The Pietus Maximus is both headphone amp and multibit DAC ( optional ).
The reason I bought it is because of its analog circuitry... that's one very well laid out board with good parts. At this point of the chain, you are generating analog signals and you start getting into diminishing returns for better sound.
I guess you and I are looking at different price points... except I got the Topping E90LE used by looking through hifishark..... I paid 400 bucks including shipping in a private party sale. The Nistch I paid full MSRP and I was wait listed.
Over the single ended outputs I find the Nitsch "sweeter" sounding than the Topping. I have not tried the balanced outputs yet.
The reason I bought it is because of its analog circuitry... that's one very well laid out board with good parts. At this point of the chain, you are generating analog signals and you start getting into diminishing returns for better sound.
I guess you and I are looking at different price points... except I got the Topping E90LE used by looking through hifishark..... I paid 400 bucks including shipping in a private party sale. The Nistch I paid full MSRP and I was wait listed.
Over the single ended outputs I find the Nitsch "sweeter" sounding than the Topping. I have not tried the balanced outputs yet.
Thresholds or hard limits? There are no generally accepted hard limits. Even "absolute limits of hearing" are estimates of the center of a bell curve, not the tails.
And it may be that tails cannot be more or less extrapolated from main lobe statistics, as not all biologically-related bell curves are statistically Normal ones.
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I own eversolo a8. Supremely pleased. Definitely an upgrade from rme adi 2 for me both in trends OS features and ease of use and in tens of sound quality
About $2000. I wouldn't call that an "inexpensive Chinese DAC". It's a streamer, right?
I commented based on the title of this thread, limited to inexpensive and DAC.
For me, I think an inexpensive DAC would be one that costs no more than about $200 USD. There sure are a lot of them out there.
I let you find yourself why this self editor hysteric preacher who has no idea of IE is wrong, just in the layout of his test. Those same guys say UFO have invaded us and sing at the church every sunday because they believed the video by such same type of guy explaining them the verity said here will save their soul ! Conspiracy of gvt, dacs vendors, etc. Hey that guy could really be president !
Typical soup for poors...
Anyway the decision is easy for you, if a DAC is a CISCO data repeater which is transparent, buy the less expensive one. If more really, it has modulated voltage at the output that are no binaries, it is not transparent. If your ears don't see the difference between two device, buy also the less expensive.
If you believe it is just about the THD level with a frontier level between the accurate and inacurate, simple : buy the less expensive above that level.All are less than few bucks.
Mostly read ESR, you are the good candidate to that church that fools you. But that is not science, it is mysthicism with an economic model behind ! If it is free, you are the product (that will buy any washing powder advised there). Simple too. Illumination became a mass market product one eats through the screen. It's magic, oh, and so cheap ! 🙂
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So what in your opinion was wrong in the layout of that test?
Here is the pdf of that study.
Well the original reply I made was about thresholds and that's what the links are discussing so, thresholds. I shared the relevant info, but don't have much interest in this chase for mythical outliers as I do not believe human hearing has changed much in a very long time.
What are you talking about? All normal distributions have expected values that are commonly referred to as "outliers." There is nothing mythical about them or about the outlier term.
By your reasoning, it would seem any decent theoretical physicist must be "mythical" because of an outlier IQ? (i.e. more than, say, 3 standard deviations from average; thus anyone with IQ over 130 is mythical?)
Just in case it still isn't clear, the "threshold" value for IQ would be 100 (i.e. it is an average value). Again, auditory thresholds are estimates of an average value for a population.
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Good luck with whatever you're trying to figure out. Yet another DIY audio thread turned to mush with multiple discussions and a feeling that I'm being sucked into someones misguided quest for, something. Granted this thread was doomed from the start because it's just the same stuff over and over again.
the loopbacks and next stages of the experiment to permit them are the limiting factors between two dacs that are before. That is not the DACS that are tested but the whole with a limitting factor and loss created by the additional stages of the experiments if the loopbacks are material or in the analog domain. IMHO.
You who is making DACS, you should know as your are able to hear the difference between two op amps. thoses guys of such video that are mixer stay blocked and constrained by the op5534 all their life... Which is not the layout we talk here as final listeners. We still are in yhe myth of the no loss because reading only the word "digital" in what a DAC is with a "A" and a "C" in between. Not saying to not complicate it that the digital part is not so "digital" but stay electric on the same good analog ref ground, which you perfectly know better than I.
Please see posts #58, #68,#72 of Abrax thread:
An ordinary Joe with basic equipment has done those
(although Abrax doesn't use sigma-delta DAC chips, nor ICs past the DAC, he is very cautious with U/S noise generated during D/A process)
George
I'm trying to figure out how to explain the science to you. Maybe you don't want to understand statistics, auditory thresholds, etc.? If not, its entirely up to you.
In any case there is no reason to jump to conclusions and claim statistical outliers are mythical. It doesn't help anything here in the forum. If people who don't know any better now go away thinking outliers are mythical based on what you wrote, you haven't done them any favors.
And in case you go away mad, attached is some more to chew on (regarding the loss of societal acceptance of science).
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The use of ad hominem in your argument makes your argument fallacious. When someone relies on ad hominem, it is because the argument they are presenting is weak.
In science a hypothesis is presented, a theory is developed, and then experiments are performed to confirm whether the theory is correct.
What I have seen in this thread are hypotheses and theories as to why ASR's data is not adequate, but I have not seen any valid experimental data presented herein proving that is the case. Perhaps it exists. If so, please present it or provide links to it.
Oh, why? I already got it. You're just on a completely different page than anyone else. I already said I'm not interested so I guess I'll move to ignore. I got **** to do today, which includes working on a speaker, not get lost in some persons mind.
Ok based off your very recent post below mine, yeah I made the right call. Absolutely not interested in having my time wasted by such nonsense. Just another "ASR's wrong but I can't provide any real argument as to why". So bored of that stuff.
Their data is not adequate to their claims of proven "audible transparency," as it is only Amir's pet theory on that. There is no published science I have seen supporting the theory.
Then it is not proven nor disproven. But, it is the most thorough data I have seen. If someone provides better measurement data, please provide a link.
Many problems arise in the listening sessions because the equipment was not powered for a long enough time
In my Ss amp the bias stabilized after 3 days and it is the same for the whole audio, after a few days left on it sounds way natural
In my Ss amp the bias stabilized after 3 days and it is the same for the whole audio, after a few days left on it sounds way natural
The method of testing is based on standards like the CEA-2034-A (for speakers) and the IEC60268, CEA-2006 and CEA-490A standards for electronics. Those are general accepted by the industry and based on science. You can download those (if you buy the documents from the organisation behind it). And you can try to challenge those if you think they are wrong, but only with scientific proof.
Yes. Except technically/philosophically we only have proof in math, not in science. In science its more like we can have "experimental evidence."
Anyway, in the case of ASR it is Amir who sometimes makes a claim of "audible transparency" for a device he measures. Other people listen to the same devices and say the devices don't sound the same. Usually that type of listening comparison isn't done blind but sometimes it is. IME blind testing makes it definitely harder, yet sometimes audible differences do exist. It can help a lot to have some listening training and to follow standard methodology one establishes for conducting one's listening tests.
I would agree that some devices should be fully stabilized for a few days of continuous power-on before any serious testing or listening comparisons.
Occasionally we do listening tests here on equipment sent by various manufacturers for that purpose. I always let devices run continuously for a week or so with the volume turned all the way down before any judging takes place. Sound stage dimensions and localization precision are areas where differences are often found. Why those things? Seems likely differences exist there just because its something not easily shown by standard measurements. OTOH the stuff that gets measured more often tends to get fixed.
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Do you have links to scientifically conducted experimental evidence proving ASR's measurements are inadequate? If so, please share.
FYI, I have an open mind on this. I am willing to accept that there may be additional measurements that provide further insight into signal quality. But, I have not seen any compelling evidence that is the case.