Are there any excellent inexpensive Chinese DACs?

measure the combined phase noise of a dac and clock system
This is unclear agin.... PN of a clock is OK but what is PN of a DAC? The box or the chip?

What was discussed was measurement of a consumer product DAC. We don't measure PN out from a consumer DAC product. We should not mix black box measurements with internal, realisation component measirehnts - its becomes very confusing for most I would think.

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...PN of a clock is OK but what is PN of a DAC?
There is a recent publication showing how to measure the phase noise contribution of a dac chip, or at least a dac chip on a test board. However, the method uses synthesized clock signals to find a null in readings. Thus the clock that would be used in a full dac design is not included in the dac chip phase noise measurement.

The reason there is PN of a dac is because a dac chip degrades phase noise of the incoming clock signal to some extent. Therefore the dac chip has a contributing PN factor as seen in the dac analog outputs. More PN will be found than can be attributed to the clock alone.
 
Why is there such a big difference in vinyl and digital audio? Could our collective memory forget how we traveled from analog music, to pho disks, to electronics tube music, to dac and transistor electronic music, to now computer generated music,...

We have also to consider that we are right now phasing out vinyl, tube amps, class ab amp s, and soon class A amps to be replaced by class D amps?

In 10 years a class ab transistor will be a museum curiosity...

Is it possible that we get more and more out of touch with reality and have not a single clue how a real violin sounds , just a reflection on audio
 
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Its just that nobody knows to to extract that information from FFT measurements taken of both channels at once (or if they do know how then they never share it here).
Perhaps something simple as:

Sum the outputs left and right of the DUT (DAC) galvanically (i.e. connect the positives together) and measure what is present in that summing node when the DAC is fed a stereo signal with identical sinus present in both channels but where one channel has been digitally phase reversed. The less energy coming out the better, meaning that the stereo output is time and phase coherent. Perhaps something also can be deducted by analysing the noise results of this setup (corr/non-correlated)...

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Ok, and the bass, the treble definition , and sound character... I found that using a vintage dac the difference is not that great anymore, not in a bad way, it has more of the imediacy, anticipation, solid foundation and easy listening character,

As the new digital has a more fake sound resonance, it is a poor imitation of the original sound ... i am only listening to my old digital setup because of that, it has the most pleasurable sound and most easy to distinguish and appreciate different music and recordings

It uses modern regulators lm337, modern opamps, and modern receivers, blue tooth, high bit rate spdif, it is way more complex to put together than the new all integrated complex microchips
 
Perhaps something simple as...
Probably not that easy. We need a measurement that can tell if cues correctly indicate a specific well defined position in cue space (including in the presence of complex music or music-like signals). Also we need to be able assess how much cue position is blured or ambiguated by correlated PN and or AN, and or by other factors.
 
Modifications to clocks or PSU make proper blind AB comparisons with near instantaneous switching practically impossible.
I don't need blind tests, I sit in front of my modest audio system all day at work, right in gold triangle. I know how it sounds very well and hear any changes in it. I don't force you to buy other excpensive oscillators, just saying that I hear the difference between normal cheap ones and total crap. And this is not a placebo effect, where I imagine that I bought something expensive and it must take effect. So I think that part of the sound assessment is not included in the standard measurements. Some dimension that we should find to measure in future.
 
...this is not a placebo effect, where I imagine that I bought something expensive and it must take effect.
Placebo effect is something else entirely. Maybe you are thinking of what some people call "expectation bias?" Which is to say, "you hear what you expect to hear." For one example to illustrate the concept, if someone expects no audible differences between dacs, then they will hear no differences between dacs even if there are real differences.
 
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If an ess9039 series does not sound good, there is a weak spot in the rest of your audio chain.Mostly it are the loudspeakers/headphones.

It is all in the complete chain. Frequency depend fase shift/time alignment of the audio signal has a lot of influence on the sound stage.

And do not forget the room.

Therefore SINAD says nothing if it sounds good on your equipment, but it tells if there is a good potential to sound good.

Only by listen on your set you can tell if you like it and nobody else can tell you.

There is no shortcut to perfect setup.
My 50years of experience tells me price says nothing if something is good for me My chain is almost complete DIY because commercial products can not deliver the sound I like for my budget(about €3000 on parts).
 
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I don't need blind tests, I sit in front of my modest audio system all day at work, right in gold triangle. I know how it sounds very well and hear any changes in it.
It seems that for so called audiophiles listening is a holistic experience in which they need to use all their senses and brain. Blind testing is crippling as it cuts out one important sense (vision) so vital information about what is being listened to is missing. This and the lack of expectation bias ruins the holistic listening experience. Blind listening test to audiophiles is similar to listening with ear plugs for non-audiophiles.
 
This and the lack of expectation bias ruins the holistic listening experience.
You are wrong. Once a friend brought me one quite expensive acoustic cable to try, after 3 minutes I disconnect it, because it sounds like **** (surprisingly, my friend said the same thing, despite he is old audiophile). That's why I'm not in this club. But any component matters (in whole system too).
 
So far there are no studies or controlled listening test that show audible differences between well measuring DACs. If the differences were so clear as you claim don't you think somebody would have already come forward. There is quite likely even money to be made at ASR.
 
I wasn't talking about a photograph of a painting.
Doesn't have to be a painting. Most digital cameras have never gotten the color of the rug in my house correct. Sometimes they show it as pink, sometimes as green. Also, sunsets from here do not capture low level contrast of the mountain range peaks 100mi away. Its like they don't exist if you believe the camera. This should not be news.

Similarly, there is a price to be paid when digitizing phono so it can be run through room correction and speaker crossover DSP. Its an overall lossy process.
 
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