be flat within 0.5dB.

* Frequency response linearity with respect to volume: You want it to be flat regardless of what volume the content is at, with a 0.5dB tolerance most DACs top out at 16-20 Bits, there is no DAC to my knowledge that is linear down to 24Bit.

* Channel matching: You want the left and right channels to have matched output within 0.5dB.

* Channel separation/crosstalk: You want any bleeding to happen below audible in-room levels, so let’s say -80dB or better, even $100 DACs are around -100dB, the Benchmark and other go to -125db to -160dB.

* THD; You want any even order harmonics to happen below audible in-room levels, so again let’s say -80dB.

* IMD: You want any odd order harmonics to happen below audible in-room levels, IMD is more audible than THD, so let’s say -90dB, the $100 Khadas DAC is below -90dB from ~ -15dBFS. Now, this is with pure test tones, it will be further masked with music.

* Jitter reduction: You want jitter to be below audible in-room levels, so again let’s say -80dB, the same Khadas DAC has a Jitter-Test result of better than -130dB.

* Filter: You want the filter to cut off all frequencies higher than your Nyquest sampling rate, Chord’s filters are top notch.

* Impulse: You want a clean impulse that’s <7ms (the Benchmark is ~0.7ms), the type of filter used (apodizing is standard) is debated, but most people I’ve heard from is that it’s a minuscule difference.

* Undithered sine/square wave integrity: You want it to cleanly reproduce the waves, with any deviations being less than audible.

* Phase: You want phase error below audibility (audibility threshold changes with frequency), but most DACs aren’t even 1° out of phase, even with amps it’s not that much of an issue, the Hypex NC400 is near 0° up until the upper treble where it’s ~20°.

* Output: You want the voltage output to be able to drive any amp into its full rated wattage, most amps need about 1.5v to 1.8v, but 2Vrms is the standard for what 99.99% of the time will allow full wattage output.  
 
And as I mentioned in the IMD bullet point, these are with test tones, real music masks all this, ~ -40dB is the audibility threshold for THD with
 music (as high as 0dB, 100% THS for deep bass). 
 
Most people don’t listen above reference, which is typically 105dB peaks, and your average room likely doesn’t have a noise fooor lower than 35dBC, so that’s a 70dB range for dynamics. Unless the distortion, linearity errors, channel imbalances, etc. rise above that level (-70dBFS), any DAC will sound transparent, the notion of sterile, lifeless, midrange slam, wetness, dryness, airiness, etc. are all just placebo, they don’t exist other that in your own perception. 
 
When I go searching for new products to buy, I look at the price, measurements, looks, and the company (in case I need to use the warrenty), what someone else says about it’s performance is irrelevant? Just because someone works at an audio magazine doesn’t mean they have good ears, especially the people >70yr that have lost all their high frequency hearing. I only  look at a combination of reviews if there are no measurements present (I likely may not buy that product, but if someone asks me if it’s a product for them to consider).

@nonoise  
 
No, the speaker that measured close to ideal was picked as the winner. And this is with hundreds of test subjects over decades.  
  
So I don’t see how that’s a far cry from what I’ve been saying. 
 
While Toole has his book, it’s quite a heavy read, if you haven’t seen his lecture available on YouTube and have an hour to spare, it’s worth a watch, as are all the web articles written by him and Sean Olive (and there are others of course, like Earl Geddes for subs). 

@nonoise

The fact that everyone picked that speaker only goes to show that despite it’s drawbacks, everyone liked it due to it’s flavoring and the ear of the the guy who designed it. Some designers are better at it than others.

Kinda grasping at straws there, aren’t you? No, it shows they picked the speaker that was closest to measurably ideal; any drawbacks were minimal compared to every other speaker tested, the “flavoring” added due to the fact that there is yet to be a speaker that measures ideally is of no consequence.  
 
Why do you think the new Revel F228Be is getting so much positive reviews? Because it’s Spinorama is superb (granted the measurement doesn’t show impedance/phase, sensitivity, distortion, etc., so it’s not a full comprehensive measurement).

@nonoise

@teajay

I’m stubborn to back down from my position as there are countless human trials showing that my position is valid. All your comments are dealing with what you believe or have experienced, which is invalid unless these comparisons between products were done double-blind, level matched, switched within ~10sec (humans can’t accurately remember sound past that point), etc. Many people believe digital audio is in stair steps and thus doesn’t accurately represent recorded music, that doesn’t make them right.

Don’t you think it’s odd how Revel, KEF, Magico, Focal, Sonus Faber, PSB, GoldenEar, Vivid Audio, Monitor Audio, Tekton, Dali, etc. all aim for measured idealness (transparent), and pretty much all solid state amplifier companies try to do the same as well? Whereas B&W and Wilson tune for their own house sound and their reviews are divisive (10kHz peaks for B&W aren’t as audible if you are >50)?

Answer me this, if you had a recording of a piano, are you saying you want some keys drastically different in volume than other keys? I want to hear my music, not my speakers nor my room (not anechoic of course, but to be within recommended reverb times), that’s also why I also use DSP to tame room modes mainly in the bass (as bass traps take up a lot of room and cost quite a pretty penny).  
  
If you feel I’m wrong, I welcome useful discussion. I’ve been proven wrong on some things I’ve believed before and welcome further learning. If one believes one solis state DAC can sound lifeless and another can have some more midbass slam, I’d like to be shown that that’s indeed the case, saying silver cables sound different than copper is also just wrong, silver is only better as it’s a better conductor, but a thicker gauge copper can easily have the same results for cheaper.

@steakster

By introducing DSP circuitry from a different manufacturer that is entirely designed to alter the signal created by the source component, your argument for measurements is completely nullified

Not sure how you came up with that. DSP is used to tame room modes and EQ to your target curve, if I’m supposed to hear a note at -10dBFS yet my room modes causes that to be heard as -5dBFS, then I’ll use DSP to reduce that peak. It’s altering the signal so that the sound that hits your ear is similar to how it’s intended.

DSP is digital. Bass traps are analog. DSP alters the source signal. Bass traps affect room reflection points. You’re mixing apples & oranges

They are both used to combat room modes, so no harm in mixing them in regards to how one can get a better sounding system. Treatment is of course the preferred method, DSP is the last line of defense.

In other words, your solution takes into account budgetary factors as opposed to scientific measurable factors.

In terms of describing my setup? Then yes.

Really? Have you had your hearing checked lately?

Have you read the technical differences of copper vs silver speaker wire? If so, you’d know that silver imparts no sound quality differences, so anything you hear is in your head, the one and only benefit is better conductivity, but if talking 10awg silver, then 8awg copper will be better conductive and cost a lot less. If you believe silver sounds different, I would recommend doing a double blind study (best if your speakers have dual binding posts, so you can use speaker cables with banana plugs and easily alternate). You could also record with your phone your system playing both songs, play them simultaneously in a video editor, but I very the phase of one track (due note that everything else, including environemental noise, needs to be identical).

If you have any measurements showing that, if conductivity is matched, silver measures differently than copper, I’d love to see that.

@davehg

Tubes are where you can’t go off measurements, as it’s performsnce is influenced by the impedance of the speakers it’s hooked up to.

@anthonymaw

Jitter is pretty much a non-issue nowadays. Steve Nugent (@audioengr, owner of Empirical Audio) can tell you he hears a drastic difference using his $700 reclocker going from 22psec (~20Bit) to 7psec (~22Bit), but that’s just baloney unless you are over amplyfing the signal. Also, even the $80 Grace SDAC has a Jitter-Test result of better than -130dB (~22Bit), so even if he could, it wouldn’t sound any different if the Grace DAC or better was the one being used.

Most every setup does not have a low enough floor noise to get the full benefits of even 16Bit, and I doubt any music takes full advantage of 16Bit either. This is why is very unlikely for any setup to benefit rom using higher bitdepth than CD (and of course no benefit going higher than 44.1kHz, unless your DAC’s filter isn’t that great, then maybe 48kHz like most audio tracks in movies).

@davehg

Jitter out of the source components isn’t that great, which is why it’s good to have a DAC with good jitter reduction, and while the $80 DAC mentioned does, there are very expensive, poorly designed DACs that don’t perform as well. As price from a random brand as little relation on quality.