Another update on the Denafrips demo at AXPON
Now that I have had a week with all four Denafrips models in
my system, I thought I should summarize the goals of the demo to set the right
expectation for participants.
I have
taken care to ensure that all four models have had at least 200 hours of break
in to make their performance comparable.
I have measured their output levels to ensure that they are the
same. All four are connected to the
server and preamps using the same cables (Danacable TruStream USB and Diamond
RCA ICs). Music control is via an IPad
using Roon so that all four DACs can be grouped into one Roon zone allowing perfectly-synchronized
music. So switching among the different
models can be simply done via a preamp remote.
With that as the background, here is what to expect and what
not to expect:
-
I call it a demo instead of a shootout because I
dislike the term shootout. Shootout
seems to indicate something is going to get shot down and the expectation is there
will be a winner - the last one standing.
Even if you compare among many makes with different sound signatures the
concept of winners and losers requires a unique and definable set of measurable
standards. In all my years in the
business I have yet to figure out what these standards are. All I know is everyone listens differently
and like different things, and each has his/her favorite sound, just like
his/her favorite color. I assume that
all of us listen to enjoy the musical performance and hopefully are moved
emotionally by what the performer tries to communicate to us. High-fidelity is just a means to that end in
that it seeks to recreate the original performance most truthfully.
-
A demo is meant to outline differences if they
exist in the way the DACs sound. The
difference maybe so subtle that they essentially sound the same. Where there are differences significant
enough, one should be able to describe them.
That is more important than whether one likes one DAC over the other as
that is a totally subjective judgment.
-
As such, I find that it is more difficult to
discern differences among DACs from the same manufacturer. They may all have a common “house sound” that
fits the designer’s ear and any differences tend to be difficult to
define. So I expect the differences are less
pronounced among the different Denafrips DACs than between a Denafrips and a comparably-priced competitor’s
DAC .
-
So the results of a demo are only useful if the
subjects can clearly define the audible differences so that they can be used to
guide the determination whether one may like or dislike the DACs in
question. One must use this information
judiciously especially when the number of subjects in the test is small. A broad conclusion that one DAC is superior
than another has to be based on clearly defined and universally accepted set of
criteria.
-
So if the intent is not to shoot down any
particular DAC but rather to describe their differences then a pairwise
comparison is better than comparison among many DACs at once as it gets too
confusing with more than two things to focus on at a time.
With all of the above
considerations in mind, I plan to conduct the demo this way today:
-
Draw lots to assign the different Denafrips to
the different inputs of the preamp so the audience does not know in advance
which model they are listening to.
-
Again draw lots to select the two pairwise Denafrips
models to compare first, then the other pair.
-
Play a selected music track for about one minute
so the audience can get a mental picture of the performance, then repeat the
same passage on another model immediately.
I find that this is better than switching in real time as it is
difficult to synchronize everyone’s brain to be ready at the time of the
switch. Also, you will be listening to a
different passage after the switching so it is difficult to correlate the characteristics
of what you have heard before and after the switch.
-
Ask the test subjects to keep notes for each
pairwise comparison as to whether they heard a difference and if they did to describe
it.
-
After enough pairwise comparisons to discern the
relative performance of the different models stop the demo and ask the audience
to share with the group their findings.
-
Again, the goal is to see if there are
differences among the models and if so how to describe them.
I will report findings of the session later on. They will help us decide how to streamline the demo
at AXPONA so that it is most informative and helpful to the audience.
Vinh Vu
Gingko Audio and Danacable
