Less is more?

What if you were using a wideband amp instead of a transformer-as-volume-control that is bound to roll off the highs/get rid of the noise from your unfiltered dac? How would your amp behave if it was confronted with a lot of hf noise?

 

Well all I can say is, you may not be such a lost cause after all

 

Markus - where do you get the idea that my TVC preamp rolls off the highs? Take a look at the frequency response graph of the TX102 transformer used in my preamp (scroll down the page a bit). It appears to be pretty flat up to just below 100kHz.

My power amp has an output filter to get rid of the 500kHz switching noise and reconstruct the analog waveform however (from the graphs on the LC Audio site) it also has a pretty flat response upto about 50kHz.

Michael.

 

I was there

I was the friend at Michael's home yesterday's night. His wife was away, so was mine ... as I live nearby (within a walking distance, actually) it was the perfect occasion for a "menage à trois" with his new DAC .

The difference between the two DACs is ... well ... embarassing. There's not a single area where the dac64 was not overshadowed. Timbre, pace, dynamics and - more surprinsingly for me - soundstage, and transparency.

Next saturday we'll see how it works with my 508.24.

Vermeer

 

FYI I split all that other discussion about phase and stuff into another thread because it was ruining this one.

Michael.

 

Michael, at what attenuation do you typically play your pre?

 

Pervs.

 

Markus, with the new DAC I typically use from about -16dB to about -6dB or even less for recordings with a particularly low level.

With the DAC64 I typically had to use about -10dB more attenuation to get a similar level (I was using balanced outputs). For this reason I have a set of Rothwell attenuators between the pre and power because otherwise it was impossible to get a useful volume range (and on some recordings a low enough volume). With the new DAC the Rothwell's are not necessary but I'm still using them as it's my understanding that the less attenuation the better the performance of the pre.

To be honest though I don't have a clue. I looked at those impedance charts (for the TX102 transformer) and I don't really understand how to make use of them, especially as I don't know either the output impedance of either of my DACs nor the input impedance of my power amp.

The lab report in the HFN review of the MF Audio passive (which uses the same transformers) didn't seem to indicate that impedance matching was a significant issue (something that is a notorious problem with resistor based passives).

Michael.

 

michael,
i'm considering a pair of the rothwells. did you experiance any differences in the sound with them?
cheers


julian

 

Julian - nope, didn't notice any difference at all. Just did what they say on the tin: 10dB attenuation of the signal (allthough I didn't check that with a multimeter ).

Mine are the XLR attenuators which cost rather a lot at £70 the pair but they do come in a nice box and look the business. I could have made some up myself but I couldn't be arsed. The RCA ones are a lot cheaper.

Michael.

 

thanks michael, my nap250 has 1 xlr on the back for both chanels (don;t ask just accept the naim oddness) and i was going to see if i could get hold of just one but to be honest that would play hobb with my ht setup so a pair of single ended rca's in the back of my dac would probably do it ok.
cheers


julian

 

What's playing hobb? And whilst I'm at it, why are many people here spelling HOBBY in capitals these days - have I missed something?

Anyway - yes, I think you'd be better off with 2 RCAs. Since Naim will not be using the XLR pins in the standard way if they are using one for both channels it's almost certain the attenuator wouldn't work like that anyway.

Michael.

 

hobb is an old name for the devil - so playing the devil (have a watch of the old quatermass and the pit film - the street all the weird stuff happens is called hobb's lane)
HOBBY - is in reference to a post (i believe by tones) about the hi-fi being like a faith who's deity was HOBBY - a proud and jealous god of audiophiles.

hey - synchronicity at work - L ron hubbard would be proud.
cheers

julian

 

Michael, I'm sure you can tell sacralization when you see it

 

Michael,

Now that you have had a couple of days to assess your thoughts, do you still feel that your new DAC is better than the DAC64?

If so, do you have any words to describe the difference.

Ken

 

well its a fascinating post, I find it quite remarkable, especially considering Michael's prior staunch defense of the dac64 as the best digital source.
So this little fella whups it then? So simple, too.
It really gives great satisfaction to find something cheap can totally render expensive items redundant, and a bit disturbing, too.
Its slightly interesting to note on the dac64 graph an ever so slightly raised treble region, above around 2k on page 5 of this thread. I did detect a slight glassiness/forwardness to the dac 64's sound, not counting the raised output.
The dac64 was slightly but noticably better than my marantz ki sig., certain instruments such as strings came through with more accurate tonal qualities, bass more solid, deeper, and of course, that dac64 bigness thing.

 

Absolutely. How are they different? Well, before getting into detailed differences (which I'm notoriously bad at describing) this new DAC just sounds so much more like real music than the DAC64. A much more natural sound that makes the suspension of disbelief that there are real musicians in your living room so much easier. This is all the more surprising to me since I considered the DAC64 to be better at this than pretty much any other digital source I'd ever heard. I also find I can listen to the new DAC for very long periods without it becoming fatiguing. The DAC64 could quite easily become fatiguing to listen to. Whilst I wouldn't describe the DAC64 as bright (and I have defended it against those who claim it is), in comparison to this new DAC it does seem quite "shouty" which can be wearing after a while.

The new DAC has much more body, scale and visceral impact than the DAC64. Bass notes now have weight and a force behind them that just didn't exist before. The decay of reflected sounds, particularly in live recordings, also seems to last much longer and be allthogether more realistic. Listening to the DAC64 again this kind of reverb decay seems to get abruptly truncated at a certain point. Soundstage depth seems to be better with the new DAC also.

I will definitely be selling the DAC64 shortly, but as I'm taking the new NOS DAC with me to London tomorrow for a couple of weeks (to compare it to sideshowbob's "the real deal" 47 Labs Shigaraki DAC) I didn't want to leave my wife sans music so it's staying for another couple of weeks.

I took it (the NOS DAC) over to Vermeer's place yesterday to compare to his Meridian 508.24. I'll let him describe the results in detail, but lets just say that the result put a smile on my face .

Lastly, let me say that I still consider the DAC64 to be head and shoulders above the vast majority of digital sources I've heard. It's not a patch no my new DAC though

Michael.

 

I have to point out here when ever we've described the dac 64 as forward/hard/shouty, and plain old fatiguing and just plain wrong, Mike has fired all broadsides at us,
Even laughed at the modded superdac even being compared to it.
Sorry But I find this Ironry most smile inducing,

 

I always maintained it was neither bright nor hard. Never previously said anything about shouty and fatiguing

Michael.

 

Has anyone else heard this amazing DAC? Anyone tempted to buy it? There's one on ebay now, ends soon.