Maybe time to start a new forum called BIYAudio and discuss there what nice things to buy from China ?
Or suggest to Jason to open a new forum section called BIY ?
Speaking for myself only, I do DIY for fun.
I don't have any fun buying ready-made stuff and use them out of the box.
There is nothing in my entire audio chain that is not self made from components.
Only exception is my current turntable / tonearm.
A DIY one is planned as a retirement project. Needs too much time.
Have a nice Easter Holiday, 😊
Patrick
I agree, that is why i take the 100dB Sinad as reference. All above is good enough to be transparent, and even a sinad of 60dB is not that bad when the distortion is not disharmonic. (seen elsewhere in the document). But it's not transparent anymore and for me at least, a dac should be totally transparent.
Out of context as I of course spoke of the quite complex modern/recent DAC/Digital audio not 2 JFET designs with discrete obsolete TH parts. You may attack me but the thread is not mine and the subject is:"Are there any excellent inexpensive Chinese DACs?". To which I said:"Are there any excellent inexpensive DIY DACs?".
The fact that there are 0 (zero) of such projects for DIY while having the creme de la creme of DAC designers on board here says something. I spoke in detail of the why and how of the BIY part you like to ridicule. DIY does not make one a better person or something like that either. I made my choices and just use my stuff and I don't promote to buy more cheap garbage as I think the world and our economy don't improve by doing so. However I can not close my eyes and think reality is not what it is.
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That already exist, called ASR. But we stil can discuss the commercial designs as example I think, but on technical merits,
And if you build for yourself, it's your standards that count, not those of the industry. That's the fun part of DIY. It won't be cheaper, but it will be more tuned to what you want. For me that is mainly important in speakers and maybe amps, not a dac. So i buy one. But i'm still reading this kind of treads also as i'm curious to the tech behind it.
I'm not so sure there are many people here who would prefer that over a modular approach. I originally wanted to use just one single board for my valve DAC (yes, I know that E88CCs are not the most modern technology 😉 ), but settled for a separate filter board because it was much cheaper. Most of the forum members who built it changed the power supply and the filter to whatever their personal preference was.
There are also no multi PCB DIY DAC projects with recent technology, Marcel. Not as in other sections. I am quite sure people are interested in such as I sent out many hundreds of packages world wide 🙂 So I am confident such a project would be more popular instead of the same quarelling over and over, highly theoretical and scientific blah blah only interesting to a small incrowd and no substance to the readers that want to build something useful compact/complete at affordable costs. Also not reading 606 posts about Chinese DACs and why it is bad to buy those while there is no real alternative. To average Joe the JFETman the only choice when wanting a good digital device below 250 Euro is to buy Chinese stuff to connect to his DIY class A amplifier. There are simply no AK4497SEQ or ES9039Q2M based XenDACs (example as Patrick is very fond of DIY) to build.
BTW I had your files copied to the SSD of my audio player for the test I promised to do but only yesterday they suddenly appeared in the menu.
BTW I had your files copied to the SSD of my audio player for the test I promised to do but only yesterday they suddenly appeared in the menu.
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I'm not sure it is worth the effort. Not when I can pick up a FIIO for £150 and send it back if I don't like it.
It just struck me that this 'can you hear the difference between a $100 DAC and a $500 DAC?' question is getting really similar to the question 'Is there an audible difference between types of capacitors?'.
- The $1000 DAC may measure worse than the $100 DAC, but some people may say it sounds better, more musical, etc.
- A metallized polypropylene capacitor may measure every bit as well as a polystyrene film and foil cap of the same value/voltage rating, but some people may say the polystyrene cap sounds better, more musical, etc. in a particular circuit.
Nobody has been able to prove objectively that there is any reason one cap or the other should 'sound better'.
I guess it's also that way with inexpensive DACs (and even expensive ones).
My take is that I've heard outboard DACs going all the way back to a Wadia from about 1990. That cost like $1500 or something at the time. The meager, cheap Topping DAC I have now sounds so much better than that Wadia, it's almost laughable.
Why spend thousands of dollars (or euros) on a state of the art DAC now when in 5 years something will come down the pike that's both much cheaper and sounds better?
There are 'exotic' designs like R2R and NOS DACs that you typically can't buy for cheap, so it would certainly be educational to be able to build something like that DIY so you can hear what all the fuss is about. (Or not hear it, as the case may be.) I've heard a lot about these R2R DACs being more musical, better imaging, etc. I'd like to hear one in my system.
Can anyone recommend an easy to build DIY kit of an R2R DAC that comes with a compatible USB interface and is generally thought to sound good -- or at least representative of R2R DACs in general?
- The $1000 DAC may measure worse than the $100 DAC, but some people may say it sounds better, more musical, etc.
- A metallized polypropylene capacitor may measure every bit as well as a polystyrene film and foil cap of the same value/voltage rating, but some people may say the polystyrene cap sounds better, more musical, etc. in a particular circuit.
Nobody has been able to prove objectively that there is any reason one cap or the other should 'sound better'.
I guess it's also that way with inexpensive DACs (and even expensive ones).
My take is that I've heard outboard DACs going all the way back to a Wadia from about 1990. That cost like $1500 or something at the time. The meager, cheap Topping DAC I have now sounds so much better than that Wadia, it's almost laughable.
Why spend thousands of dollars (or euros) on a state of the art DAC now when in 5 years something will come down the pike that's both much cheaper and sounds better?
There are 'exotic' designs like R2R and NOS DACs that you typically can't buy for cheap, so it would certainly be educational to be able to build something like that DIY so you can hear what all the fuss is about. (Or not hear it, as the case may be.) I've heard a lot about these R2R DACs being more musical, better imaging, etc. I'd like to hear one in my system.
Can anyone recommend an easy to build DIY kit of an R2R DAC that comes with a compatible USB interface and is generally thought to sound good -- or at least representative of R2R DACs in general?
You could send your first self designed diyaudio.com DIY DAC project back to yourself and demand better results.
Preferably before publishing it.
A FIIO K11 R2R is about £150, less from Ali Express, and you can knock out a NOS dac in less than a hour and for less than the cost of a pair of WBT connectors.
My days of knocking out TDA1543 stuff are long gone if, that is, they ever existed to any extent at all. And I have no intention of building an AK or ESS based DAC when I can just as easily buy one. And the stuff I do have an interest in building is the stuff you have just been critical of.
That's a combination DAC and headphone amplifier. Makes me wonder what compromises were made in designing and producing the DAC if it also has a 1.4W per channel power amplifier built in.
Great! Complete with USB to I2S interface? Can you post a link to what you're thinking of? All I've been able to find are bare I2S R2R DAC boards for $150 to $250 USD or thereabouts, to which I'd have to add some kind of USB interface, or figure out how to get a Raspberry Pi to recognize it.
Still the least expensive Multibit DAC with NOS option I've been able to find (not the same as R2R, I know) is the Schiit Modi Multibit for $299 USD.
Thanks.
EDIT TO ADD
- I did find this... looks pretty ambitious - PhiDAC - https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/phidac-hex-kits-with-pre-built-filters.354799/
- One person used a C-Media USB interface successfully with that PhiDAC kit - https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...pre-built-filters.354799/page-22#post-7060492
- Soekris DAM 1021 looks to be a good bet for $250 for the DAC board, but a USB interface will need to be added. - https://soekris.modhouseaudio.com/soekris-diy-products/vzy6u8cfpx3aathgbk8kyf1hu3f8l0
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Yup. And it completely ignores even trying to understand about measuring some of what goes on inside of dacs, and inside of class-D amplifiers (for that matter). It assumes everything that is audible will neatly and unambiguously show up using standard measurements. Their premise would come a lot closer to being true if they would limit their claims to what can be referred to as "weakly-nonlinear" audio devices; like for instance only fully analog amplifiers operating in an environment free of EMI/RFI.
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AIYIMA DAC-A1 £35
SA9123L+ES9018Q2M+NJW1194+MAX97220+NE5532
Bluetooth QCC3034: versión 5.0, compatible con AAC, SBC, APTX, APTX-LL y APTX-HD
fibra/coaxial/PC-USB: 24 bits/192 kHz
RCA: Snr: 103 db, THD + N: 0,0032%
£35 seems ample for a TVs likely rough output, and it's 5v, via usb which a TV could provide. The BT chip holds a DSP, if you like that sort of thing.
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005005041182905.html
I'm not sure how I got on the Spanish site, but if you squint a bit, you might not be able to tell.
It's not 120db, but perhaps price (and job) appropriate?
SA9123L+ES9018Q2M+NJW1194+MAX97220+NE5532
Bluetooth QCC3034: versión 5.0, compatible con AAC, SBC, APTX, APTX-LL y APTX-HD
fibra/coaxial/PC-USB: 24 bits/192 kHz
RCA: Snr: 103 db, THD + N: 0,0032%
£35 seems ample for a TVs likely rough output, and it's 5v, via usb which a TV could provide. The BT chip holds a DSP, if you like that sort of thing.
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005005041182905.html
I'm not sure how I got on the Spanish site, but if you squint a bit, you might not be able to tell.
It's not 120db, but perhaps price (and job) appropriate?
Did you read the document? It does not make any claims about everything audible showing up using standard measurements. It covers the technical significance and audibility of SINAD as the title states. Why should such a document speculate about what else is going on inside DACs?
I'm not saying you are wrong. But, I have seen no scientific evidence that supports the contention that the test suite used by ASR is insufficient to reflect the true performance of various audio devices, such as double blind testing. I don't claim to have investigated this deeply, but nearly every time I see results from a blind test, people don't hear differences they think they hear when the testing is sighted. Our brains sometimes play tricks on us when it comes to how it processes information it receives, especially when we have a priori expectation.
I'll share an experience I had sometime last year. I was involved in a forum discussion pertaining to soundstage and imaging. There are a lot of different opinions and it was getting pretty contentious. I grew weary of the conversation and sat down to listen to music. I started listening, and the soundstage and imaging of my system was off; it did not sound right. I checked my cables and my settings, and everything was correct. I was befuddled.
I then put on "Chocolate Chip Trip" by Toole, closed my eyes, and focussed on the panning of the drums. By the end of that track my imaging and soundstage were back. I put on the first track I played when I first sat down, and the magic was back. I had a large sound stage and sharp imaging again.
My hypothesis is that being involved in the deep discussion pertaining to soundstage and imaging set up some sort of bias in my mind, which threw everthing off. I had to get past that and let my brain adjust, and then everything was fine again.
Here is another analogy from personal experience. Around 40 years ago I had a Carver M1.0T amplifier. It was solid state, but designed to sound like a tube amplifier; I suspect it was designed to match the harmonic distortion profile of the tube amplifier. I liked it.
At some point I needed my transmission repaired, but did not have the money to do so. I traded the amplifier and a pair of speakers for the work. A couple of years later I bought a new amplifier, this time an Adcom GFA-585. Initially, it sounded dry to me. It lacked the sweetness of the Carver. As time went on, it sounded better.
Some time later I visited a friend who had a Carver M1.0T amplifier. We listened to his system. This time, the Carver sounded too sweet to me, and I did not like it as well as I had remembered. I suspect that my brain had become biased toward the lower harmonic distortion profile of the Adcom, and that became my preference.
At some point I needed my transmission repaired, but did not have the money to do so. I traded the amplifier and a pair of speakers for the work. A couple of years later I bought a new amplifier, this time an Adcom GFA-585. Initially, it sounded dry to me. It lacked the sweetness of the Carver. As time went on, it sounded better.
Some time later I visited a friend who had a Carver M1.0T amplifier. We listened to his system. This time, the Carver sounded too sweet to me, and I did not like it as well as I had remembered. I suspect that my brain had become biased toward the lower harmonic distortion profile of the Adcom, and that became my preference.
I wasn't thinking of USB but a JLSounds I2SoverUSB board will connect to any dac ic with varying degrees of ease. For a basic NOS dac you don't need more than a PCM2706.
"Sweetness" is some vague, undefined term which you are using in reference to your listening preference at some point in time.
Listening for preference is different than listening for discrimination. An example that might help to clarify: ABX testing can only be used for discrimination testing, not for preference testing.
Beyond basics like that, there is a lot that could be said about how to do reasonably reliable listening tests. However, it is much more than can fit into one post in an internet forum.
If you would like to discuss your listening experiences and or blind testing experiences in more detail, the signal to noise ratio might be a lot better via PM.
At some point in time, perhaps decades ago, it was a term I sometimes heard to describe certain tube amplifiers. It is a sound that I equate to audible levels of harmonic distortion, predominantly 2nd order if I were to guess.
I agree.
I think it could be used for both. See, e.g., Floyd E. Toole, Sound Reproduction, ch. 3 (3rd ed. 2018)
A/B could be used for both. ABX is asks you to choose the correct answer of X is A and Y is B, or else X is B and Y is A. Its really asking if you can reliably identify differences, say, between two devices.
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