Indeed. Some people like "tube sound". Some prefer "musical" systems that measure like crap. Others obsess about that last picosecond of jitter they think they can hear.
So enjoyment of music is not really that strongly related to the accuracy of reproductions.
"Compress the dynamics to an inch of their life if you like, as long as you package it in a file with lots of empty bits"?
Things I have learned: whenever someone uses words like "never" and "always", they are almost always wrong. 🙂
I think voicing for electronics is quite objectionable. For speakers (or a room) which will have sometimes quite large flaws, then ok, it can be argued that voicing is the art of skilfully arranging the flaws so that they aren't annoying. But for an amplifier or DAC, come on...
Someone should tell him that you measure the real SNR of a DAC by making it play a full-scale DC level. Since all modern sigmadelta DACs are differential, playing zeroes allows you to measure the CMRR of the output opamps and tells remarkably nothing about the DAC itself...
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The voicing can be intentional or non-intentional. How about the filterless NOS DACs, and tube-output DACs?
a dissident opinion, con't
Guys,
interesting that a relatively simple question from the original post's author (folzag) continues to elicit the same old "audiophile"vs."engineer" type comments and responses. I'm not picking on anyone, so please do not take my comments (or me) as being arguementative for the sake of being argumentative.
The crux of all of these arguments or discussions come down usually to but a few points: after the basic engineering is done, what is the process that most manufacturers take to bring a product to market? Do all hi-fi companies try to baffle folks with BS? Can folks really hear a difference? Is there really a difference to DAC implementations? Psychologically, can the brain be tricked into believing that one listening experience be better (what ever that is) than another.
It truly comes down to a matter of personal experience for all.
Guys,
interesting that a relatively simple question from the original post's author (folzag) continues to elicit the same old "audiophile"vs."engineer" type comments and responses. I'm not picking on anyone, so please do not take my comments (or me) as being arguementative for the sake of being argumentative.
The crux of all of these arguments or discussions come down usually to but a few points: after the basic engineering is done, what is the process that most manufacturers take to bring a product to market? Do all hi-fi companies try to baffle folks with BS? Can folks really hear a difference? Is there really a difference to DAC implementations? Psychologically, can the brain be tricked into believing that one listening experience be better (what ever that is) than another.
It truly comes down to a matter of personal experience for all.
Even when placebo is involved (and it normally is) folks do really hear a difference. Take the placebo away (by not revealing which source is playing) and the difference tends to disappear. Not always though.
I don't know about differences but I do experience more listening satisfaction when simple things like power supply cleanliness to the DAC chip are addressed.
No, that's the wrong way around. The brain is tricking the listener - after all what comes into our ears is just vibration but we experience sound. Perception is a process of the creation from relatively sparse sensory input of a rich experience. I rather like the author of 'This is your brain on music''s analogy of the pingpong balls on the drumskin.
Well, to simplify wildly, there are at least two broad ways to trick the brain (and thus the listener, which happens to be the brain too but at a different stage). One is through exploiting the most hardwired neural pathways through modifying what actually hits the eardrums. That's what 3D processors, effect boxes and the like do. Another is to exploit more indirect pathways by shaping expectations and context. That's what marketing does (and placebo or audiophile tweaking mostly). Since "better" is one of the most vague and subjective concept ever when it comes to audio, it is highly susceptible to be influenced this way.
When I come to this forum, I expect the engineer's answers (and sometimes answers related to the first way of "tricking the brain"). Because the second pathway is too individual and unreliable. I'd rather be suggested to open a bottle of Ledaig to put me in the mood than to buy audiophile caps. In other words, let's strip sound reproduction of as much foklore as possible when it comes to design stuff. I can reintroduce folklore all by myself. I do it quite well; a 20lbs tube headphones amplifier proves it.
This said, there's a big part in this hobby of doing it "to see if it works", "to discover how many ways there are to skin a cat", "to enjoy overkill", etc.
I am a little bit suspect of this article. The people were only asked if they could tell the difference between the DACs and the headphones were connected directly through the sources. That would be a fine way to test except that the headphones they used were 300 ohm HD 800s. They really expect me to believe that the HD 800 sounded exactly the same from the PC output as it did from the Benchmark DAC? To me that would mean that whatever volume matching they did was at really low volumes where people don't typically listen. At realistic volumes the PC output would be pretty obviously underpowered for the HD 800.
I would think differently if the DAC outputs were plugged into the same headphone amp and then switched, but the article says a cord was run from each source. It smells like they brought down all the DACs to a level where you couldn't distinguish them anymore.
To put it another way, if I tested a bunch of amps at 0.5W I would very likely believe that they all sound exactly the same. But as soon as I push them into the 50 watt domain than it would be pretty clear to hear that the 50W/ch amp goes into distortion while the 200W/ch amp is still clean.
To answer the OP, NAIM has a pretty good article they wrote about the internal DAC vs an external DAC for CD Player.
https://www.naimaudio.com/sites/default/files/products/downloads/files/naim_dac_august_2009.pdf
Basically the gist is that a properly implemented DAC inside the CD player is always better than an external one because the DAC and CD transport would all share the same clock which reduces jitter. An external DAC has an inherent limitation of needing to decode the signal back to I2S and having to reclock. However the advantage is that technology does change and that modern DACs are likely to be much better than whatever DAC is in the Kenwood. Plus you get flexibility of using it with different sources such as iPods and computers.
https://www.naimaudio.com/sites/default/files/products/downloads/files/naim_dac_august_2009.pdf
Basically the gist is that a properly implemented DAC inside the CD player is always better than an external one because the DAC and CD transport would all share the same clock which reduces jitter. An external DAC has an inherent limitation of needing to decode the signal back to I2S and having to reclock. However the advantage is that technology does change and that modern DACs are likely to be much better than whatever DAC is in the Kenwood. Plus you get flexibility of using it with different sources such as iPods and computers.
I'm a bit suspicious of this because Naim are in the business of selling CD players.
Your suspicions operate when you're looking for an argument in support of your thesis, but are noticeably absent when evaluating the authority of your sources.
I'm just saying that when a respected independent general hardware reviewer produces a conclusion like this, especially considering the prevailing wind in audio reviews, then it might be worth paying attention.
It only has to be close to being true to make it worth reevaluating the way you do things, if you're the kind of person who thinks of themselves as a 'first adopter'. Conservatives need not apply.
Yes (and no)
Yes because in the last 15 years chips have gone a long way, and the $1 sound chip on my desktop PC motherboard certainly sounds very decent. There are a lot of very cheap DAC chips nowadays that are just... good... like ES9023 for example. Very very different from the old times, when if you were a bit cash-straped you had to settle for something like a CD63SE, which retrospectively, was a steaming piece of crap.
And obviously, no, because I've got a flagship Onkyo receiver with flagship BurrBrown DACs in it, and it sounds (and measures) absolutely horrible. There are huge differences between DACs and they are not correlated to price.
Also... a CD used to be some sort of round object that was used to listen to music before the computer was invented, right ?
Exactly what side do you think I am on? I am all for objective test and I have no horse in thinking that DACs should be different. What I am saying is that their test has a major flaw and they are making a really bold claim to say that there is no difference with a HD800 plugged into a basic PC output or a headphone amp. They even say in their own article that the HD 800 requires serious amplification. A typical audio out for a PC is about 1V which isn't nearly enough for serious use on high impedance headphones.
Meanwhile I don't even understand your comment about the NAIM article I posted. Its actually an article in support of their EXTERNAL DAC, even though they say the internal DAC with CD player is a better design. Maybe you should have actually read the article first and seen how it might actually help the OP instead of high jacking this thread to discuss how all DACs are the same.
You're correct, I didn't read the article. Building an external DAC with performance that meets or exceeds the performance of an integral DAC is inconvenient, but barely that. To imagine that this is the best performance obtainable neglects the numerous all-SS devices, and the Wi-Fi and other transports now available. Times change.
As for what side you're on, you're on the nitpicking side. You want to discredit the test because you don't like the conclusion. You say you want to be objective, but I met guys in bars you would have thought were your best friend, until you noticed them trying to steal your lighter.
I realise that it's not an easy idea to live with, that most DACs are hard to distinguish, but it seems to be the conclusion of virtually the world population apart from audiophiles.
I'm talking about the plethora of DACs, mostly internal, in systems all through my house, and all through most people's houses.
Put the TVs at the centres of your systems. Feed them through an amplifier and external speakers. You can use an external DAC but it's just a complication. Feed everything thru the TV. Have a spare micro HDMI to feed in a tablet or phone, or make an analog input available. Control everything with the remotes. Put your music on a NAS. Install Wi-Fi and broadband with UPnP. Get a 3G phone and a car radio with Bluetooth.
As for what side you're on, you're on the nitpicking side. You want to discredit the test because you don't like the conclusion. You say you want to be objective, but I met guys in bars you would have thought were your best friend, until you noticed them trying to steal your lighter.
I realise that it's not an easy idea to live with, that most DACs are hard to distinguish, but it seems to be the conclusion of virtually the world population apart from audiophiles.
I'm talking about the plethora of DACs, mostly internal, in systems all through my house, and all through most people's houses.
Put the TVs at the centres of your systems. Feed them through an amplifier and external speakers. You can use an external DAC but it's just a complication. Feed everything thru the TV. Have a spare micro HDMI to feed in a tablet or phone, or make an analog input available. Control everything with the remotes. Put your music on a NAS. Install Wi-Fi and broadband with UPnP. Get a 3G phone and a car radio with Bluetooth.
Most DACs sound pretty poor so I'd agree with this. Can't think why a random audiophile would disagree either since the kind of DACs audiophiles like are very much a minority interest.
Yes, but your thesis is that you can hear things most people can't, so why would most people care?
Eh? People hear what they want to hear - if I had a thesis it'd be that they choose not to hear, not that they're unable to. As for whether most people care, what's the relevance please?
What? I should make sure my installations are up to scratch in case you come round to visit? As long as most people can't tell the difference, that'll be good enough for me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all DACs sound the same, I'm just saying that anybody who finds the DAC in my equipment interfering with their enjoyment of the music is just being precious. Which as we all know is virtually socially intolerable, even in our own offspring.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all DACs sound the same, I'm just saying that anybody who finds the DAC in my equipment interfering with their enjoyment of the music is just being precious. Which as we all know is virtually socially intolerable, even in our own offspring.
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