The premise is they will be better than the ChiFis to justify the costs involved. As you can from reviews there are limitations in sound from some well measuring products. So if people are going to gamble on cheap stuff to start with they loose also as they upgrade to newer versions
Exactly.
For the same reason I don't think we'll ever be able to identify the component in the electrical signal that will tell us how a device sounds, nor how to extract it from the electrical signal in order to study it, nor how to delve deeper into the subject.
But since I am one of that group I can testify that trying out various DACs without all the so-called scientific blah blah is simply relaxation and fun. What was previously gained in DIY, nights of trouble solving and knowledge (pre Internet!) is now finding the differences and just using them for a while. A bit like their intended use is. One does not need to know all the technical innards of a car to be an excellent driver. One does not need lab experience and a degree to say a DAC sounds &^%#(* or almost perfect. Heck, one does not even need a low or high IQ to judge sound. Eloquent or mute, it just does not matter.
It have become disposable throw away devices, no more no less. A cheap tool for a time limited purpose. It would be very unfortunate to invest 300 Euro in a DIY device that sounds and measures less OK. That is why the real DAC nerds persevere and the general DIYer chooses efficiency. In 2 years time there may be an AKM AK4500 chip and an ES9040Q2M so why bother?
Just suppose you have invested time and money in a DIY ES9038Q2M device 🙂
It have become disposable throw away devices, no more no less. A cheap tool for a time limited purpose. It would be very unfortunate to invest 300 Euro in a DIY device that sounds and measures less OK. That is why the real DAC nerds persevere and the general DIYer chooses efficiency. In 2 years time there may be an AKM AK4500 chip and an ES9040Q2M so why bother?
Just suppose you have invested time and money in a DIY ES9038Q2M device 🙂
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I would say that science should be exact. 😉
It is called State of the Art.
You took the words right out of my keyboard, I was about to write the exact same thing.
Given that the path of mankind is characterized by ignorance and by the attempt to escape from that ignorance by adopting the scientific method, it is clear that new knowledge is discovered thanks to research and in parallel and proportionally to the amount of investments that are poured into research.
And in fact from Prehistory onwards it seems that we have discovered "something".
My question here is: have we discovered everything there is to discover?
And what about the whole properties of the electrical signal of an audio device?
The answer is at least as obvious as the premise: no, we still have a lot to discover.
So why is it that some people are arrogant about the "little" they know?
Shouldn't they instead be humble in the face of the certainty that compared to what there is still to discover in any field, we still know little?
I guess there will be no one who will invest enough to find out more about every physical properties of an electrical signal related to how sounds an audio device.
and handsome returns over the years that allowed me upgrade the rest of my sound system, speakers and Amps especially ☺️
There sure will be someone that can explain why ES9038Q2M is behaving like that with the usual terms but who cares as it can not be changed anyway? When the designs of DACs with it were done it apparently was not noticed or simply ignored by the designers that know stuff. One can just be glad to have skipped it. Saves a lot of time, money and effort combined. And talk, much talk....
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For any properly designed equipment, power cords will have no influence on sound under any conditions.
However, there are simple but not so obvious reasons why on many DIY or commercial devices, power cords can introduce changes in sound. I’ve done my share of fighting “exotic cords” promoters and explaining why there could be some effect. In example:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/power-conditioners-and-cords.391921/post-7195293
Real Scientist jneutron was preaching for years the same to deaf ears here, with no effect at all.
Power cord ground (power or safety earth) wires connected through common power bar connect chassis of all audio components and form a parallel ground connection to interconnect cables. By safety regulations, supply ground must be connected to chassis/power earth. So, interconnection ground will be partially shared through power earth wires, close to unshielded mains. Signal distribution is of course determined by Ohm law and impedance ratio at audio frequencies of interconnection cable ground and power earth wires. Ground loop breaker resistors helps here a lot. Take multimeter and check resistance between power earth pin and DAC signal output ground. You'll likely find short circuit. If next audio component in chain has some ground loop resistance there, it will be fine. Otherwise, yo may find (or not) that power cords affect sound.
I wonder if there is some resistance between chassis and signal ground in Audio Precision?
moved on to 9039 so let’s look forward 🙂 Getting back to topic, the point of my earlier post of a review of two well measuring DAC: they sound different and cheaper one obviously limiting more. Mark4 wanted to test the cheaper SMSL one and compare it with Benchmark DAC3 but I would advise not to waste time and money on this. Then why didn’t the measurement pick up on these issues?
That Benchmark DAC3 costs 2400 US $. That alone ends all discussion for most normal audio enthusiasts (guesstimation 80% of members?). Nice to know to incrowd with deep pockets. Normal reasoning would be that it MUST sound and measure better than any chinese DAC up to 2000$.
Bummer: it probably won't.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...view-and-measurements-of-benchmark-dac3.3545/
Bummer: it probably won't.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...view-and-measurements-of-benchmark-dac3.3545/
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Proper question is who would read reviews where all equipment sounds the same.
Reviewers are accomplished imaginative & creative prose/poetry writers.
The OP has not included price concerns for this survey so I guess we carry on with the just comparing DACs that measure well vs sound…
In most other fields that would be met with skepticism. Within boundaries it is ok but what if stuff is compared to stuff that is 10x more expensive?
As a Benchmark customer I would feel cheated when ChiFi does indeed measure and sound equal (or better) 🙂
As a Benchmark customer I would feel cheated when ChiFi does indeed measure and sound equal (or better) 🙂
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There is no fight (people should be free to do what they want within the law and when they do not harm others) except the internal one in each of us, for the most varied reasons. 🙂
I recently learned that airline pilots sometimes suffer from an effect called "tunnel vision", which in a nutshell means that they unconsciously focus on a single aspect of the flight that can be the wrong altitude and then all other instruments or readings disappear.
Needless to say, this is one of the reason why planes crash.
I don't know why you linked to that thread, but frankly it doesn't seem to have had much success.
However, thank you the same since I've learned something more by partecipants.
When I hear people speak in absolute terms just because they learned to use a measuring instrument it makes me smile at how in my view presumptuous that attitude (the attitude, not the person) is.
Moreover, such an attitude is hostile to scientific progress, in my opinion.
How can you discover something new if you have already decided a priori what it is and what it should be in absolute terms?
How can you say that the cables do not affect the signal and therefore the sound if it is just through the cables that signal passes?
In my view, it is unlikely, from any point of view.
It is like saying that the water that passes through the pipes is always the same water regardless of the shape, design and material with which the pipes were made and arranged, but it is not true.
It simply cannot be true.
As absurd as it may seem, today we always discover something new, either by chance or by spending money on research.
So please don't answer me about the shape and design of the tubes, because I put them there on purpose.
And then it turns out that plastic bottles release microplastics that are harmful to health, or that the ancient Romans, who were at the forefront of technology in every discipline, used lead pipes for drinking water (lead as everyone should know today is toxic to human health).
It's called State of the Art, and there is little to be arrogant - in my view - about in the face of ignorance of the status quo ante. 😉
This is not exactly correct. Practically everything can be measured from the electrical signal to a precision much higher than what human ear is capable. What currently cannot be measured is how somebody's ear/brain perceives the sound and how much other factors (e.g. confirmation bias) are impacting that perception. So the "component" that impacts how the device sounds may not come from the device at all.
Fair enough. I'm not into DIY audio to save money or to get a better performance than commercial equipment, but rather for the intellectual challenge. One moment I'm solving a system of seven equations to set the coefficients of a seventh order polynomial to the right values, some time later (OK, a year or two later) I can listen to Bach, Vivaldi or Culture through the result.
You can neither rule it out nor prove it, just like in the best tradition of progress through the scientific method before arriving at any conclusion whatsoever.
To the point of realizing how ignorant one was before discovering a new way of "measuring" things and what new thing to measure.
I think you use the term "everything" too casually and repeatedly for my scientific tastes.
Yet, it seems like you are going around in circles saying the same thing over and over again with no intellectual result.
In my modest view I see as you are defending something that does not need to be defended, not by you or anyone else.
But especially not by you.
Of course, I can't know if there is a different real reason. 😉
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