The Art of Listenng - Comparing DACs

[Lee]

Great picture Bruce. Thanks!

 

[ted_b]

Bruce,
Hi. Thanks for the email the other day, and sorry we barely saw each other at CES. I know you were busy.

This thread is great, and although I came to the same conclusions as you (with your help I might add) It wasn't until i was almost half way though this past year's DAC reviews/demos (probably totaled 12-13 DACs inhouse over the past 12 months). I am futzing with a prototype M2Tech Young DAC (USB to 32/384) but it is still a bit unstable. Marco at M2tech is all over it and sending out new boards to us early adopters. I'll let you know how it goes but at $2k it is quite promising.

One of my favorite of the $2k category DACs has been the Antelope Zodiac Plus. Piano sounds glorious on it (something you and I discussed as a real test for high end and tone) but it needs a better power supply for that alst bit of heft and weight. Maybe their new Volticus external ps is the answer. At $5k+ I'm still searching. I'm looking forward to Jonathan's 3 series.

 

[Bruce B]

Bruce,
Hi. Thanks for the email the other day, and sorry we barely saw each other at CES. I know you were busy.)

Hey Ted... thanks for joining us! Yeah, I can't wait to have Andreas' new DAC in here as well to see how it stacks up to our MPS-5. I know they have about a dozen or so orders already!

 

[Ron Party]

What's the ETA, Bruce?

 

[c1ferrari]

Hey, Bruce,

Thanks for sharing! How do you feel about massed strings for comparing DAC's

Regards,

Sam

 

[FrantzM]

Bruce

Superb OP..

In my expereince in the beginning, few DACs were capable of getting the cymbals right that, massed strings and quite a bit of other things ... Lately several I have heard have come close .. On this although a Benchmark HDR owener and frankly a superb DAC it is not up there with my old standby the Burmester 980 .. (from memory never conducted a direct comparison) very, very good but doesn't seem to have that last bit of "air" some of the better DAcs do .. On bass also the HDR is bettered by the Burmester DACs... It (Benchmark HDR) remains an extremely good DAC though ..
It should be known that I have a great admiration for Burmester Elctreonics.. I am not sure why they are not mentioned more often when the best DACs are mentioned, they are in a league by themselves IMO ...

 

[Bruce B]

What's the ETA, Bruce?

Jonathan tells me Apr/May

Hey, Bruce,
Thanks for sharing! How do you feel about massed strings for comparing DAC's
Sam

Massed strings are pretty easy until they get loud. Once they get above -8 to -6dB, then a good DAC should be able to delineate each individual section cleanly and not make you start to cringe like the system is going to explode. It's supposed to give a relaxed sound, just as it does at a lower volume.

 

[jtinn]

Hey Ted... thanks for joining us! Yeah, I can't wait to have Andreas' new DAC in here as well to see how it stacks up to our MPS-5. I know they have about a dozen or so orders already!

Way more than that

 

[jtinn]

Jonathan tells me Apr/May



Massed strings are pretty easy until they get loud. Once they get above -8 to -6dB, then a good DAC should be able to delineate each individual section cleanly and not make you start to cringe like the system is going to explode. It's supposed to give a relaxed sound, just as it does at a lower volume.

Actually, I said May/June

 

[Orb]

Jonathan tells me Apr/May



Massed strings are pretty easy until they get loud. Once they get above -8 to -6dB, then a good DAC should be able to delineate each individual section cleanly and not make you start to cringe like the system is going to explode. It's supposed to give a relaxed sound, just as it does at a lower volume.

Hey Bruce,
whats your experience with DACs and how they handle digital music that hits 0dBFs.
I appreciate some handle this better than others and wonder if this is something you ever come across yourself (I understand ideally should never hit 0 dBFS but unfortunately there are plenty modern recordings that can).

Cheers
Orb

 

[Bruce B]

Hey Bruce,
whats your experience with DACs and how they handle digital music that hits 0dBFs.
I appreciate some handle this better than others and wonder if this is something you ever come across yourself (I understand ideally should never hit 0 dBFS but unfortunately there are plenty modern recordings that can).
Cheers
Orb

This is an interesting subject, especially on the A-D side. I might bring that up in another topic.
But on the DAC side, I've been fighting this for years. When you take SACD's that have been recorded really hot and take the DSD information off of them to convert to PCM, you're in a world of hurt. The SACD protocol allows for +3dB and when you do a straight conversion to PCM without attenuating, you get clipping. We've had to have all our DSD converters modified to allow for this. If you compare an SACD to CD of the same material, the SACD is always going to be at least 3dB quieter, hence you feel it's more dynamic.
Now, when we master a CD and the band wants it really hot, or even a hot digital file download where there may be inter-sample peaks, more and more of the cheaper DACs will distort. It's getting much better now and manufacturers have addressed this. Some even attenuate the signal a few tenths of a dB so there won't be any clipping. I've noticed on the DACs we have here that it takes a good deal of effort to hear clipping on our Meitners, DAD or Playback Designs. It's really easy to clip and actually hear distortion on our Lynx Aurora. We've had a few DACs in here that if you even get close to 0 dBFS it starts to crap the bed.

 

[Orb]

Bruce thanks for the response,
really interesting and food for thought.

Thanks again
Orb

 

[c1ferrari]

Massed strings are pretty easy until they get loud.

Precisely! I use a CD with massed strings with fortissimo sections

Thanks, Bruce.

 

[audiofilodigital]

Bruce,

Do you think that a
PC with Lynx AES32 (or RME 9632) soundcard
+
Cranesong Avocet
+
"X" brand-name active monitors (or loudspeakers), let's say a kind of Adam, Dynaudio, Focal Be, Opal, etc.
...can be a kind of minimalist definitive system to get (almost) the most of the music files in a computer ? I have just tried to join together the minimum quantity with maximum quality... Just to know your opinion as I think you have some of those models.
Waiting anxiously for your opinion !

 

[Bruce B]

Bruce,

Do you think that a
PC with Lynx AES32 (or RME 9632) soundcard
+
Cranesong Avocet
+ !

This is exactly one of the systems we use here. We use the Avocet Surround (3 pieces) with the Lynx AES16. Dave makes an awesome pre. The DAC section is top notch as well. You will find this system in many mastering studios.

 

[audiofilodigital]

Thank you very much Bruce. Now I have to evaluate all the possibilities with the 2 last pieces of that simple puzzle: the monitor controller + active speakers. It's incredible how, even with such small system, there is a big number of possibilities just mixing just 2 of those products: controllers + active speakers.
For controllers: I have selected, of course, Cranesong (Is Dave still at the company? didn't he leave for other projects recently?) Avocet as one very recommended reference.
...but I have found also, some others. As always, your opinon is highly appreciated here:
Danfield Audio http://www.danfield-audio.com/main_products/product_mon2.html. 'though I guess this solution demands an external DAC.
Dangerous Music: http://www.dangerousmusic.com/dbox.html available with or without their own DAC.
Grace Design: http://www.gracedesign.com/products/monitor_controllers.html ...different possibilities here 'though all of them seem to have an excellent quality.
Crookwood: http://www.crookwood.com/~crookwood/technology.html a completly new firm for me. Very HiTech but designed to be installed in a rack.

About speakers, well, obviously it will depend on the size of each particular room (apart for particular tastes, as always). It doesn´t make any sense to install a pair of big ones inside a matchbox.

Other subject that may deserve a different Thread is about interconnect cables: are they really so different ? I can´t see that jungle of brand-names in the Pro-market. However it looks like some HiEnd companies (Transparent, Mit, etc. have already wired some important studio recordings... don´t know about how much of this is marketing (done for free as an ad-point) or really demanded by professionals.

 

[mimesis]

Hi Bruce,
I have a question regarding the DSD to PCM conversion given +3dB signals. Does the same condition hold for the internal conversion of a DSD signal on a consumer machine like an Esoteric X-01, which converts the DSD on an SACD for conversion by a Burr Brown 1704 PCM DAC?

Thanks,
William

 

[Bruce B]

On the DACs that I have used that do both DSD and PCM, the DSD signal is attenuated. One of the DACs that I was using (EMM Labs DAC8IV) didn't do this and when "hot" SACD's were played and converted to PCM, there was mucho clipping! I had to have the algorithim changed to attenuate the signal so I could capture the DSD data stream.

audiofilodigital: I actually used the Dangerous ST/SR for a few month before the Avocet. It really does a great job. I didn't like that you had to use DB25 connectors for all hook up. The Crookwood is fully customizable and sounds great.
Dave is still at Crane Song. He's done other work creating the ARIA for ATR R2R and also plug-ins for Avid.

 

[NwAvGuy]

I've noticed on the DACs we have here that it takes a good deal of effort to hear clipping on our Meitners, DAD or Playback Designs. It's really easy to clip and actually hear distortion on our Lynx Aurora. We've had a few DACs in here that if you even get close to 0 dBFS it starts to crap the bed.

In many years of conducting measurements, I've measured only one DAC that had any trouble with 0 dBFS and it has numerous other blatant design flaws as whoever designed it apparently slept through their engineering classes, or never took any.

There could certainly be more out there that choke on 0 dBFS signals, but I suspect they're rather rare as it's trivial for a DAC to deal with. In fact, 0 dBFS is used as the reference level against which most DAC performance measures are referenced. So if a DAC "craps the bed" as Bruce puts it with a 0 dBFS signal it would be painfully obvious to the designer and anyone measuring it.

When a $29 complete DAC can deliver 90+ dB of real world dynamic range with 0.007% THD+N at 0 dBFS, flat frequency response, low IMD, etc. all while running from noisy USB power it's obviously no big feat. See: Behringer UCA202 Review

 

[mimesis]

Thanks all for the additional info.