Hi Sangram
Since you live in Denmark and own a Buffalo DAC, maybe we should make an audition, to compare the Buffalo to our DAC.
I would recommend meeting at KvK. But we could also do it at your place.... Up for it???
Hearing all this mumbo-jumbo about what hifi is about makes me so happy not to design for hifi, but to design for professional/studio use...
Where (just to point out) "insane" THD and DNR, especially at low level, can be of importance, for mainly two reasons:
- We need to listen to raw recorded tracks, where -18dBFS mean for 0dBVU is commonly accepted, and can go further down to accomodate for big dynamics or for security reasons "can't miss that take or I'm fired".
Recording sound effects (not music) for theatre and movies can esaily require you have a -30dB to -40dB FS reference. I'm not kidding. In fact, this is my work, not mainly music. That's why I appreciate this kind of high quality stuff.
(chances are it's -3 to -6 on most CDs, I mean, even classical is compressed!)
- Have a wide range of output level, and easily adjustable
Digital volume control on the sabre is better than a pot, even an ultra expensive one. Performance rival analog steppers at a fraction of the cost and without clicks. Digital pots really can't rival neither.
The ESS is speced for the eval board, which is +20dBu FS AFAIR. This allow to enter "hard" into analog equipment you want to get their distortion juice out. And well, you can reduce volume enough to use a mic preamp after it to get it's original coloration too. But that doesn't works very well I must admit.
Tritosine, I don't care, probably AD1955 is enough in most case, 100dB DNR is of course enough for CD playback etc... Why I was debating against you only was because you said ESS numbers were "marketing dept fud", when they are not, well, not more than any other manufacturer of anything you want, from chips to CD players, and probably less because they simply have verified numbers to back them up.
Now, the ESS is probably useless for CD playback, apart if you need digital volume control. But... THD and DNR are one thing, listening is another. Probably related to THD spectrum, noise content and relation to signal, IMD, TMD, jitter, phase, all mixed up so you can't easily find out the "why". But for sure, the ESS 32bits has a sound of its own, and a type of sound I never heard from any other converter, including Prism, Lucid, Marian, Digidisign, Yamaha...
Don't even know if I heard a 1955 though, maybe it is "as good as an ESS". Having heard a good lot of pieces of professional equipment, the only challenger of an unoptimised ESS was the Prism. Is it embedded on some equipment I use? I don't know. I just know ESS is top notch.
Where (just to point out) "insane" THD and DNR, especially at low level, can be of importance, for mainly two reasons:
- We need to listen to raw recorded tracks, where -18dBFS mean for 0dBVU is commonly accepted, and can go further down to accomodate for big dynamics or for security reasons "can't miss that take or I'm fired".
Recording sound effects (not music) for theatre and movies can esaily require you have a -30dB to -40dB FS reference. I'm not kidding. In fact, this is my work, not mainly music. That's why I appreciate this kind of high quality stuff.
(chances are it's -3 to -6 on most CDs, I mean, even classical is compressed!)
- Have a wide range of output level, and easily adjustable
Digital volume control on the sabre is better than a pot, even an ultra expensive one. Performance rival analog steppers at a fraction of the cost and without clicks. Digital pots really can't rival neither.
The ESS is speced for the eval board, which is +20dBu FS AFAIR. This allow to enter "hard" into analog equipment you want to get their distortion juice out. And well, you can reduce volume enough to use a mic preamp after it to get it's original coloration too. But that doesn't works very well I must admit.
Tritosine, I don't care, probably AD1955 is enough in most case, 100dB DNR is of course enough for CD playback etc... Why I was debating against you only was because you said ESS numbers were "marketing dept fud", when they are not, well, not more than any other manufacturer of anything you want, from chips to CD players, and probably less because they simply have verified numbers to back them up.
Now, the ESS is probably useless for CD playback, apart if you need digital volume control. But... THD and DNR are one thing, listening is another. Probably related to THD spectrum, noise content and relation to signal, IMD, TMD, jitter, phase, all mixed up so you can't easily find out the "why". But for sure, the ESS 32bits has a sound of its own, and a type of sound I never heard from any other converter, including Prism, Lucid, Marian, Digidisign, Yamaha...
Don't even know if I heard a 1955 though, maybe it is "as good as an ESS". Having heard a good lot of pieces of professional equipment, the only challenger of an unoptimised ESS was the Prism. Is it embedded on some equipment I use? I don't know. I just know ESS is top notch.
@NeoY2k
I really do understand your remarks about designing for either pro or high end audio, since any pro audio output stage through the last 30 years has always been driven by NE5532/34 and powered by IC regulators.
Most pro´s like a familiar sound at most, rather than anything else, hence the use of ie. Yamaha monitors.
It is remarkably much easier to just do what is expected and recognized as standard throughout the worlds studios, which are providing us with compressed, limited and equalized audio recordings.
Except a few purist sound engineers, most pro´s have no interest in audio quality what so ever, which brought us to where we are now.
Read this if you do not understand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
I really do understand your remarks about designing for either pro or high end audio, since any pro audio output stage through the last 30 years has always been driven by NE5532/34 and powered by IC regulators.
Most pro´s like a familiar sound at most, rather than anything else, hence the use of ie. Yamaha monitors.
It is remarkably much easier to just do what is expected and recognized as standard throughout the worlds studios, which are providing us with compressed, limited and equalized audio recordings.
Except a few purist sound engineers, most pro´s have no interest in audio quality what so ever, which brought us to where we are now.
Read this if you do not understand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
Kurt please drop this as your audience has left the building. You rip TPA for their use of IC vs. your discrete stages. Well that carry's about as much water as a bucket with no bottom.
You pay no attention to your competition other than to bad mouth them, when you have never even heard their product. That tells me all that I need to know about you and your product!
Hurtig,KvK
I have spent this evening reading this entire thread and its quite the debate going on here. I am most interested in getting the best performance out of a DAC chip and not "wrecking" the sound with "OP-AMP" designs. Would you be willing to send me the SCH/BOM of your DAC so I can build one up and compare. I would be very interested to actually hear the difference as most people will agree, measurement and listeing tests are completely different. I would dare to say this is very likey due to the fact that a measurement system measures a periodic steady state condidtion of a system (be it a DAC or opamp, dicrete stage or whatever) whereas our ear listens to consistent transitory type data (music). These 2 are totally different and this is my belief into why measurement don't (always) correlate with sound quality.
Just my opinion.
Dustin
I have spent this evening reading this entire thread and its quite the debate going on here. I am most interested in getting the best performance out of a DAC chip and not "wrecking" the sound with "OP-AMP" designs. Would you be willing to send me the SCH/BOM of your DAC so I can build one up and compare. I would be very interested to actually hear the difference as most people will agree, measurement and listeing tests are completely different. I would dare to say this is very likey due to the fact that a measurement system measures a periodic steady state condidtion of a system (be it a DAC or opamp, dicrete stage or whatever) whereas our ear listens to consistent transitory type data (music). These 2 are totally different and this is my belief into why measurement don't (always) correlate with sound quality.
Just my opinion.
Dustin
Hi Dustin
I can send you BOM and schematic as soon as I have finished them. I hope this will be by the end of next week.
Also, I can provide you with a PCB at a very nice price
We believe that a big part of the high performance, comes from the PCB layout. So if you want to have the full experience, you shoud consider this. Not only will you get top performance, but you will also save hundreds of hours tweaking your own layout... And naturally.... You will save the start up cost of the PCB production. Our PCB is high quality produced here in Denmark!
Well... I really do not understand, why you will not take the chance of comparing your Buffalo DAC to our new DAC.... If off cause you do have the Buffalo
If you are one of these guys (Like KvK and myself) always looking for the best, this would be a great chance.... I fully respect that you do not want to stand up for the test. But I really do not understand
I would also be a perfect chance, for others here at diyAudio to hear your opinion on our DAC.
Well... I really do not understand, why you will not take the chance of comparing your Buffalo DAC to our new DAC.... If off cause you do have the Buffalo
If you are one of these guys (Like KvK and myself) always looking for the best, this would be a great chance.... I fully respect that you do not want to stand up for the test. But I really do not understand
I would also be a perfect chance, for others here at diyAudio to hear your opinion on our DAC.
I cannot understand why you and your fellow developer did not start your own thread in either a proper sales or pure DIY forum. You have totally and unashamedly
taken this thread over and although many members have expressed resentment at your non-stop marketing of your product you persist.
Also your synchronized double-act does raise the question as to whether you have scripted your posts or are in fact one and the same person. 
...as far I remember the same thing happened in the topic dedicated to te ESS chip(!), forcing moderator intervention later on (after 2000 or so "B" category posts). Boy, I was angry..!
Why dont you ask for intervention instead of displaying your anger? How about ignoring the KvK & Hurtig doppel person instead?
Why dont you ask for intervention instead of displaying your anger? How about ignoring the KvK & Hurtig doppel person instead?
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We did start our own thread....
But, what's the point in having a thread, where you can only discuss the performance of one single product?? Yes it's good... How good?? Better than "biiiiiip".
You need some sort of reference, and mine just happen to be our own DAC, that we spend 4½ years of R&D/tweaking. When we started, no one had even though about making a "Buffalo design".
My point is, that the Buffulo is one of these mainstream DAC's, that any experienced designer can R&D in less than a week from the app note, which I also guess is the case. Just doesn't sound that enthusiastic, so let's focus on the 32 bit (Even though we feed it only 16) and let's tell that we spend years and years to R&D it (Even though the DAC-chip has just been released). That's more high end...
But OK.... Let's focus on the Buffalo:
- Does anybody know the considerations that have been made, that ended up in an op-amp based analog stage?? Where there ever any serious listening-tests besides... 2 min of listening, and then "Ohh... it sounds OK"??
- How about those nasty ceramic capacitors in the analog filter?? Where there ever made any listening-tests, that indicated that this excact type of capacitor is the absolute optimum for analog filtering?? I honestly cannot believe so....
Considering the well known fact, that the analog stage is the part of the design, where you really make a difference, I believe that the analog stage needs way more attention!
And if you don't believe that the analog stage is that important, then what took so long in making a DAC like the Buffalo?? Guess the digital part will take less than a day for an experienced engineer. And why pay $599 for a badly implemented DAC-chip (Of less than $20)??? Why not just buy the evaluation board? My guess is that the implementation is more or less the same, and eval boards normally do not cost $599.
At $599 I really believe you must come up with more than a DAC-chip and some op-amps. Such a project should be priced at around 299 USD including PSU.
But, what's the point in having a thread, where you can only discuss the performance of one single product?? Yes it's good... How good?? Better than "biiiiiip".
You need some sort of reference, and mine just happen to be our own DAC, that we spend 4½ years of R&D/tweaking. When we started, no one had even though about making a "Buffalo design".
My point is, that the Buffulo is one of these mainstream DAC's, that any experienced designer can R&D in less than a week from the app note, which I also guess is the case. Just doesn't sound that enthusiastic, so let's focus on the 32 bit (Even though we feed it only 16) and let's tell that we spend years and years to R&D it (Even though the DAC-chip has just been released
). That's more high end... But OK.... Let's focus on the Buffalo:
- Does anybody know the considerations that have been made, that ended up in an op-amp based analog stage?? Where there ever any serious listening-tests besides... 2 min of listening, and then "Ohh... it sounds OK"??
- How about those nasty ceramic capacitors in the analog filter?? Where there ever made any listening-tests, that indicated that this excact type of capacitor is the absolute optimum for analog filtering?? I honestly cannot believe so....
Considering the well known fact, that the analog stage is the part of the design, where you really make a difference, I believe that the analog stage needs way more attention!
And if you don't believe that the analog stage is that important, then what took so long in making a DAC like the Buffalo?? Guess the digital part will take less than a day for an experienced engineer. And why pay $599 for a badly implemented DAC-chip (Of less than $20)??? Why not just buy the evaluation board? My guess is that the implementation is more or less the same, and eval boards normally do not cost $599.
At $599 I really believe you must come up with more than a DAC-chip and some op-amps. Such a project should be priced at around 299 USD including PSU.
We did start our own thread....
But, what's the point in having a thread, where you can only discuss the performance of one single product?? Yes it's good... How good?? Better than "biiiiiip".
You need some sort of reference, and mine just happen to be our own DAC, that we spend 4½ years of R&D/tweaking. When we started, no one had even though about making a "Buffalo design".
My point is, that the Buffulo is one of these mainstream DAC's, that any experienced designer can R&D in less than a week from the app note, which I also guess is the case. Just doesn't sound that enthusiastic, so let's focus on the 32 bit (Even though we feed it only 16) and let's tell that we spend years and years to R&D it (Even though the DAC-chip has just been released
But OK.... Let's focus on the Buffalo:
- Does anybody know the considerations that have been made, that ended up in an op-amp based analog stage?? Where there ever any serious listening-tests besides... 2 min of listening, and then "Ohh... it sounds OK"??
- How about those nasty ceramic capacitors in the analog filter?? Where there ever made any listening-tests, that indicated that this excact type of capacitor is the absolute optimum for analog filtering?? I honestly cannot believe so....
Considering the well known fact, that the analog stage is the part of the design, where you really make a difference, I believe that the analog stage needs way more attention!
And if you don't believe that the analog stage is that important, then what took so long in making a DAC like the Buffalo?? Guess the digital part will take less than a day for an experienced engineer. And why pay $599 for a badly implemented DAC-chip (Of less than $20)??? Why not just buy the evaluation board? My guess is that the implementation is more or less the same, and eval boards normally do not cost $599.
At $599 I really believe you must come up with more than a DAC-chip and some op-amps. Such a project should be priced at around 299 USD including PSU.
Even if your DAC was the best ever built, your shameless arrogance would keep me away from it
We did start our own thread....
But, what's the point in having a thread, where you can only discuss the performance of one single product?? Yes it's good... How good?? Better than "biiiiiip".
You need some sort of reference, and mine just happen to be our own DAC, that we spend 4½ years of R&D/tweaking. When we started, no one had even though about making a "Buffalo design".
My point is, that the Buffulo is one of these mainstream DAC's, that any experienced designer can R&D in less than a week from the app note, which I also guess is the case. Just doesn't sound that enthusiastic, so let's focus on the 32 bit (Even though we feed it only 16) and let's tell that we spend years and years to R&D it (Even though the DAC-chip has just been released
But OK.... Let's focus on the Buffalo:
- Does anybody know the considerations that have been made, that ended up in an op-amp based analog stage?? Where there ever any serious listening-tests besides... 2 min of listening, and then "Ohh... it sounds OK"??
- How about those nasty ceramic capacitors in the analog filter?? Where there ever made any listening-tests, that indicated that this excact type of capacitor is the absolute optimum for analog filtering?? I honestly cannot believe so....
Considering the well known fact, that the analog stage is the part of the design, where you really make a difference, I believe that the analog stage needs way more attention!
And if you don't believe that the analog stage is that important, then what took so long in making a DAC like the Buffalo?? Guess the digital part will take less than a day for an experienced engineer. And why pay $599 for a badly implemented DAC-chip (Of less than $20)??? Why not just buy the evaluation board? My guess is that the implementation is more or less the same, and eval boards normally do not cost $599.
At $599 I really believe you must come up with more than a DAC-chip and some op-amps. Such a project should be priced at around 299 USD including PSU.
I think you have missed the whole point of this thread. The original poster made a simple request. Clearly what was wanted was a discussion which included comparison with other DACs which were easily available. He wanted the views of people with experience of other fully available products.
He did NOT require a comparison with a DAC which was not available and on which virtually no one could give a review - either good or bad - as they could not reasonably have heard an unfinished/uncompleted prototype. Yet you have come in with this one-living-unfinished product and a truck load of hype and monopolized the thread. Is this because no one showed much encouraging interest in your own thread?
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