Less is more?

[merlin]

Despite what the movies tell you though, that doesn't actually happen all that often.

But there have been plenty of documentaries that show that it does happen. It's supreme arrogance to suggest it won't happen again. Indeed, if we already know everything, why waste public money on furthering the subject?

It seems Oedipus' scepticism is based on the suggestion that two products that measure the same in frequency response will sound identical. Fair enough.

But given that the amount of HF energy created in the typically reflective living room is likely to result in a certain brightness, does it not make some sense to roll off the treble to compensate for the anticipated domestic enviroment? In other words, if you are not prepared to go to the trouble of treating the room or EQing the system, might not some variation from neutrality be both subjectively preferrable and objectively more accurate?

 

[michaelab]

merlin - lets not redo the accuracy debate again here please! I don't think oedipus said anything about whether a flat response was desirable or more accurate here, just that if two DACs have the same response they will sound identical - which I happen to disagree with.

Michael.

 

[PeteH]

But there have been plenty of documentaries that show that it does happen. It's supreme arrogance to suggest it won't happen again.

Of course. It'd be supremely vacuous to mistake a statement that it rarely happens for an assertion that it never happens too.

Indeed, if we already know everything, why waste public money on furthering the subject?

There's an enormous distinction between finding fault with what has gone before and "knowing everything". You start out by reading the relevant literature to find out what's already known and take it from there - you don't read the literature to find out what you're going to use this year's research grant proving wrong, although of course you do very occasionally find that your results contradict somebody else's.

 

[wadia-miester]

although of course you do very occasionally find that your results contradict somebody else's.

Pete,

All the time mate

 

[merlin]

merlin - lets not redo the accuracy debate again here please! I don't think oedipus said anything about whether a flat response was desirable or more accurate here, just that if two DACs have the same response they will sound identical - which I happen to disagree with.

Michael.

Why?

Genuine question Michael. Given that you sit on that side of the fence, what do you think would make them sound different other than frequency aberrations?

Also I noticed from the link Ian put up, that the 47 Labs had some very "interesting" measurements and quite a bit of distortion and jitter. And yet it sounds great apparently. How does that tie in with your assertions vis a vis the validity of the null test?

 

[penance]

Andy - if you Google for TDA1543 DAC you'll get hundreds of links. Loads of people are making these 47 Labs clone dacs. Here's are a couple of examples:

http://www.diyparadise.com/dackit/1543dackit.html

http://www.geocities.com/rjm003.geo/rjmaudio/diy_dac.html

As Isaac said, they're all over the place on diyaudio.com aswell.

Michael.

Thanks Micheal, i'll look into the options. Could keep me off the street corners for the winter.

 

[Paul Ranson]

I don't agree that if two DACs have the same frequency response they must necessarily sound identical.

The issue is surely that if two DACS have different frequency responses they may sound different for that reason alone, rather than any deeper magic or mystery. Which is why measurement of FR and matching replay levels matters, especially for a subjective judgement.

Paul

 

[michaelab]

Regarding Halcro amps, the fact that they do very well on a few static distortion tests with sine wave input signals doesn't mean they would have a good null test result.

The job of the amplifier and source are the same - to accurately reproduce the input signal. You can't differentiate between the two!

In a CD of a live recording that was recorded digitally and digitally mastered what is the "input signal" that a DAC has to accurately reproduce?

Not quite so simple is it . The input signal to an amp however is always a known quantity.

Coming back to my DAC and why it might sound different to the DAC64, if my DAC measures similarly to the 47 Labs DAC then it does indeed have a different freq. response.

Here's the 47 Labs DAC freq response (taken from http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/800/index5.html):

(the HF boost trace is for a CD with pre-emphasis which the DAC ignores so can be ignored)

...and here's the freq. response graph for the DAC64 (taken from http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/624/index6.html):

(the DAC64, like most DACs does handle pre-emphasised CDs so the de-emph. trace looks just like the normal one).

It's clear the the 47 Labs DAC has some HF rolloff compared to the pretty much flat response of the DAC64. I personally doubt whether that is what makes the 47 Labs DAC (or my clone) sound more lifelike.

Michael.

 

[leonard smalls]

Accuracy? Schmaccuracy!
You boys should just get a decent turntable rather than worrying about 1s and 0s!

Oh, and of course a decent phono-stage..

 

[stickman]

Which DAC's have you been using? Perhaps you could give us a few words describing each one and it's sound...

My (attempted) light-hearted comment was in response to the generalisation "all DACs sound the same". I was unsure whether it was careless use of the English language or whether you had genuinely heard every DAC ever made.

However, to answer your question, in the last 18 months I've owned -

- Meridian 203
- TEAC D-10
- TEAC D-500
- TEAC D-700
- Benchmark DAC-1
- Wadia 25

(I still own the D-500, D-700 and Wadia).

I couldn't offer words to characterise the first two, as its over a year since I heard them, but at the time I preferred the Meridian to the D-10.

The D-700 resides in my second system, the D-500 in my partner's system. Its a long time since I've tried them side-by-side, but from memory I believe the D-700 had a more natural, less digital sound.

Most recently, I've used the Benchmark and the Wadia, using their volume control driving my power amp directly. All other aspects of the system, transport, power amp, speakers, interconnects, speaker cables, mains cables, power blocks and isolation were the same.

I'd say that both retrieved the same level of detail from the CDs I played ie in no instance did I think "haven't heard that before". To characterise them comparatively, I'd say the Benchmark has a more open sound, with greater air/space between instruments than the Wadia, but in my set-up was fatiguing at high volumes or for prolongued listening periods. I would characterise it as bright. The Wadia has a more full/solid sound with less air/space between instruments and has never sounded bright, at any volume.

I bought the Wadia because I couldn't live with the Benchmark.

Could I tell the Benchmark and Wadia apart, in my system, blindfolded? Yes, I believe I could.

Apologies if my attempt to articulate the differences is insufficient to satisfy your curiosity.

 

[oedipus]

Most recently, I've used the Benchmark and the Wadia, using their volume control driving my power amp directly. All other aspects of the system, transport, power amp, speakers, interconnects, speaker cables, mains cables, power blocks and isolation were the same.

To characterise them comparatively, I'd say the Benchmark has a more open sound, with greater air/space between instruments than the Wadia, but in my set-up was fatiguing at high volumes or for prolongued listening periods. I would characterise it as bright. The Wadia has a more full/solid sound with less air/space between instruments and has never sounded bright, at any volume.

I bought the Wadia because I couldn't live with the Benchmark.

Wadia are a bunch of cranks who beleive that long length reconstruction filters are bad, and have implemented a simple reconstruction filter which is nowhere near flat and droops 3.0dB in the top octave. It's been a persistent feature of their design.. You can clearly see this in Stereophile's measurements of the 861:

http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/540/index6.html

It's not greatly surprising that this sounds different to the benchmark (which is much flatter droops 0.2db in the top octave):

http://benchmarkmedia.com/digital/dac1/DAC1-Manual.pdf

You could have kept the Benchmark and used a simple tone control to get the effect of the wadia for a lot less money..

 

[wadia-miester]

Nah, I wanted remote control.

They are also rather good for self defence from preaching non difference in anything co-horts

 

[stickman]

And bloody heavy. I feel RSI coming on.

 

[wadia-miester]

You should try thr 27ix one then Stickman, premant slip disc territory!!!

 

[stickman]

"Does the 27 sound any different to the 25" he says mischievously.

 

[wadia-miester]

Yes, though I prefer the 27 to the ix, yet you need the 'i' mod to get the clock link (big difference)

 

[oedipus]

Nah, I wanted remote control.

See, now your making sense

It's no secret here that I owned a Mark Levinson 390S which I bought mostly because it too had a nice remote volume control (analog domain though ), had a nice clear display I could see from across the room, and I liked the ultra thin CD draw. It sounded identical to the benchmark media DAC1 it replaced (which I still have), but it looked a lot cooler

 

[merlin]

You won't get the required accuracy going that route.

Ah of course, not accurate enough! Silly me

BTW, why plump for the Benchmark. Seems expensive for a Dac compared with an M Audio which sounds exactly the same?

 

[oedipus]

BTW, why plump for the Benchmark. Seems expensive for a Dac compared with an M Audio which sounds exactly the same?

Built in headphone pre-amp, balanced XLR's with volume control. No wall wart. State of the Art measured performance, jitter immunity - hey, it's nice to have even if it can't be heard Also, I bought one of the first ones on the market, before the hoopla began, and before I'd heard about the M-Audio...

 

[merlin]

So, ignoring the extra facilities for a second, would you say the M Audio will sound the same. I'm interested as I have one and was thinking of upgrading.