@mclinnguy
"Perhaps the Audioquest Cinnamon HDMI cable is defective?" I doubt it. Bought it brand new.
"And were these "soft and mushy" other DAC's demoed connected with the same Cinnamon cable?"
No, the other DACs were USB only and I had the OptcalRendu at the time, so this was pre Cinnamon.
@mechtronic
I'll try to keep a list as I run into them.
Are all R2R dacs slow and soft?
I've tried a few.
Border Patrol, Sonnet, MHDT, Mojo, and a few others I can't recall.
They all seem to have a slow, soft rolled off sound that lacked detail. The Mojo being the exception, but was still on the softer side.
I'm now interested hearing the LTA Aero and the May Audio Spring.
If anyone is familiar with these 2, is it more of the same, or do either one of these stand out from the rest of the crowd?
The reason I'm looking around is I have a PS Audio DirectStream MK2 with the Airlens, and it's very nice and super detailed, but on some recordings, it can be pretty unforgiving and bright. I'm looking to take the edge of without the sound turning soft and mushy, and lacking detail.
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@danmar123 good question. when I added that trendnet switch I did it because I wanted to split the output of my router/mesh node into two branches - one that would feed the streaming card in my DAC and one that would feed my Roon Nucleus One. I was hoping that the trendnet will not degrade the sound quality because my older D-Link switch made the sound quality considerably worse. |
In the hybrid dac I have it is not I have 8 BURR BROWN CONVERTERS THAT ROUGHLY 30% is R2R THE REST DELTA SIGMA ,WITH MOSFETS MERASON DAC1 MK 2 is a great dac and under $10k. A true Best Buy and has great fast tuneful Bass, as well as a warmer very natural sound that is fast as the music is in real life !! |
A well-designed R-2R DAC can be both very fast and very natural sounding. The resistor-ladder switching is extremely fast, enabling spontaneous transient attack and excellent micro-dynamic expression. My Micro DAC is just as fast as any delta-sigma DAC I’ve heard, while sounding more natural overall. In contrast, the digital filters used in many delta-sigma DACs can sharpen the leading edge of notes, which may give the impression of greater speed but can also sound more artificial. With R-2R DACs—especially when NOS mode is engaged—the leading edge is slightly softened, allowing for more natural decay. This presentation may be perceived as slower, but it is often closer to how real instruments behave. |
Your Cinnamon cable is not "defective" - but, it is being used for a purpose for which it was not designed. It seems to me that a fundamental weakness in I2S is that DACs seem to be affected by everything before them. With a good isolated asynchronous USB you are insulated from anything before it - the words are buffered and are read out by the DAC's clock.
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