The DAC Scam - Almost everyone believes the hype

I know enough about acoustics and the way we can use it to know that as much as acoustics cannot replace a good design of the pieces of gear, no good gear design can replace acoustics parameters controls..

 Then it makes no sense to claim to a "best system" at any price in any room ...

 

 Once we learn acoustics basics concepts ( i recommend to begin by Dr. Choueiri articles and  Dr. Toole book and especially acoustics specialized research question about some concepts as reflection role in perception etc ) we learn how to optimize any system at any price and it is a long process if as myself you do it yourself at peanuts cost...

I dont brag about my system which  i like (low cost) , it would be ridiculous compared to others system here,i propose study and experiments... Read about resonators for example...

A great sound may cost little but ask for a big work on a long time ...If you listen in a living room it is more difficult so much i could never have done it at such  low cost ...

 

 

deep_333

@mihorn  Glad to hear it’s the "best" ever and you’re enjoying it!

I admire your confidence in these matters...

Play his song......  Van Halen - Ain’t talkin Bout Love

@ 95 db at least, record it and post a clip...would be curious to see how it sounds on the world’s best rig...thanks in advance.

Thank you for kind words!

I record below this morning. Adding a powered sub-woofer could make it better, but I didn’t bother. Please enjoy. Alex/Wavetouch audio

https://youtu.be/kEaq0CGsDT8?si=AwTJUBbaYtBh_6Eq

@lanx0003 

No idea. I tried the ET3 as they offered 30 day money back

 

There are many audiophools out there, you can see this on some of these posts on this thread and the guy in the video. You have people that claim they are the only people that can take a $200 piece of equipment and make it a giant killer, or if you pay more than $5 for a cable, you are a fool. Then what’s scary is the guy in the video that calls himself a mastering specialist and he can’t hear.

Decades ago, I owned the Audio Alchemy pieces with the outboard power supply and this was my 1st time I used the i2s interface, it came with the AA equipment. How did it sound? Ok for its day but would be terrible today. Since then I’ve owned 6 other dacs from Audio Research, Wyred 4Sound, Auralic, and a few from PS Audio. The clown in the video only thinks that all dacs have chips in them, so what does this guy think about fpga based dacs?

There are big differences between dacs, good and bad. A friend brought in a bunch of dacs into his home for a month so he can determine which 1 would he buy. The dacs ranged in prices f I’m $2500 to $15k. A few of us evaluated these dacs and there was no 1 winner. Only 1 person liked the most expensive where a couple people liked the middle of the road dacs. Then a newer fpga dac came out and blew all these away. 
 

As for somebody that claims a dac doesn’t make a big difference in the overall quality of the total system, this is a fallacy. If the source is bad, you think a pair of million $$ speakers will fix that? Nope! That’s like saying a $500 power cord is snake oil when I heard a $200 Nordost power cord make a huge difference in sound with a $5000 McIntosh integrated with magnepan 20.1 speakers. Just think how a better power cord will make a $100000 amp sound? Cables are like tires. I spend over $500 for a Porsche rated tire (not tires) which makes a Porsche handle to its fullest extent whereas this same tire on a Toyota would not make the Toyota handle like a Porsche. But, on the other hand, you put a $50 Toyota tire on a Porsche, this $100,000+ car will handle no better than the $18k Toyota 

The guy in the video may be deluded....

But many others criticizing him  can be deluded too...

 

 (To be clear i can audibly distinguish any dac i ever owned but evaluating the dac performance ask for more than just plug and play)

 

 What those selling low cost dac as well as costlier higher  dac design and quality miss is that:

----The performance depend heavily on the coupling with the other pieces of gear...

--- The performance evaluation and optimization depend of the system/acoustics

--- The performance evaluation of any dac change a lot if all the gear pieces are well grounded...

 

How many here own a conditioner which need a grounding process ?

Almost all people...

Is your linear power supply grounded ?

Mine is too ...

Is you amplifier grounded ?

Mine is...

Is your pre-amplifier is grounded ?

Mine is...

 

Guess what ?

There is no relation between the sound of a dac in a well grounded system and the same dac in this system not grounded at all...

I know that by experience and experiments...

I never bought costlier ground box either ...

I designed mine...

 

 No sellers of any piece of gear will say when they are selling their "masterpiece" buy a ground box (most are costlier than my system)...

Guess why they dont say that ?