Preamp sections in DACs produce "clean" sounds, in my experience. But they lack the ability to make music.
Anyone understand why an extra component in the chain - the preamp- make the music more human?
Not here, opus... http://www.gracedesign.com/products/m905/m905.htmIf the design's really a preamp rather than a DAC it'd be termed 'a preamp with a DAC section'. Then the DAC section would be likely to suck...
IMHO most of the time theoretically nothing to do with buffering in a technical sense - the output of most DACs can perfectly drive the IC cable and power amplifier.
Agreed - when I was talking about buffering I didn't mean it in that technical sense - that the output didn't have sufficient drive without voltage or current limiting. Rather I meant it in the sense that the output loading affected the perceived dynamics. Of course there are technical reasons for this too but not generally ones accepted by mainstream engineers.
Hi Opus, I haven't a clue -- sorry! Grace Design is regarded as a company with "clean" circuit designs. It was my intent to use the m905 for monitoring, only, as I preferred it to both the BAT REX and Atma-Sphere MP-1 Mk. 3.2 (need to send this back to Ralph for a check-up) preamplifiers as well as a Cranesong Avocet that was loaned to me, but after listening to the m905 converter - I retired the Audio Note 4.1X Balanced DAC. The AN DAC was my sole converter for approximately 5 years.Hi Sam - I don't see any mention of isolation between the USB input and the rest of the analog circuitry. Do you know if it has it? If not, seems too big an omission to me.
I don't know if this has relevance to your point about output loading -- which is not entirely clear to me -- but the input of my tube power amps is very sensitive. The DAC needs to deliver much less current to them than when driving typical power amps. Perhaps that helps.
It was my intent to use the m905 for monitoring, only, as I preferred it to both the BAT REX and Atma-Sphere MP-1 Mk. 3.2 (need to send this back to Ralph for a check-up) preamplifiers as well as a Cranesong Avocet that was loaned to me, but after listening to the m905 converter - I retired the Audio Note 4.1X Balanced DAC. The AN DAC was my sole converter for approximately 5 years.
I've done experiments to increase the current load on things. It can give an effect I've heard in numerous high end items. It some cases it can make the image grow a lot. But it tends to reduce the higher frequencies perceived volume.
The AN DAC is Non-Over-Sampling/NOS.The AN DAC was a NOS R2R type? If so that's a very interesting datapoint and I'll see what I can learn about the m905's internals.
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