Until you and the many you referred show us the beautiful systems, or I become tired of this hobby, we will surely disagree.
Trinity DAC
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Until you and the many you referred show us the beautiful systems, or I become tired of this hobby, we will surely disagree.
Until you and the many you referred show us the beautiful systems, or I become tired of this hobby, we will surely disagree.
Beautiful? I naively thought the important part was how they sounded, but I guess for the $50,000 DAC crowd that isn't the real point...
Yes, first I called them wonderful systems, next beautiful ... Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as people say ...
Hi
OK! I woke up a little early this morning and am reading this from Bob aka NStar?!
I find myself in total agreement with You Bob.. A first (could be a second, or third
What does anyone expect from a product that cost $52,000? Instant Effusive praise with no listening sessions or experiences? if not scrutiny? moreover the designer of said product talk about the uniqueness of its products and hasn't yet made his case. What I have so far seen are standard practices in signal processing and/or similarity with existing products. So we want to be educated and understand the product. It all has been polite.
Now Audiocrack, you can't expect anyone including the brutally wealthy not to question a $52,000 investment based on and I am re-quoting you . We may want to know what did impress you to order a $52,000 DAC sight unseen! or in that case hearing unheard
So stay around and prove your case. We are literally all ears.
Not a very good average (from roughly 9,000+ posts)!
...Well, realistically, you might have read perhaps 5% or even less (500 or so). - But I'm working hard to improve that. ...Be patient.
=> http://www.ti.com/product/pcm1704
Unless modified (adjusted), the PCM-1704 DAC (and PCM-1704U-K) is a 24-Bit, 96kHz BiCMOS Sign-Magnitude DAC.
- And never (ever) did I say "limited".
Anyway, it's the implementation with the totality of all the quality hand-picked parts put together that counts the most.
...Including the power supplies, and signal paths.
BTW, me too I love the PCM-1704K's architecture best. ...Sound quality (pleasantness) wise too. ...In the right configuration (dual-differential balanced mode or quad-differential, or even higher).
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I'm reviving this old thread as I had a chance to meet Ditmar during the Audio Show in Poland just 2 weeks ago. It was a real pleasure to talk to him, as he is a true gentelman !
He answered all my questions and turned out to be extremely knowledgable - definately he is not just another DIYer-turned-audio-manufacturer kind of guy, and Trinity is not just another 'me too' product.
Back to my questions I have posted in this thread:
- the DAC does DSD at 64x
- the LIANOTEC works only with 176 and 192kHz signals, meaning that for sampling rates 96kHz and lower a 'traditional' digital filter is still engaged.
I'm looking forward to read impressions from people who had a chance to listen to the Trinity DAC at home. It seems to be one of the most interesting DACs at the upper echelon of digital front ends.
He answered all my questions and turned out to be extremely knowledgable - definately he is not just another DIYer-turned-audio-manufacturer kind of guy, and Trinity is not just another 'me too' product.
Back to my questions I have posted in this thread:
- the DAC does DSD at 64x
- the LIANOTEC works only with 176 and 192kHz signals, meaning that for sampling rates 96kHz and lower a 'traditional' digital filter is still engaged.
I'm looking forward to read impressions from people who had a chance to listen to the Trinity DAC at home. It seems to be one of the most interesting DACs at the upper echelon of digital front ends.
I auditioned the Trinity dac at an open day of the Audio Technique Magazine listening room in Hong Kong this month.
Speaker was Dynaudio Platinum; pre- & power-amp were D'Agnostino, cables are mostly Nordost Odin; power-conditioning was by Shunyata flagship 2-boxes and Entraq ground-boxes.
Trinity was compared with the magazine's reference SACD system : dCS Vivaldi.
Just a short 1 hour session, both CD & high resolution files were used.
In summary, dCS was more neutral and with better resolution and soundstage/images.
Trinity was more musical and engaging.
However, when considering that dCS was a 3-piece system (dac+upsampler+clock) and needed so many expensive cables (Nordost Odin were used), Trinity was neat & tidy and with better C/P ratio.
The gentleman in the photo is Mr. Lincoln Cheng, Chief Editor of Audio Technique magazine of Hong Kong.
Speaker was Dynaudio Platinum; pre- & power-amp were D'Agnostino, cables are mostly Nordost Odin; power-conditioning was by Shunyata flagship 2-boxes and Entraq ground-boxes.
Trinity was compared with the magazine's reference SACD system : dCS Vivaldi.
Just a short 1 hour session, both CD & high resolution files were used.
In summary, dCS was more neutral and with better resolution and soundstage/images.
Trinity was more musical and engaging.
However, when considering that dCS was a 3-piece system (dac+upsampler+clock) and needed so many expensive cables (Nordost Odin were used), Trinity was neat & tidy and with better C/P ratio.
The gentleman in the photo is Mr. Lincoln Cheng, Chief Editor of Audio Technique magazine of Hong Kong.
Yes, the comparison was done using the dCS Vivaldi SACD transport connected to the two DACs with Odin digital cables but a few files (PCM & DSD) were played by a PC notebook (connected with Crystal Absolute Dream USB cable).
Then the DAC was used in suboptimal conditions. One of the most important design features of this DAC, is an ultra stable clock it has on board. It is 1000 times more accurate than the dCS Vivaldi clock.
What you did by connecting the Trinity to the dCS transport, you slaved the DAC to the inferior Vivaldi clock (embeded in SPDIF signal), which was further jittered by the flawed SPDIF interface design.
The only way to take the full advantage of the superior clock that sits inside the DAC, is to use USB interface. USB input on the Trinity DAC is asynchronous, meaning that the source is slaved to the ultra stable Trinity clock, and not vice versa (as in the case of CD transport).
Trinity clock accuracy is 1ppb (past per billion) vs 1ppm (past per million) for the dCS clock.
Accuracy is not as important as clock stability, measured by phase noise (jitter). But jitter levels are also extremely low - Trinity quotes extreme low jitter levels at 28 femto seconds (10Hz?100kHz). dCS does not publish phase noise figures for their clock.
I'm not surprised you thought the Trinity was less detailed. That is how inferior clock and higher jitter manifest itself. With the USB input, with this kind of clock on board, the resolution of the DAC should increase many fold. The fact that it already sounded more natural and fluent than Vivaldi, is most promissing.
PS. From what I 've heard from Dietmar, they are just finishing their own CD transport design.
Hi Adam,
There will be such compromise until Trinity has launched their own transport.
CAS with USB connection is still not the mainstream in Hong Kong. And for the average CAS audiophiles in Hong Kong, they will not buy such expensive DACs. Potential buyers of Vivaldi & Trinity are mainly SACD/CD audiophiles.
It's logical that the demo utilized mainly a traditional (but top quality transport with ext clock) transport.
Do you have more info on the coming Trinity transport? Is it a CD- or SACD-transport? Traditional coaxial/AES digital output or I2S connection?
Thanks!
CK
You could probably use it with Aurender. It should work, as it doesn't need drivers for Mac, so it probably is USB 2.0 complient.
I do not have any specific info about the upcoming transport. I have only seen an image on Ditmar's iPhone.
I do not have any specific info about the upcoming transport. I have only seen an image on Ditmar's iPhone.
Adam,
IMHO, you are over-stressing the importance of clocks. Accuracy is not important at all - any modern DAC is good enough in this aspect - and an isolated fantastic specification on the clock jitter means very little. Surely I would like to listen to the Trinity, as it is still the only way of judging top DACs!
Do you have experience comparing the different MSB clock modules?
CK,
I think many european audiophiles feel the same. Although my experience with music servers is limited, my best experiences with digital were always using a top quality CD transport.
Not sure about your experience with clocks, but my experience tells me otherwise.
I have tested several clocks, including rubidium one, at the time I had my Scarlatti, and they all had a big influence on system performance. Especially in terms of resolution and lack of digital artefacts. Same with the clock link feature, which helped to overcome SPDIF limitations.
I have also tried all MSB clocks - the stock one, Femto 140 and Galaxy Femto. Each of those is worth every penny (and that means $10k in case of the Galaxy Femto clock !).
PS. I just heard back from the Trinity distributor. Their new transport will use the USB interface. That makes sense, as the USB interface with such extreme high accurate master clocks is the best way to send data.
That will probably be the world's first CD transport with USB out.
That will probably be the world's first CD transport with USB out.
Thanks very much for sharing your experience with the trinity dac mister Keung. From several reliable sources I have heard that in their view the trinity dac was the winner in all categories including resolution and sounstaging. But I suppose everyone is hearing differently. If I am informed correctly, a review of the trinity dac will be published in Audio Technique in the near future. I suppose mister Lincoln Cheng will make clear how he considers the performance of the Trinity dac versus the DCS Vivaldi. It promises to be a very interesting comparison! See also the various comments on the website of audioexotics in this regard. I will receive my trinity dac on short notice and will be able to compare it to my four box Scatlatti cd-player. However, for a fair comparison I will most likely need the trinity transport as well. And that will take a while as Dietmar is extremely busy at the moment.
As I wrote, in this case it is your experience that counts! Can I ask what is the clock link feature? Did you compare the MSB with the Vivaldi?
I have not ventured into the uber DAC world as yet, as i am still a luddite at heart and have been enjoying vinyl immensely through a trinity phono from Gideon at Audio Arts in NYC. Really hoping to get in to hear the DAC over the winter and see how it compares with the CH Precision C1.
Has anyone heard and compared these two in a system you are familiar with?
Has anyone heard and compared these two in a system you are familiar with?
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