Perhaps the easiest way to get a 'good excellent' Chinese dac for free with the car?
Some noise was removed.
There's a link above every forum and every thread stating the rules.
In short, be polite and stick to the topic.
Cars go to the Lounge.
It is not a promotion, it's an actual fact. The question is about a type of INEXPENSIVE DAC... and at that price point.
Unless of course, you want to pay 500 bucks for Chinese stuff when there's stuff made elsewhere that is more INEXPENSIVE.
SMSL was a brand that was discussed a while back....
See my suggestion for test earlier.
See my suggestion for test earlier.
OK so no suggestion any longer for measurable cues - good! Please let us not us hear more about that as it is just fairy tales.
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what is intriguing me is all those chifi seems more or less the same from a brand to another and with the same positionnent
They have the main dac chip brands & models and each in a same brand all at near price : 3 models at 200 euros and so on... Often same op amps op1611/12 everywhere. They don't make a choice, it's your's !
WHat make you choose between an AK4499EQ or ES9039Q2M or CS43131, CS43198, Rohm.... ? They cost all the same ! Should I focus on the color ? There is only 2 perfumes here not like the cars !
They have the main dac chip brands & models and each in a same brand all at near price : 3 models at 200 euros and so on... Often same op amps op1611/12 everywhere. They don't make a choice, it's your's !
WHat make you choose between an AK4499EQ or ES9039Q2M or CS43131, CS43198, Rohm.... ? They cost all the same ! Should I focus on the color ? There is only 2 perfumes here not like the cars !
It was like that when digital audio started. Just Philips TDA and Burr Brown PCM. Regardless of brand, regardless of price. Two tastes, nearly always datasheet output stages too.
Those ICs that are still popular now 😉
Those ICs that are still popular now 😉
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The SMSL RAW-MDA1 is probably not cheap enough. This is suitably cheap and definitely Chinese. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...ih6TlUK8&utparam-url=scene:search|query_from:
Hmm...Theta....
There were other options, but they were expensive.
I think a lot of the bottom -and mid range- designers just pull parts off the wall, so they tend to share the same design and sound. Perhaps the differences might be the analog output stage.
That is not to say that the top end players don't pull similar stunts. Many of them just add their "signature" and a gallon of snake oil...
Not really, there is quite a bit of evidence now that the $400 source/dac combo (re: WIMM ultra) is ok sounding but not excellent so …external devices considered
Tnt your test is excellent but it would need to be done with music signals, after matching volume so that the channels have same volume , but what would the result tell us about ? That there is unequal the in each channel? I doubt it would tell anything on jitter maybe if you use high frequency impulses...
Really acko. Many that manufacture DACs may have other thoughts as they produce excellent stuff that those audiophiles defintely should buy.
A few brands even follow the trend by not even having internal DACs anymore without any valid reasons but financial ones. When the 2 box model started it was not unusual either that the CD player perfomed better than the then high tech external DACs. I recall Denon DA-500 to be such a DAC. Many had worse jitter than the CD player they were connected to.
There are not many intelligent reasons to not equip a device with that same DAC chip and skip USB/SPDIF and cabling and 2 x PSUs picking up RF/EMI alltogether. Except maybe for computer audio. I think most misunderstandings come from that as that is a different spiel where stuff practically needs to be external for good performance. And maybe that multichannel stuff for movies, I don’t know.
A few brands even follow the trend by not even having internal DACs anymore without any valid reasons but financial ones. When the 2 box model started it was not unusual either that the CD player perfomed better than the then high tech external DACs. I recall Denon DA-500 to be such a DAC. Many had worse jitter than the CD player they were connected to.
There are not many intelligent reasons to not equip a device with that same DAC chip and skip USB/SPDIF and cabling and 2 x PSUs picking up RF/EMI alltogether. Except maybe for computer audio. I think most misunderstandings come from that as that is a different spiel where stuff practically needs to be external for good performance. And maybe that multichannel stuff for movies, I don’t know.
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Not really. It ignores measurement of things ASR doesn't test for, as quoted in #1,118, and which could have some impact on sound stage localization cue audibility or else inaudibility due to masking by correlated noise effects.
Anyway, designing a test without first understanding what needs to be measured in relation to human localization cue perception risks fooling oneself with a useless test. TNT should first show he knows what the cues are and what sorts of system imperfections could degrade cue reproduction. How much time jitter, how much correlated noise of each type, how much channel crosstalk asymmetry, etc.
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Yes, agree to a point in other cases but to me the WIMM ultra would have been a perfect one for this all-in-one inexpensive Chinese product and would have saved us heaps but why are people just using it as a bridge only?
It is WiiM AFAIK. It is a low budget device performing pretty well, possibly way too well for its price. Likely a good marketing move by a former cheap stuff brand wanting to overtake the streamer market. They seem to actually do!
Besides that many are already believers that external stuff should be added or that the more stuff they buy the happier they will be. Many owners also state to not need an external DAC as the Ultra is “good enough”. Your evidence is thin 🙂
Too bad it has ES9038Q2M, the chip that seems to be the LEGO brick of commodity audio. ES9038Q2M just is not what someone with ears wants. Now I am experimenting with ES9039Q2M I hear why. AK4497 also performs better.
Besides that many are already believers that external stuff should be added or that the more stuff they buy the happier they will be. Many owners also state to not need an external DAC as the Ultra is “good enough”. Your evidence is thin 🙂
Too bad it has ES9038Q2M, the chip that seems to be the LEGO brick of commodity audio. ES9038Q2M just is not what someone with ears wants. Now I am experimenting with ES9039Q2M I hear why. AK4497 also performs better.
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buy, at 100 to 200, it is cheaper to buy but harder to choose, seems all the same but the chip pedigree (seels they all have the same performance but each brand making one model with each of them at the same price each time !
Seen 2 x ES9039Q2M at 100 euros (SMSL) with half of the chip with the reference erased though.
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