I’m curious how you attribute an aspect like soundstage depth to a DAC, in context of the uniqueness of various systems, the rooms these systems are in, the listener positions, and the use / lack of use of room treatment (for the purchasing party)?
I’m not challenging...just trying to understand and learn.
@david_ten
am sure scott will answer, but my 2 cents, my own process:
- have my system set up ideally in my room (see my system page for pics)
- have my standard ’reference’ dac in place, know how music i know well sounds, how the soundstage is presented, in terms of size (width, height, depth) and separation / layering / relative distance of voices/instruments etc
- swap in new dac being evaluated, adjust for correct (same) volume level, listen and perceive how the sonic ’image’ is presented differently, if at all (don’t change anything else, even cabling)
- btw - having a well selected playlist of familiar music helps alot in this...
hope that helps
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@david_ten
your points are well taken and valid
please note that the process i set forth is meant to understand differences (as did scott’s), and not to immediately make value judgements on whether a piece of gear is good or bad in said reference set up (i purposely did not mention establishing superiority or inferiority in my a/b process description)
one needs to understand the differences first, then, based on that understanding, think about how best to integrate a new piece into the system, or decide not to, given what may be needed as next steps
sometimes upon comparison, overall quality differences are obvious, but when one reaches a certain level of gear, it’s more about differences and nuances in presentation than straight ’a is better than b’... such as your query about soundstage differences among dacs
happy holidays to you!
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scott, glad you are still updating this nice thread, it is a boon to the a-gon community for folks seeking entry into this level of fine dacs
for me i have stopped the dac merry go round at this point - i have a few on the ’to try’ list, but hardly eager to do so, as my chord stack, weiss and audio note units continue to please
i did try a mojo mystique, it also sounded very very nice, but i returned it mostly due to its footprint and ergonomics (i am spoiled i know 😁)
also, i am glad you picked up hegel as a line... very smart move!
happy listening to all the great toys
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interesting and fun seeing reading the stereophile review on the jadis by alex h... i feel the same way about my audio note dac 4.1 -- no doubt that well executed vacuum tube regulation, rectification, output does add some special sauce...
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scott
exciting to hear of your shoot-out and sorry it is being delayed due to logistical challenges
two things
- hope you will use the chord tt2 with the m scaler so that setup can be at their best as a reference
- you know, unless you are listening through tekton speakers driven by raven amps, your results will be null and void - right? NO other set up will tell the sonic truth... 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
only the first point was a serious one... :)
looking forward to seeing your report
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ps audio directstream by ted smith is usa made and fpga in type, one of the most popular higher end dacs
it is tricky in that some dacs sound best using some input schemes and other are best with others... and in turn some streamers work well with some dacs because of the clocking synergy as well as choice of transfer mode
tough to cover all the bases as the variables are many, too many
still, it is terrific that scott is undertaking this effort... |
cool stuff
when do you expect to get the weiss unit back scott?
thank goodness for wedding showers 😂😂 |
good stuff, scott, thanks again for your efforts to document and report your findings
as always, among well respected gear in higher price brackets from top makers, nothing will be downright poor ... the key is understanding the differences in presentation/sound quality so one can match components well in system building... this is where your results can help so many who dearly want to know
i have a great many dacs here, priced high and low, and for sheer pristine clarity, lack of coloration or electronic artifacts and timbral beauty, the chord scaler/tt2 duo is really exceptional, and unbeaten
other dacs, like the audio note 4.1 may sound more ’beautiful’, but you can tell it is from a carefully added sympathetic coloration, at the expense of ’hearing into the music’ that the upper chord gear enables one to do |
@chorus Bottom line:
The best is yet to come.
And for 1/2 the price of today.
So, if you can wait you will be rewarded.
If you can't wait buy the Bricasti ! haha - unfortunate corollary... 'in the long term we are all dead' 😩 😩 😩 |
@tvad @verdantaudio Regarding performance, my M3 does not have the network card. The M1 SE has the network card.
That’s a significant data point, and could go a long way to explaining differences in sonic characteristics between the M3 and M1 SE. It’s a shame they weren’t comparably equipped. yes - that point jumped out at me too... i don’t know the bricasti units... can the network card be swapped from m1 to m3 and then run comparison the other way? that may isolate the beneficial effect of the card on sq of the 2 units |
@verdantaudio
i hope you and yours are fine and survived the insane flash flooding in the tri state area... i have dear friends in fort lee with two cars in their underground garage that became leaky submarines... just amazing and shocking what is happening in our world these days
re dacs, and a question posed earlier, i believe the sonnet morpheus is a very good r2r dac and with a cool feature set (mqa card capability and remote volume control), sonically it is excellent in absolute terms but i suspect not quite to the class of what scott is testing (or maybe, equal to the lower tier of the bunch) |
i too have a weiss dac501 incoming... will be interesting to compare against the chordscaler/tt2 and my fave tube dac audio note 4.1 |
scott, i got my weiss dac502 yesterday, just gathering initial impressions... what a superb piece... i am going to need some time to figure this thing out it has a lot of toys on board (most interesting of which is room correction), and carefully compare against the mscaler/tt2 duo, as well as the audio note dac 4.1... fun fun fun :) |
@verdantaudio
i am quite enthralled by both the weiss and the hugo tt2, with the m scaler upstream... both are beautiful sounding, superb, and utterly without digital artifacts, tonal balance and nature of imaging slightly different between the two
need to listen more, using different connections, to confirm what i think i am hearing as to the differences, before i try to express it in words |
it is much more the implementation of the individual design than the basic architecture (R2R, FPGA, Delta Sigma)that differentiates dacs: i.e. quality of clocking and power supplies( foremost), quality of the noise rejection on digital inputs, design of attenuator (if used as a preamp), presence of op-amps or capacitors in the signal path, direct coupling of output stages and on and on. I very much question the ability to differentiate between the different chip sets, be they TI/Burr Brown, AKM, ESS Sabre et al. in an optimised setting on sound quality. Assuming optimal clock accuracy it is really the differences in the analogue domain that determine dac sound quality. agree with @antigrunge2 100% |
i agree w scott
chord hugo tt2 needs accompanying m scaler for it to be completely grain and glare free |
it is hard to know what sound is exactly accurate, it is also hard to know who’s rendition of an accurate, ’high fidelity’ sound presentation is most true, even if a number of different designers/firms are trying to achieve that same goal (and not a purposely 'beautified' presentation)
some traits can be quickly called out as unwanted and defining of poor implementation - such as a noticeable grain, or electronic haze, or clearly rolled off or smeared frequencies... but there are various presentations that avoid these pitfalls but still sound rather different
i suppose in the end, which version is most accurate becomes unimportant, what matters is what pleases a particular user in their system, their room |
@david_ten
i am not sure where you are coming from in your latest comments regarding ’purpose’ (or at least i am in the minority here in missing your point, which seems somewhat intellectual and existential in its nature...)
scott/@verdantaudio and i, over some time, and on opposite coasts, have been working our way through a number of reasonably expensive ($5000-10,000) well reputed dacs to understand how they present the music, and then we have tried to present/share our findings as our comparative processes progress, we try to find the words to describe how they sound, in absolute and relative terms...
... the purpose of which is to hopefully benefit others on this discussion forum who may be considering upgrading into this tier of dac, so they can pursue the one(s) that might work well in their systems, for their needs and tastes |
@david_ten
all good!
i had to look up 'chimera'... learn something new every day
some of you guys here are just too smart for me ... philosophy lessons from hilde45, and vocab expansion from david and chasdad!!! ... :) |
@verdantaudio @melm https://www.psaudio.com/askpaulvideo/the-audience-is-all-wrong/interesting take on the subject i agree on valuing correct reproduction of timbre/tone, esp. of real (non electronic) instruments we play and hear live... the real thing and how it sounds is unambiguous imaging, though, is another matter, as nice as it is when well portrayed on our rigs -- but what is real or not is highly debatable (and suspect), in fact it is pretty much entirely ’manufactured’ |
ime microdynamics are tricky - there is no right or wrong, sometimes more detail is better, sometimes it is for the worse
what matters a lot here is low noise floor, black background (sometimes it is the gear, sometimes it is power feed/conditioning, sometimes it is cabling), and detail that is present in an easeful way, without a trace of edge or harshness - lots of systems produce detail in a highly unnatural, extruded, pressure washer shooting at you way - nooo buenoooo
listening for microdetail is tricky too... it can really get one to focus on the system rather than the music as a whole |
Here is a new review of the Topping D90LE. I am sure this is going to annoy a segment of the community here and they are not going to want to hear this. I found this demo supremely disappointing because of the hype associated with this product. If you ignore the hype and looks at this as an ~$1000 DAC with a good feature set, it is a good DAC at that price.
the topping d90 was one of the first dacs i tried on my long road with dacs -- i concur 100%... it is a clear sounding unit but with poor timbre, flat soundstage and a notably robotic quality to its sound... it was in and out within a week
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I have been crazy busy these past two weeks. We had a Halloween party for my 5YO daughter and had more than 20 kids at the house. Still cleaning up.
scott you missed an opportunity there!... children have the best hearing... we all would have wanted to know how many among the group of 25 5 year olds would prefer a rockna over a weiss over a merason!!! 😂🤣
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