Hi folks.
Long time I havn't really posted around here, since I am fiddling around with other DACs
and Linux.
I just caught up.
My 2 cents:
I don't think that the DAC itself plays such a big role, if you choose the upper league, if it is Sabre, AKM, TDA ..... who cares.
It is mainly the parts, the powersupply, I2S quality and the output stage, which set the scene.
I mean - John is designing real no compromise stuff. There is nobody else around I know who is coming up with something similar.
I bought a Buffalo and I also have a EMU 0404USB. They all come with quite some shortcomings (upsampling, average powersupply, OpAmps, parts.....)
Don't believe fairytales that an 0404 USB is immune against incoming jitter due to async USB. It is not!
I believe if John would put up his peripherals and would make a modular DAC-only PCB
the difference between the actual DACs would be almost irrelevant.
What bothers me most is the limited no-compromise-support of different frequencies of almost any DAC design I know and of course the limited bit-depth of a TDA15x device .
The only DAC I know, who comes with separate crystals per frequency is the Altmann DAC.
(John we discussed this).
Cheers
Long time I havn't really posted around here, since I am fiddling around with other DACs
and Linux.
I just caught up.
My 2 cents:
I don't think that the DAC itself plays such a big role, if you choose the upper league, if it is Sabre, AKM, TDA ..... who cares.
It is mainly the parts, the powersupply, I2S quality and the output stage, which set the scene.
I mean - John is designing real no compromise stuff. There is nobody else around I know who is coming up with something similar.
I bought a Buffalo and I also have a EMU 0404USB. They all come with quite some shortcomings (upsampling, average powersupply, OpAmps, parts.....)
Don't believe fairytales that an 0404 USB is immune against incoming jitter due to async USB. It is not!
I believe if John would put up his peripherals and would make a modular DAC-only PCB
the difference between the actual DACs would be almost irrelevant.
What bothers me most is the limited no-compromise-support of different frequencies of almost any DAC design I know and of course the limited bit-depth of a TDA15x device .
The only DAC I know, who comes with separate crystals per frequency is the Altmann DAC.
(John we discussed this).
Cheers
I must say every dac has its virtues and its typical sound.
Delta sigma is more detailed, but some cold
TDA1540 can be very good! Not very neutral, nor for all music.
TDA1541 is some more neutral but needs careful attention, reclocking dem clock and proper IV. Still only 16 bit indeed, can sound some "thick". It shows the recording tricks slightly better then other dacs. (q-sound and phase tricks)
PCM56 is more clean and transparent, in special for female voices.
Unmodded Yamaha upsampling loses here frome my modded 304 with 1541
SACD is very nice but i have only one disc
Delta sigma is more detailed, but some cold
TDA1540 can be very good! Not very neutral, nor for all music.
TDA1541 is some more neutral but needs careful attention, reclocking dem clock and proper IV. Still only 16 bit indeed, can sound some "thick". It shows the recording tricks slightly better then other dacs. (q-sound and phase tricks)
PCM56 is more clean and transparent, in special for female voices.
Unmodded Yamaha upsampling loses here frome my modded 304 with 1541
SACD is very nice but i have only one disc
Bernhard said:
Cauhtemoc said:
The APL NWO-3.0GO is the dac to beat at the moment. This dac
uses 6X AK4396 in parallel.People that have compared it with
Wadias, Emm Labs or other SOTA players or dacs, say that those
are no match for the 3.0GO.
And this might be a shock to some: many prefer the sound of the
3.0GO to vinyl.
Now you guys should call Alex and tell him he used inferior chips.
Or maybe you could give him some tips what he could do better.
The statements that keep people from advancing are usually:
I tried this before and.....
It is generally known that......
Who are you to tell me.......
Soandso has proved......
I made up my mind.....
Greets,
Klaus
Radian said:
Hi Klaus,
this is not competition.
It is not important only DAC, it is also ALL around DAC chip.
Less sound we hear, more music came out.
We have different tastes.
Not only loyality.
I tested Johns talkings with real things. He is honest and he never said that he made best DAC on the world, best speakers (pardon sonic resonators).
I am VERY pleased with all components what he made.
Best regards,
Bostjan
Hi Cauhtemoc,
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/aplhifi/4_open2_big.jpg
Quote from 6 moons review:
"The NWO 3.0 handles digital conversion via twenty DSD/DVD-A compliant AKM AK4397 32-bit converters per channel (10 physical stereo DACs, each containing two differential DACs for a total of 20 per side). This massively paralleled array lowers the noise floor and output impedance, then runs at a proprietary 211kHz/32-bit upsampling scheme".
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/aplhifi/4_open2_big.jpg
Quote from 6 moons review:
"The NWO 3.0 handles digital conversion via twenty DSD/DVD-A compliant AKM AK4397 32-bit converters per channel (10 physical stereo DACs, each containing two differential DACs for a total of 20 per side). This massively paralleled array lowers the noise floor and output impedance, then runs at a proprietary 211kHz/32-bit upsampling scheme".
Bernhard said:
You must be the one and only enlightened grand master of high end.
On the contrary, I know so little about electronics that I have to
build things myself to evaluate them instead of having intelligent
discussions about why something can or cannot sound good.
Bernhard, this is a DIY forum and if a person like you who has
massive amount of knowledge and the equipment to post
measurements about dacs, makes a negative statement about a
component, than people might refrain from perusing it further.
That is why I just had to put your statement into the right
perspective and asking why Alex Peychev is able to build one of the
best Dacs in the world with a chip that you and some others
consider not worth perusing. I think this is a relevant point and it
backs what I hear from my simple modded PCI soundcard and even
more so from my EMU. I can compare my digital souces against my
fairly good TT and if I am enthused about the AKM it is because of
sonic results and not because of technical assumptions . If
someone tells me that he tried the chip in a descent configuration
and he does not like it, I can respect that, but if someone merely
argues by previously accumulated knowledge, I think it can not be
taken as a reference point.
By the way, the argument of personal taste, when it comes to dacs
is valid, but missing details are not a matter of taste and they can
not be retrieved by even the most sophisticated output stage.
Enough said, I can start a new thread to explore the possibilities
of the AK4396 or even the new 4397, but I am afraid that
knowledge and measuring equipment will dictate us what we ought
to hear.
Greets,
Klaus
Just for a last word, a quote from Alex:
This was two generations back (AK4396) from the APL 3.0Go (AK4397):
"When people usually refer to non-digital sound, they mean
something that is free of the usual digital signature of most of
today's digital setups available, including some really expensive
units. It is questionable what people exactly mean simply because
of lack of a reference, in most cases.
New technologies or higher sample rates have nothing to do with
"analog" sounding digital. Fresh example that comes to mind is the
$45K Zanden CD only digital combo. It is built with 20 years old
Philips DACs (TDA1541) and is non-oversampling, it has tube output
too. Although it sounds a bit slow and more "romantic" than I can
tolerate, it is considered by many to be SOTA CD playback
anywhere at any price. This same Zanden is the most favorite
source of Srajan at 6moons and this gentleman Srajan talks about
here:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/westernelectric/300b.html
This audio system is the most ambitious I've seen in my life to date.
Just the speaker pair is close to $400K. Despite the speakers and
3 dozens of custom and stock amplification, this gentleman also
owns most of the SOTA digital front ends available today. This
includes Zanden combo, full dCS stack, EMM Labs CDSD/DAC6e, APL
Esoteric NWO-2 and just about every other digital someone raved
about online which includes Goldmund, Audio Aero, Lector,
Lindeman, Shanling, and more. Since this fine gentleman can buy
ANY digital he wants every day and he owns all of the above
mentioned digital in his audio storage room already (I was there
and I saw it), why you'd think the ONLY digital you can see on his
rack is the NWO-2 APL Hi-Fi player? I will leave the answer of this
question to you. Smile
To come back to the original question, the $45K Zanden is
non-oversampling "old" technology digital that sounds extremely
good and non-digital. At the same time, my NWO-2 is new
technology highest oversampling available digital which sounds as
good as or better than the $65K SME30 based vinyl setup this
gentleman also has (you can see it on the pictures) and also
considerably better than the Zanden. The moral of the story is that
all comes down to implementation. What makes digital to sound
non-digital is a very complex sum of many different factors which
are often overlooked by most digital audio design engineers. The
saddest thing is that most of the audiophiles are non-technical but
still believe in different marketing theories which often have
nothing to do with the end result.
Hope this helps!Regards, Alex Peychev"
Greets,
Klaus
This was two generations back (AK4396) from the APL 3.0Go (AK4397):
"When people usually refer to non-digital sound, they mean
something that is free of the usual digital signature of most of
today's digital setups available, including some really expensive
units. It is questionable what people exactly mean simply because
of lack of a reference, in most cases.
New technologies or higher sample rates have nothing to do with
"analog" sounding digital. Fresh example that comes to mind is the
$45K Zanden CD only digital combo. It is built with 20 years old
Philips DACs (TDA1541) and is non-oversampling, it has tube output
too. Although it sounds a bit slow and more "romantic" than I can
tolerate, it is considered by many to be SOTA CD playback
anywhere at any price. This same Zanden is the most favorite
source of Srajan at 6moons and this gentleman Srajan talks about
here:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/westernelectric/300b.html
This audio system is the most ambitious I've seen in my life to date.
Just the speaker pair is close to $400K. Despite the speakers and
3 dozens of custom and stock amplification, this gentleman also
owns most of the SOTA digital front ends available today. This
includes Zanden combo, full dCS stack, EMM Labs CDSD/DAC6e, APL
Esoteric NWO-2 and just about every other digital someone raved
about online which includes Goldmund, Audio Aero, Lector,
Lindeman, Shanling, and more. Since this fine gentleman can buy
ANY digital he wants every day and he owns all of the above
mentioned digital in his audio storage room already (I was there
and I saw it), why you'd think the ONLY digital you can see on his
rack is the NWO-2 APL Hi-Fi player? I will leave the answer of this
question to you. Smile
To come back to the original question, the $45K Zanden is
non-oversampling "old" technology digital that sounds extremely
good and non-digital. At the same time, my NWO-2 is new
technology highest oversampling available digital which sounds as
good as or better than the $65K SME30 based vinyl setup this
gentleman also has (you can see it on the pictures) and also
considerably better than the Zanden. The moral of the story is that
all comes down to implementation. What makes digital to sound
non-digital is a very complex sum of many different factors which
are often overlooked by most digital audio design engineers. The
saddest thing is that most of the audiophiles are non-technical but
still believe in different marketing theories which often have
nothing to do with the end result.
Hope this helps!Regards, Alex Peychev"
Greets,
Klaus
To pick just one sentence:
That does that phrase imply ?
Either he cannot explain because he does not know himself.
Or he does not want to explain but wants others to believe they cannot understand because of the high complexity.
Or it is really so complex, that there is neither time nor space to explain.
Because it is as complex as the genesis of the universe.
After all, HE is the one who does not overlook those factors while most other designers fail to do so.
So go and buy his product !
This is political language, not scientific at all.
That does that phrase imply ?
Either he cannot explain because he does not know himself.
Or he does not want to explain but wants others to believe they cannot understand because of the high complexity.
Or it is really so complex, that there is neither time nor space to explain.
Because it is as complex as the genesis of the universe.
After all, HE is the one who does not overlook those factors while most other designers fail to do so.
So go and buy his product !
This is political language, not scientific at all.
Hi radian,
I don't intend to "beat" another DAC, or outperform vinyl, I am just trying my very best to closely match live sound.
Since both TDA1543 and TDA1541A seem to have the potential to achieve this, and I already spend a lot of time studying these chips, I will continue to use these for now.
I wouldn't dare, it appears that Alex knows exactly what he is doing, and probably needs no advice from us.
A suitable phrase might be: "Who are you to tell me.......", I read that somewhere
The Zanden DAC has one possible implementation of the TDA1541A, there are many others. The performance can vary between medicore and stellar, using one and the same DAC chip. Remarks like "the TDA1541A sounds like this or that" can't be made reliably, without exactly specifying all surrounding circuits, connected audio equipment, and the CD / recording that was used for testing.
People on this forum who judge the TDA1541A DAC chip, usually do this by using an existing CD player that happens to hold this DAC chip, as reference. This however isn't THE reference, it's just one of many.
The Zanden DAC uses 1 x TDA1541A-S2 / 16-bit (If I am correct), the NWO-2 APL requires 10 x AK4397 (32-bit chip) to outperform it (if it does). That's not a fair comparison by all means.
Performance is often determined by tiny details, change one part and you have a SOTA DAC, change another and you have a medicore DAC, it's really that critical (I am speaking of practical experience here). The Zanden DAC may have slightly higher clock jitter, or suffer from the impact of the passive analogue filter. These factors could already reduce sound quality below that of the Esoteric NWO-2 APL, but that doesn't mean that the DAC chip is no good.
I don't intend to "beat" another DAC, or outperform vinyl, I am just trying my very best to closely match live sound.
Since both TDA1543 and TDA1541A seem to have the potential to achieve this, and I already spend a lot of time studying these chips, I will continue to use these for now.
I wouldn't dare, it appears that Alex knows exactly what he is doing, and probably needs no advice from us.
A suitable phrase might be: "Who are you to tell me.......", I read that somewhere
The Zanden DAC has one possible implementation of the TDA1541A, there are many others. The performance can vary between medicore and stellar, using one and the same DAC chip. Remarks like "the TDA1541A sounds like this or that" can't be made reliably, without exactly specifying all surrounding circuits, connected audio equipment, and the CD / recording that was used for testing.
People on this forum who judge the TDA1541A DAC chip, usually do this by using an existing CD player that happens to hold this DAC chip, as reference. This however isn't THE reference, it's just one of many.
The Zanden DAC uses 1 x TDA1541A-S2 / 16-bit (If I am correct), the NWO-2 APL requires 10 x AK4397 (32-bit chip) to outperform it (if it does). That's not a fair comparison by all means.
Performance is often determined by tiny details, change one part and you have a SOTA DAC, change another and you have a medicore DAC, it's really that critical (I am speaking of practical experience here). The Zanden DAC may have slightly higher clock jitter, or suffer from the impact of the passive analogue filter. These factors could already reduce sound quality below that of the Esoteric NWO-2 APL, but that doesn't mean that the DAC chip is no good.
Let's move on from the AKM DAC favored by Alex...
There's no accounting for taste. So why bother stating APL NWO version x.x is the best out there? As far as I can tell you haven't even heard the unit. So what if this guy with $400k speakers likes it? He may have entirely different taste in music and sound reproduction than you or us. The more equipment a person buys, the more dissatisfied a person is with audio.
There's no accounting for taste. So why bother stating APL NWO version x.x is the best out there? As far as I can tell you haven't even heard the unit. So what if this guy with $400k speakers likes it? He may have entirely different taste in music and sound reproduction than you or us. The more equipment a person buys, the more dissatisfied a person is with audio.