The cost for achieving state of the art sound, however, is high for both (at this point in time).
@david_ten , Define state of the art for digital. I mean truly define it. At what point, in clear, concise words, does a DAC become state of the art?
Next best exponential DAC quality level?
I recently did a shoot out of three DACs using my Hint6 + routing each of the other DACs to analog input on the Hint6:
(1) Hint6: ESS Sabre32 -- Integrated
(2) SMSL M500: ES9038PRO D/A ~$400
(3) Khadas ToneBoard(v1): ESS ES9038Q2M - ~$99
I played the same song passages on Amazon Music and was able to cycle through each Hint6 input corresponding to each DAC.
The result? Very small difference in terms of rendering. Maybe a more open sound stage with better overall balance using the Hint6 DAC. The Khadas was more bass / midrange pronounced w/ a more narrow soundstage. However, I wouldn't suggest that any were head-and-shoulders "better" over the others. In fact, they were all pretty decent with only small nuances (certainly not worth the price differences.
I decided to keep the Khadas for my small headphone listening area.
But it got me thinking - how much would one have to spend to realize an exponential difference in quality? Is the Khadas that good, or is DAC technology differences more nuanced than I originally thought (meaning, we're paying 10x for only 5% better).
Showing 40 responses by cindyment
Op, do you want a real answer, or a made up one? Does that sound silly? This whole thread is silly. DAC chips are so good today, that you can make a DAC for a few hundred dollars that is better than human hearing will ever be. Add another few hundred dollars and you can isolate that from any noise source. Add in a low volume premium and for under $1,000 you can have something perfect. Now if you want something that is not perfect, that will cost you big bugs, because then you are paying for art, not reproduction. Are we supposed to take people seriously that compare highly distorting tube outputs to no distortion solid state? Seems silly. Changing a setting on a DAC for the output filter and a multi-thousand $$ DAC will create more difference between it and itself than it will with similar filter setting between it and a much cheaper DAC. You are asking a group of people for an opinion who have never compared without looking at whats playing, without ensuring the volume is exactly the same, or learning what the filters do and why they may impart a sound, hence DO sound different, and who think NOS is the be-all, when it is just a noise mess, but sure it does sound different. Good luck on your quest, but these are not the droids you are looking for ... I mean the answer to the question you seek. |
No, it leaves no room for accurate interpretation and can be done today with near perfection, at least as far as any human can tell. However, some companies do "interpret". That is art, not reproduction. If it suits your desires, it is worth the money to you.
Known poorly performing DAC with performance < human hearing range, and some noted issues where performance drops.
Tube DAC, of course it is going to sound different.
Set to play back accurately, with the same filters, you would not be able to tell these apart without knowing what is playing. They both have controls that let you stray from accurate reproduction in which case you could tell them apart. They are no longer "state of the art" in that instance, they are just "art".
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This is poppy cox. Odds are it was a different mix, the TIDAL levelling is lower than Qoboz or set lower or your DAC is doing something due to the MQA of TIDAL. The added detail is because Qoboz was louder. When you play louder, there is more detail as there is a bigger difference between the signal and noise.
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Once you reach a particular level of accurate reproduction and you use the same reconstruction/analog filters, there is no sound signature for Delta-Sigma, multi-bit or ladder DACs. Differences in reconstruction filters/analog filters that take the result away from an ideal response will have more difference. There isn’t a person in all of this site (or any other site) that could tell the architecture of the DAC if designed to be accurate just from listening. |
Why this toxicity? This is easy to show. @djones51 is correct. That does not mean you can pop out one op amp in a circuit and just replace it with a "better" one. The circuit must match the op-amp for best performance. Within the limits of their performance envelope, you would never be able to tell many op-amps aparts, even some relatively inexpensive ones. So many love the old pre-digital recordings. Do you know how many cheap 5532 and 5534 op-amps were in the signal chain before you got that record?
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You can make a SS DAC that has distortion making it sound warm or whatever you want. While not impossible, it is impractical to make a tube output DAC with distortion levels anywhere near the best SS DACs. Most tube DACs are inherently going to a "sound", so this is not necessarily in their best interest from a marketing standpoint. If you make a tube DAC you want to sound different. |
You get transformers on the output complete with hysteresis and all kinds of other nice "tubey" artifacts. It does not cost a lot of money to implement an accurate DAC. It is when you don't want it accurate that it costs a lot of money. This is the art/reproduction thing. Their marketing blurb is impressive (Dual Sabre DAC featuring 140db dynamic range --- yes, the chip can, their unit?), and all kinds of superlatives, all rendered meaningless by transformers. |
What exactly is "well-implemented" in Audio-Note DACs? It is quite obvious that measurements play little into Audio-Note's design process. These are not DACs designed remotely for accuracy. Their performance w.r.t. accuracy would put them right about 1983. Here is there 4.1x CD player: https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-note-cd-41x-cd-player-measurements
Just what part of it is well implemented? |
@martinman , I typed two responses, but when they posted, they both came out blank so I deleted them. Maybe a browser issue. The $99 DAC obviously lacks electrical isolation that will ensure the best performance in all systems, but the chip in that DAC is the result of decades of integration, and modern semiconductor processes and advancements in how to make a DAC. The advancements are not as dramatic as digital semiconductors over 30 years, but they are substantial hence why a $99 high performing DAC is possible. The chip does not require $1000's of supporting components around it to extract near its best performance assuming fidelity to the original analog signal is your goal. If you want instead art, that is going to cost you big bucks, and like any art, you may like it or you may not. |
You need to define it for yourself. Hint: it's not the DAC.
I will repeat using different words. In a clear, concise, easily understood, and repeatable, i.e. I can easily say something is state of the art or not, what defines a digital playback system that is "state of the art".
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@martinman: "I think the best way to sum up this thread is ... you can get a lot of DAC for very little $$$".
I'd suggest that depends upon what you like and more to the point, what you've heard. A 2K DAC may sound incredible compared to a $300 DAC but less so when compared to a $10K DAC.
I have heard $500 DACs that arguably sounded much better than $10K DACs, and I have heard $10K DACS that sound virtually the same as $1500-2000 DACs. It does not take a lot of money to make a DAC that properly recreates an analog waveform. Above a relatively small amount of money, it is purely specmanship and not audible differences. However, if you choose to make a DAC that does not accurately recreate the waveform, something that a lot of expensive DACs intentionally do, then there really is no price/performance curve as it is all personal preference. However, human nature is to assign a higher quality to something purely on price.
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It appears we need a trigger warning on my posts ^^^^^ I have a feeling many will be quite happy to engage with me. Perhaps a breath of fresh air. Everyone is welcome to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Nothing I am saying should be contentious. They are simple truth. Uncomfortable truths perhaps, but simple truths non the less. |
Plenty? Unlikely. But enough that it makes sense as a business model to keep in their product line, absolutely. Louis Vitton sells a lot of hand bags too, even if cheaper ones are far better at the purpose. Price is 0 indication of fitness for the application.
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@tsushima1,
Do you have a fiscal interest in the products discussed in this thread. I assume you do as you are just attacking me, but have not brought any value to the thread, and not refuted anything I have wrote. Why do you feel the need to censor your fellow posters, and I don't mean me. They are adults. They can make their own choices about what they respond to. |
@lordmelton , that was quite a feat to include so much "wrong" in a single post.
The $99 DAC has one of the best DAC chips made, the ESS9038, and yes that matters, because the chip does almost all the heavy lifting. My computer and my car most definitely do not have one of the same quality.
Define a "good signal"? It is USB, and it really is "bits". The transfer is virtually every new DAC is async, i.e. the data transfer is completely independent from the audio output. That would be wrong #2.
Async transfer. "Jitter"on USB is meaningless and I don’t need JPLAY, I just need to ensure I have my setting correct. There are many good guides on the web for doing this. Wrong #3.
Perhaps you have not noticed the most recent Class-D amps, and linear amps using switch mode supplies and having performance better than just about anything with a linear supply? You don’t need a linear supply for good performance, you just need to know what you are doing. "BIG"? It is a DAC. They have fairly small power requirements. More important is ground loops and in most cases not relying on computer power, but not always either. A USB isolator is far more important than a linear supply. That would be wrong #4 and wrong #5.
Async USB, again. There is no "slaving" of anything. Except for the most cheap DAC implementations in your phone / laptop, external DACs will run a separate oscillator for the DAC, even that $99 one. Wrong #6.
How will they help? Not hand waving. Very specific, how will they help. How will spending big sums of money, as opposed to say $10 or $20 for shielded cables make any difference? Again, not hand waving. That would be wrong #7
I do find irony in your accusing me of reading of Wikipedia but you don’t seem to have much understanding of how a DAC works.
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I will just point out again, that your ongoing attempts at attempting to discredit me personally do nothing to validate the relevance or accuracy of what you have posted. I would encourage you to stick to the topic and address what I have wrote. If you feel the need to discredit me to advance your posts, that does not indicate to me that you can support what you posted with arguments. I could be wrong, but so far, you are proving me correct.
Other than responding to your posts which are of a personal nature and not related to the topic, my posts have been on the nuts and bolts of chips, and DACs. Not hand waving and marketing speak but addressing real technical realities. If you would like to try to poke holes in my knowledge on DACs, feel free. If your attempts are flawed, I will point them out. I would love a discussion about the nuts and bolts of chips and DACs. Have at it. I thought that was what this thread was about? I have clearly, and concisely addressed exactly what the OPs post was about, and presented counter arguments based on real knowledge and experience, not "lore", in the hopes the OP will not be mislead. That is my goal. Can you please communicate to me what your goal is so that I can better respond? I expect your response will illustrate my post. You could prove me wrong though.
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You only consider my posts argumentative because you do not agree with them and you are unable to refute them. I see me and a few others trying to address the op's @martinman 's post, and a whole bunch of you making personal attacks on those that do if it does not agree with the answer you think it right. May I kindly request that you keep to the topic, agree or refute what is in the content of people's posts, and stop trying to denigrate the people who disagree with you (and all the others doing exactly the same). Is that too much to ask for on a forum populated by adults? |
@lowrider57 , well when the members with 4,661 posts don't call out bad behavior I guess the new guy has to do it. Do you consider that a badge of honor and consider the behavior acceptable, including 10 troll posts from one person and frequent attempts at personal degradation, not addressing post content? I don't. |
I think you have your answer @martinman. Several posters have spent now pages trying to discredit me. Not discredit what I wrote other than hand waving about $10K DACs and $99 DACs, but discredit me because I have the audacity to say, and explain in basic, honest, and accurate terms why you are not finding much if any difference between your DACs, which are all inexpensive, but based on modern, near state of the art chips, competently designed. I even pointed out where you may run into system issues with these lower cost DACS (that expensive DACs may or may not fix) and what you may or may not experience with expensive DACs. In another thread, "Single Ended DAC vs Dual Differential XLR DAC", there are many defending the "sound" of what may be the worst audio DAC ever made including attacking the website that did a proper test and showed how poor this product is. One of those people doing that is attacking me here as well. But @martinman , not only are they attacking me. They are now attacking you. According to them, you are delusional. How does that make you feel?
The TESLA 3 with Dual Motor's, which is about $55,000 does a 0-60 in about 3.1 seconds, which is better than almost every Ferrari ever made except the most recent 488 at > $250,000 and some previous ultra expensive models. |
Smartest man? No, but I appear to be one of the only people who acts like an adult @arafiq, as once again, your post is all about discrediting me, not addressing point by point or at all really my argument. Same tired points in a tireless need to discredit because you cannot address the topic properly. I would not claim to be the smartest man in this thread, but based purely on the observation of what has been written, I appear to have by far the most actual knowledge of DACs, how they are designed, how they work, what impacts performance, what does not, how they truly behave in systems, not how I think they behave or have been told they behave. That's not from Wikipedia either. Have you ever injected various levels of jitter into a DAC to see what happens and both measured AND listened? I have. The op was looking for an informed opinion on what he experienced. I gave him one. Have you ever tried a $99 DAC (I would suggest $200 for a nice case) connected to a low cost USB isolator with basic linear power supply and compared that to a $10,000 DAC designed to accurately replicate a signal. More likely you accuse others of what you are guilty of. I have been quite clear that many high priced DACs are designed with a specific sonic signature targeting personal preference, not to accurately reproduce the waveform. I have no qualms, and am quite supportive of this pursuit, but I will take issue when said supplier that does that claims "improved accuracy". I am totally with @lalitk on this point that sound preference (lets not use quality) is the most important thing. On the other hand, many high end DACs are statement pieces that may have slightly better measured performance, though inaudible. If someone has the money to buy one, or doesn't and still does, again I have no issue. Do I take issue with companies that claim they are "technically superior" but don't back it up, and when put to the test fail, I do, and I would hope others do as well. That is not ethical. The op was right, this thread ended 1.5 pages ago. Unfortunately the outrage has not.
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@arafiq , No need for me to reply to this.
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@mapman, I am not sure that is targeted at me or others, but one must first assess who you are in conflict with. I seem to be in "conflict" with a small but very vocal set of people. Others have applauded me, and based on their other posts, I care more about their acceptance, than about those "in conflict". You have heard the, attributed to Japanese culture, "The nail that sticks out highest, is the first to be hammered down". Did you know that came from a taoist proverb, 木秀於林，風必摧之? Which translates, not by me, to "The tree that grows tallest, will always be the first to be toppled by the winds". This proverb is not saying "don't be the tallest tree", it is a cautionary tale, that if you are the tallest tree, which is viewed as the best tree, to be prepared. Do you want to be the Bristlecone pine, that while the longest lived, no one cares about and no one goes to see, or do you want to be the Giant Sequoia that lives almost as long, but which people plan trips around and have on their bucket list? History is full of people who changed the world, and who had to go through a lot of "conflict with others" to get there. |
The Node 2 is a bit of a black sheep. I had one too. I think a lot of us did. If you said you passed a blind test, I would not be one to be discounting it. It not only measures not very well, but I was convinced that the performance was variable. I think I read that someone showed it was susceptible to inter-sample overs, but I could never be bothered to find out. My son is quite happy with it now. I know a lot of people who own RME products. They are really solid. I don't have any experience with the Burson. |
I will probably begrudgingly buy one when they release USB support, and after giving others time to reveal any bugs and have them fixed. For a niche product, you really can't beat the price, and the compatibility with streaming services does not appear matched by others.
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My profile name is my name, but my name is not Cindy ... if anyone cares :-) .... and thank you for the compliment @seanheis1 though you probably give my social skills a better rating than they deserve. We don't have the ears, brain, sound system or listening room of the artist, or engineer, so trying to replicate that is a fools errand. I have implemented a system that is as "perfect" as I could make it, then I twist it all out of shape with DSP, often changing the processing based on genre, but also mood, target listening volume, even for a particular piece. If I didn't start with the former, I could never do the latter. My "journey" is no different from other audiophiles, I just took a different route to get there, and hopefully ended up with something more flexible along the way. I suspect what I have done is more the "future" of the industry.
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@dht4me , I would never expect the Audionote to sound remotely like the Topping or Gustard. Not even close. The Topping and Gustard are designed to replicate the waveform as accurately as possible and would do this with far more precision than the Audionote. With the Audionote, you are buying art. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. The goals of the two are completely different. Being pragmatic, the image should be confined between the speakers. That is all that is possible on the recording. What the Audionote creates is artificial. Again, I do not mean that disrespectfully, the goals are just different. Depending on the room acoustics, and personal preference, I expect many would prefer the Gustard and Topping to the Audionote, just as many would prefer the Audionote. Again, being pragmatic, I expect the Gustard/Topping has, under critical listening a touch more detail, and again, under critical listening the imaging may be sharper, even if the image is not as wide. The Audionote, if like other Audionote DACs is unlikely to have a very flat response, rolling off in the lows and highs, hence why you would find the Gustard bass heavy in comparison, and in your system, that may not come across flabby, and ditto while the Gustard will come across brighter. If you don’t have a well treated room, rolling off the highs and lows can also increase the listening pleasure, and will improve what people call PRaT. I will go out on a limb, and please don’t take it the wrong way, but I highly suspect that I could take out the caps, superreg, and upgraded input receiver and you would never know it unless I told you.
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@henry53 ,
And if I could show you that YOU could not tell the difference between some $20 DAC and a lot of $1,000 DAC, would you promise to quit the hobby? Perhaps you can explain how other than bandwagon jumping, your posts helps this discussion? |
If you are are a retired electrical engineer, then you should understand the technology enough to know that it does not take that great a clock to achieve THD and IMD well below the tube output stage on your DAC and possibly other equipment. Blanket statements about what distortion does cannot be made. It depends on the order of harmonics and the level. Tubes do tend to lend a distortion that generates pleasant higher frequencies and can result in both a slight perception of increased volume, more substantial highs, and greater "air", which helps with the perception of greater soundstage width. Not accuracy, but width. Frequency response anomalies can also give the impression of more width, and height (or less). These are not guesses. These are studied and known. That you highlight ASR specifically, is a false premise. ASR takes measurements. The conclusions are make are all from the decades of research that has been done on how sound is perceived. ASR has no influence on interpretation in that regard. Depth perception is almost exclusively a function of differential volume, and intentional reverb. If you are getting more that what is in the recording, then it could be pleasant, but not accurate. Nothing, absolutely nothing in your electronics takes as long to settle as your room, followed by your speakers. Again, frequency response anomalies including some reduced bass, if bass is slow to settle in your rooom or you have nodes can help. w.r.t. the power supply, at least for the DAC, that is entirely a function of the DAC itself. If the DAC is well designed with good supply filtering, then it will achieve accurate performance well beyond the Audionote, purely by architecture. The one issue that does come into play with lower end DACs, and even higher end DACs, is ground conducted noise. That can be addressed easily for <$100. W.r.t. the DAC and settling time, frequency response defines settling time 100%. Electrical engineers know this. Also w.r.t. the DAC, solid state DACs almost as a rule have much lower output impedance. If you were talking about speakers, settling time is measured, and if you are talking about amps, again, frequency response and phase defines settling time, and 4 ohm frequency response w.r.t. 8 ohm can tell you everything you need to know about output impedance. Invariably, for most speakers, most solid state amps are not remotely the cause of settling time, though with tube amps that can come into play. This is basic audio EE. The article you linked only speakers to linear regulators, and though they spent much time, it is rather amateur in its process. The conclusion talks about RFI, EMI, etc. (all at frequencies well beyond what they tested), and then goes on to make a test with 1V on a 25V rail, and well beyond what would typically be experienced, and well beyond what you would see in a 5V USB wall-wort of even middling quality. What is above only provides crude details. My circuit, in a DAC, starts with a regulated power supply, then likely adds regulation, then adds RC or even RLC filters, with the net result that by the time you get to circuits that matter, power supply noise is near non-existent. Again basic EE stuff. The proof is in the puddling so to speak though because the other thing that rejects power supply noise is feedback. Any test I have seen of Audionote DACs has indicated noise in the output at twice the line frequency plus harmonics, where many low cost DACs have this well under control even with low cost supplies. That tube output stage requires a whole lot more to keep it happy. Best minds in the field? Do you truly believe that John Walton is one of the best minds in linear analog electronics? Really? |
I know you want to believe the Audionote is the more accurate one but it just is not. The other two will be orders of magnitude more accurate. Audionote DACs are not accurate, have never been designed to be accurate and they don't even claim they are. The euphonic distortions, yes distortions, the less than flat frequency response, the artifacts from NOS, the interactions of the tube output with the next stage, especially if going into another tube stage, and the interaction of all those artifacts with the rest of your system and the room creates an artistic presentation that you find pleasing. Could Audionote achieve the same sound for much less. I expect so but that's neither here nor there. In terms of bass and single speakers the DAC does not care single speaker or subs and your ears don't either <100Hz. The two other DACs are going to have more accurate and deeper bass. Given the CS5i, if you have the amp to drive them, compared to Audionote you may just have too much for your room. That can sound flabby where some bass rolloff will feel tighter. That high/low rolloff has been consistent across Audionote DACs. I am at -3db at 17Hz on my bass array and the bass is tight but I have significant acoustic controls.
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I have just been around a long time, and as opposed to talking the talk, I have walked the walk ... but not that long. Still got another decade of work in me or so. Frequency response and phase (which I said later on). Those two incorporate bandwidth which is an inadequate descriptor. Since we are talking about DACs, somewhat in isolation, but even if we were not, it does not matter, pre-amp loads are typically 10K-100K, non-reactive, and even $10 DACs have more than enough bandwidth, phase response and drive capability, again, technically more than the Audionote. Jung, Swenson, etc. in the field of analog electronics, linear, are so far from the best minds. Competent perhaps, but if you are using what they say to determine what you are writing, then obviously at a system level ... well they should stick to analog. What Audionote does in there power supplies or does not, really does not matter. All that matters is results. Measurements I have seen have shown more power supply harmonics then I would expect on any modern DAC, even <$100. Insisting on simple tube based output circuits makes it pretty hard to avoid that.
Why? Tell me why, in full detail, and please explain what sort of result, say in picoseconds of jitter will result, and how much THD/IMD will result? With any half way proper designed DAC, the DAC is being driven by a local clock either via buffer, USB, ASRC, etc. I can get exceptionally low phase noise with just some basic sense on the power supply side. It's amazing what a resistor, a ferrite bead, and a few ceramic capacitors can do. Since I have a stable clock, now I am down to logic edge speeds, or more specific, how fast I transition through the range of uncertainty, and that is going to be a few 100 picoseconds, now power supply noise will affect that, but if I am 0.1% noise on the power supply (and I can get better) then I am down in picoseconds worst case jitter, but because the edge speed is fast, and the important transitions actually very very few in audio, the odds of a noise peak being concurrent with a critical edge are low and hence RMS jitter contribution from a half way decent power architecture will have limited impact on performance. Of course, all of this assume the DAC itself has not implemented any techniques in the analog domain to reduce jitter. Most DACs chips do. What is in the Audionote does not, so it will be more sensitive again to design implementation. We could talk about the DAC reference, but again, it is amazing what can be done with well chosen simple parts. There is a reason why companies buy test equipment. They know if they got it right or not. Not the right sound, which is much different, but they know if there are extraneous things happening they don't want to happen. |
But we have established tests that are quite accurate w.r.t. what a DAC can do w.r.t. THD, noise floor, frequency response, complex waveform IMD (close to real music), etc. and how those will compare to others. So yes, we can change regulators, or anything else you want and show that it does absolutely nothing, or that the change is so minimal that no one will be able to detect the difference.
Not just tubes. You can do it in solid state, or better in DSP, in which case you can still have a huge dynamic range and still provide euphonic distortion. You don't have to buy into this partial fact. I say fact, as it is both distortions, frequency response anomalies, and high frequency artifacts from inadequate filtering ... all work together to create something that is not real, but is pleasant. Whether you buy into it or not, does not change that it is true.
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Can you please detail exactly what measurements you have taken on what equipment and using what to measure that led you to this conclusion with your experience with your ears?
I am not making any arbitrary decisions I am basing what I stated off significant amounts of work done by people in this field and I mean real researchers who have done well thought out experiments.
A claim of audible benefit is only that a claim until shown with some level of certainty to be anything but. Sectors of this industry makes several orders of magnitude more claims of audible improvement than proofs of audible improvement. I can't be proven wrong because the proof does not exist. |
If my words cause harm, it is only because they are based on factual information from decades of research by many people. I have read some very creative interpretations of science in your posts including how you refer to your products. I would hope you would be the first to admit that all the flowery science language is really quite meaningless if you can’t show conclusive evidence that it makes a difference. My words cause no harm. If you are unable to provide conclusive evidence to support whatever claims you make about your product though that could cause you harm.
I am continuously amazed by how large a difference we can often measure and yet there are no indications that people detect the change or issue when listening to music. And yet even though that is the case we base our criteria for audibility on what has happened in a lab under controlled conditions with very simple audible stimulus that greatly enhances the ability to detect differences. |
My profile name is my name most of you are just not quick enough to figure it out. There is no obfuscation and certainly nothing dishonest about anything I have posted and I take offense to that. However who I am makes no difference at all. If my profile name was Mickey mouse it would not change the words that I have written nor their veracity. You are literally calling me a liar and claiming I am promoting falsehoods and yet I know that if that was true you would not be accusing me of falsehoods you would be proving that what I have written is false. That is what forums are for discussing similar and opposing views not for what you’ve just done. A key aspect of psychopathy is moral depravity. Who is morally deprived the person who speaks verifiable information or the person who calls them a liar but yet provides no proof that what they’ve said is not true. I win whether you stay or not. I win because I have integrity. I don’t hide behind misapplications of science and flowery technical language that speaks nothing to how a product behaves for the purposes of audio. You have written many paragraphs meant only to discredit me. Imagine how effective you could have been if you wrote as many paragraphs related to this topic with verifiable repeatable evidence whether empirical or instrument based. You claim you have the answers and that others do. Well I as well as many others from what I can tell are waiting.
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@milpai,
Person 1: I like this chocolate ice cream better than this other ice cream. Person 2: It is the same ice cream, I just put it in a different bowl. (this argument does not apply to wine where the glass can have a minor difference -- for the pedantic in the crowd)
Person 1: I like the taste of this chocolate. It has to be a better chocolate, it costs 10 times as much as the other chocolate. Person 2: They add ingredient KZW to their chocolate. It slightly masks the chocolate flavour, but gives a hint of saltiness that many people like. They use the same base chocolate as the lower cost chocolate. You like salty foods, so that is probably why you prefer it.
------------------------------------- Science also can’t make people not apply bias to what they read, such that they see what they want to see, not a more accurate representation of what was written. I am not sure there was even 1 comment in this thread that said anyone’s personal preference was wrong, nor that anything was irrelevant, but it also did not accept both easily proven false claims, and irrelevant claims as being relevant either. I don’t think anyone even said in this thread that a well measuring DAC would sound "better". In fact, it was repeated that there was every likelihood that it would not. Your post in many ways is serendipitous. Bias can be a powerful influence on perception. |
I think the op should listen critically to his $400 DAC, and then a $1000, $2K, $3K, heck even a $30K DCS. I wonder how many people have done a blind comparison side by side of a $400 modern DAC with a DCS, or maybe a Mola Mola, great engineering in both of those. I would highly encourage. I expect it will be enlightening. Wouldn't you love to see a reviewer do a comparison unsighted of a bunch of DACs over a wide price range all with similar design outcomes? I remember that Passion For Sound guy did one. Then he spent two more videos trying to justify why he could not hear a difference. Good times. |