Are differences between DACs really subtle, or are people focusing on something diff?

caesar · Oct 28, 2015

You frequently hear people say that the differences between DACs are small. Is this a myth, or is there something to it? Are people who are claiming this have different realism triggers?

In my experience, and based on my realism triggers, some differences I hear are not subtle:
- Many DACs can't do a solid, rhythmic bottom end.
- Some, like the DSD DACs sound boring to me, lacking dynamics while producing an overly harmonic rich sound.
- And not all DACs are able to remove the harshness and brittleness from the high end, even after installing dedicating lines and implementing power conditioning.

But I wonder what everyone else thinks. Please share!

Al M. · Oct 28, 2015

caesar said:
You frequently hear people say that the differences between DACs are small. Is this a myth, or is there something to it? Are people who are claiming this have different realism triggers?

In my experience, and based on my realism triggers, some differences I hear are not subtle:
- Many DACs can't do a solid, rhythmic bottom end.
- Some, like the DSD DACs sound boring to me, lacking dynamics while producing an overly harmonic rich sound.
- And not all DACs are able to remove the harshness and brittleness from the high end, even after installing dedicating lines and implementing power conditioning.

But I wonder what everyone else thinks. Please share!

The differences are subtle. They all play music. That's one way to look at it.

The differences are not so subtle when the sum of them affects the musical experience as a whole. My Berkeley Alpha DAC 2 compared to my previous Wadia 12 DAC has:

a) considerably more timbral resolution
b) a better defined soundstage, especially towards the back
c) much better bass
d) better micro-dynamics
e) much better rhythm & timing: it is the very first DAC I have heard that can really rock, rivaling the best turntables I've heard *) (my Wadia 12, on a good power conditioner, could also swing with jazz, like the Berkeley)
f) better removal of artificial harshness (e.g., on solo strings playing fortissimo), while still reproducing the natural hardness of instruments (e.g., brass)

Overall drama and liveliness are about the same between these two DACs. I have had DACs in my system that were inferior in that area, boring as you say. Big minus for the music. Good liveliness is paramount.

___________

*) Great rhythm & timing comes easy and natural to analog, digital has had a history of struggling with it. It's not just an issue with amount of bass and control, it's more elusive than that.

Al M. · Oct 28, 2015

By the way, all the above observations are on PCM, Redbook CD format.

edorr · Oct 28, 2015

I once lined up 4 dacs in a complete all else being equal setup. I mapped 4 x the same stereo signal to 8 outputs on a lynx digital card, and ran the 4 stereo signals into 4 DACs, which all ran into the same Spectral preamp. This allowed me to switch in real-time between 4 active DACs with the exact same digital source. The sound quality differences were depressingly small - the price difference between DACs not so much. I ended up selling my $30K MSRP MSB DAC after the expiriment, and ended up keeping the PS audio DirectStream. The other two contenders were Mytek and NAD m51. I have convinced myself that 2 firmware upgrades dramatically improved the DS performance since the shootout, so theoretically the performance gap should have widened, but it is entirely conceivable this is all audiophile placebo effect and another 4 way shootout would yield identical result of relatively small differences.

Audiophile Bill · Oct 28, 2015

I think differences between ss dacs are relatively small although still important enough to make it worthwhile. Some tube dacs obviously do sound quite substantially different.

rbbert · Oct 28, 2015

One could easily argue that all the differences we obsess about are subtle. I think most would agree that the biggest most immediately obvious differences are in loudspeakers and the listening room; compared to that most electronics, cables and power management have subtle differences, which doesn't mean they aren't important to us. I've also been struck by how much alike LP and hi-res digital can sound when the program material (and mastering) is the same.

Al M. · Oct 28, 2015

Purite Audio said:
I agree, a dac is after all a digital to analogue converter and should be transparent,

Should be is the key. In practice, this often doesn't apply, also with DACs that do not feature nos/valves.

Al M. · Oct 28, 2015

rbbert said:
One could easily argue that all the differences we obsess about are subtle. I think most would agree that the biggest most immediately obvious differences are in loudspeakers and the listening room; compared to that most electronics, cables and power management have subtle differences, which doesn't mean they aren't important to us. I've also been struck by how much alike LP and hi-res digital can sound when the program material (and mastering) is the same.

At the least, the differences in rhythm & timing that I mentioned are not subtle. They go to the very heart of the music. In classical music it may matter less, but on a subliminal level it may still be of constant importance.

I completely agree with the findings in this article from 1992:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/pace-rhythm-dynamics-one-listeners-lament#Of34CxlKGuSBHTfJ.97

Arguably, however, digital overall has become much better in this area since.

ack · Oct 28, 2015

My experience has been a little different, and sound quality appears to be dependent on a number of factors:

The better the source feeding a DAC (read: less jitter) the more differently DACs _may_ react - in other words, the jitter of the incoming signal is one thing, but there is jitter elsewhere within a DAC; so the better ones do sound better when fed from a better transport, but the not-so-good ones don't particularly improve, presumably because of jitter elsewhere, and those all tend to sound the same
I find it quite surprising that some folks don't realize how bad USB is for audio - so perhaps those who claim they all sound the same may not be using a better digital interface to make the evaluation (blizzard had an excellent thread recently on this)
The analog section of a DAC is an extremely critical part of the puzzle; the better ones can stand out, while I have seen a number of DACs use ordinary analog sections, and I lose interest really quickly
The closer and more stable the clock is to the DAC chips the better it ought to sound, and slaving the transport's clock to the DAC has been proven to me to sound even better. I also find DACs with external clocks unnecessarily complicated and expensive, and I do not subscribe to the external-clock architecture
The PLL loop also makes a difference, depending on how it's implemented

The bottom line is that, the few competently-architected and built DACs do sound quite better than just about all typically-built DACs, and the latter do sound just about the same (and awful at that). So far, the best DAC I have heard is the dCS Vivaldi, and it sets itself quite apart from just about anything else I've heard. And interestingly, price does not necessarily correspond to performance, when it comes to DACs. So as always, the devil is in the details, and proper digital design is apparently extremely challenging.

bonzo75 · Oct 28, 2015

caesar said:
You frequently hear people say that the differences between DACs are small. Is this a myth, or is there something to it? Are people who are claiming this have different realism triggers?

In my experience, and based on my realism triggers, some differences I hear are not subtle:
- Many DACs can't do a solid, rhythmic bottom end.
- Some, like the DSD DACs sound boring to me, lacking dynamics while producing an overly harmonic rich sound.
- And not all DACs are able to remove the harshness and brittleness from the high end, even after installing dedicating lines and implementing power conditioning.

But I wonder what everyone else thinks. Please share!

I used to own an AR Dac 8. I tried various upgrades including Weiss, Meitner, CAD, and recently heard Esoteric K01, K01 with clock, and Trinity. To me, except for a bit of quietness and detail, better or different SS dacs don't seem to add or make much difference to the music. In one recent demo I replaced the Vivaldi and Soluution with Oppo and Bel Canto integrated. Did I hear a difference? Yes. Would I have paid even 5k more for it? No. That's my perspective. Some of the quietness and detail sounds artificial, instead of natural.

I think one should go TT instead. The cost of a high end dac plus a good server will buy you a great used TT and vinyl collection. The only dac that interested me was Lampi, as you would know from my posts. It added much more realism, and even did the good things SS dacs did. If you are looking at a dac, do demo it. Else go TT. Dacs are not necessarily more convenient once you get into server upgrades etc. I think lke many I started not knowing how much budget I would end up spending, but if I knew I would be crossing 10k for a source the day I got into hifi, I would go TT with a vinyl collection.

Al M. · Oct 28, 2015

ack said:
My experience has been a little different, and sound quality appears to be dependent on a number of factors:

The better the source feeding a DAC (read: less jitter) the more differently DACs _may_ react - in other words, the jitter of the incoming signal is one thing, but there is jitter elsewhere within a DAC; so the better ones do sound better when fed from a better transport, but the not-so-good ones don't particularly improve, presumably because of jitter elsewhere, and those all tend to sound the same

I find it quite surprising that some folks don't realize how bad USB is for audio - so perhaps those who claim they all sound the same may not be using a better digital interface to make the evaluation (blizzard had an excellent thread recently on this)

The analog section of a DAC is an extremely critical part of the puzzle; the better ones can stand out, while I have seen a number of DACs use ordinary analog sections, and I lose interest really quickly

The closer and more stable the clock is to the DAC chips the better it ought to sound, and slaving the transport's clock to the DAC has been proven to me to sound even better. I also find DACs with external clocks unnecessarily complicated and expensive, and I do not subscribe to the external-clock architecture

The PLL loop also makes a difference, depending on how it's implemented

The bottom line is that, the few competently-architected and built DACs do sound quite better than just about all typically-built DACs, and the latter do sound just about the same (and awful at that). So far, the best DAC I have heard is the dCS Vivaldi, and it sets itself quite apart from just about anything else I've heard. And interestingly, price does not necessarily correspond to performance, when it comes to DACs. So as always, the devil is in the details, and proper digital design is apparently extremely challenging.

Great post, Ack.

As for USB, I don't experience with it; my DAC comparisons were from a CD transport.

Re: external clock: doesn't the Vivaldi stack feature an external clock to the DAC?

LL21 · Oct 28, 2015

I am with Ack and Al M. I would even say that (aking to those like Microstrip who have often spoken of the importance of using the pre and amp by the same designer)...i would say in my own experience, i have often found there is something particularly good about ensuring the digital system is designed by 1 person...or designed VERY, VERY carefully if from multiple parts.

While 'bits are bits' is a long-debated issue...there appear to be a lot of gremlins in digital that can really throw a nasty curve and make SOTA components sound downright ordinary. And by contrast, when setup by 1 designer (like the full DCS Vivaldi Stack, full Metronome Stack, full Zanden stack)...man, those things can make serious magic.

ack · Oct 28, 2015

Al M. said:
Re: external clock: doesn't the Vivaldi stack feature an external clock to the DAC?

It does, and unnecessarily so. Which is to say, I believe their approach is flawed and serves a single purpose, that of making money. There is absolutely no reason why that clock shouldn't and wouldn't be internal, 1mm from the DAC chips, so to speak.
Recall, I sent you guys an email just the other day, that dCS has fallen out of favor because of cost? Well, this is part of it.

Ken Newton · Oct 28, 2015

edorr said:
...The sound quality differences were depressingly small - the price difference between DACs not so much...

Ironically, that is the promise of CD's perfect sound forever. Exactly the same sound, regardless of playback unit. Some feel that CD has instead been more a case of uniformly imperfect sound forever. The interesting thing is that digital sampling is indeed perfect, in mathematical theory. Those who believe that sampling and reconstruction inherently damages the signal are simply mistaken.

Even the earliest CD players featured essentially perfect specifications, well, at least for those specifications common used to measure purely analog sources, such as THD+Noise, dynamic range, band flatness to 20kHz, and speed accuracy. So, with such perfect specifications, why hasn't CD sounded like a microphone feed from the release of the format? It's because of problems related to the practical implementation details have fallen short of the mathematical perfection of sampling theory. I won't recount those details here, as most of them are familiar by now. Improvement in the subjective performance of digital audio has tracked the recognition and conquering of the troublesome implementation details. Will this improvement in implementation eventually lead us to the perfect sound forever which theory promises? Actually, I can't see any reason why it shouldn't.

Al M. · Oct 28, 2015

Ken Newton said:
Ironically, that is the promise of CD's perfect sound forever. Exactly the same sound, regardless of playback unit. Some feel that CD has instead been more a case of uniformly imperfect sound forever.

Well, they are wrong.

The interesting thing is that digital sampling is indeed perfect, in mathematical theory. Those who believe that sampling and reconstruction inherently damages the signal are simply mistaken.

Yes, they are.

Even the earliest CD players featured essentially perfect specifications, well, at least for those specifications common used to measure purely analog sources, such as THD+Noise, dynamic range, band flatness to 20kHz, and speed accuracy. So, with such perfect specifications, why hasn't CD sounded like a microphone feed from the release of the format? It's because of problems related to the practical implementation details have fallen short of the mathematical perfection of sampling theory. I won't recount those details here, as most of them are familiar by now. Improvement in the subjective performance of digital audio has tracked the recognition and conquering of the troublesome implementation details. Will this improvement in implementation eventually lead us to the perfect sound forever which theory promises? Actually, I can't see any reason why it shouldn't.

I completely agree. Look how far we have come since the 80s "Perfect Sound Forever", incredibly far. I have been really surprised about the resolution of Redbook CD in my system recently, a resolution that I had not expected. I don't see why progress should not continue. It's all about the implementation.

At the beginning of the thread I mentioned rhythm & timing, This was a stubborn problem of fundamental lack of musicality of early digital (more appreciated and discussed in Europe than in the US, by the way) that has frustrated me endlessly as well. Yet it is now basically solved in my DAC, which rocks and swings with the best turntables. Resolution of timbral detail has made tremendous progress as well, but still lags behind the finest analog. Yet in mathematical theory the resolution should all be there. I believe there is reason to hope that development of digital will make more progress in this area in a manner similar to improvement in the area of rhythm & timing. Or as in the area of spatial resolution and ambient retrieval, where digital has made incredible progress as well (remember early digital as 'dry' sounding medium?).

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Are differences between DACs really subtle, or are people focusing on something diff?

caesar

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Al M.

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edorr

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