The battle of the DACs, comparison of sound quality between some DACs

[Deleted member 537459]

Did you use a digital volume control or was everything played back at 100 % volume? In the latter case, 7 and 6 could very well have been driven into hard clipping by peak sample normalized recordings.

no volume control was used, all at 100%, for me the volume control takes away dynamics.

 

[kazap]

seeing is believing.

Id like to see some measurements.

 

[diyiggy]

They will not tell you about some things, like tonal equilibrium, subjective transparency, subjective dynamics in the upper bass area, weigth of femal voice, decay of string notes, etc. THD and noise floor are not enough to rank a source, imho but that is off topic. It is a subjective test with a friends grup. I am more in the Planet10 camp though the bass and upper bass area should be very correct with the Tannoy. That is still educative.

 

[Deleted member 537459]

the tannoys are rather a reference, it is no coincidence that they have been and are studio monitor speakers. also in my opinion the measurements cannot determine the sound quality. like a Stradivari violin, its cost comes from the sound it makes, not from measurements.

 

[planet10]

I know that Tannoys are often used as references as they tend to provide a stable point. The Westminsters i heard were so coloured i don’t know if i could listen thru that. One really needs to try a variety of electrical to acoustical transducers.

dave

 

[Markw4]

My question would be, what if any weaknesses were heard from DAC_Lite?

Also, have to agree with @planet10 that implementation plays a big role in the sound of a DAC. The Sabre DACs described are probably not the most competitive available today.

 

[Evenharmonics]

We did a listening day to compare various dacs, all with the same source,

This was subjective listening comparison, right? Since you didn't specify it, I wanted to ask.

 

[analog_sa]

a sigma delta is simpler and less expensive, unfortunately my ears (and others) do not consider it up to par. end

The absence of digital filtering has nothing to do with a preference for delta sigma. All your multibits are NOS which appeals to a very particular taste.

 

[analog_sa]

virtual oap

Oap?

Oral antipsychotic?
Old age pensioner?
Orquestra Académica Portuguesa?

 

[diyiggy]

Old Analog_Psycho !

 

[Evenharmonics]

implementation plays a big role in the sound of a DAC.

What method did you use to find that out?

 

[donovas]

With dacs implementations matter a lot. You cant say the op and friends were listening to the chips themselves but rather the surrounding circuitry. From the pics one dac has cheap chinese output caps (the dreaded red ones) while 1541 is trafo output- thats already a big discrepency favoring the 1541 unit ect.

 

[Evenharmonics]

With dacs implementations matter a lot.

Matter a lot in audible sound?

 

[AllenB]

The Westminsters i heard were so coloured

I almost built a set once.

 

[planet10]

Takes some carpentry skill to do that.

dave

 

[donovas]

Matter a lot in audible sound?

NO NOT AT ALL

 

[InspectorGadget]

Yeah i'm torn here. Other than mentioning a fair test is not really possible here, as there is no way to implement all of them the same. Just using the same source is not enough to make this useful and certainly not objective... lol.

Possibly the closest you could get is to implement all IV stages as suited to each chip/device and power supplies of same caliber, but use the same voltage buffer for following all. Whether that would be audible? hmmm

as the IV stage is integrated into Andreas discrete, that is not possible.

(note that I dont favour the lego block approach, so I feel dacs should have integrated output stage designs on the same PCB. there are certainly better implementations of ESS dacs)

 

[bohrok2610]

ES9038PRO sigma-delta driven in true sync.

What does this mean exactly?

 

[percival007]

The TDA1541A isn't an R2R DAC. Is it?

 

[MarcelvdG]

Partly. It works with current sources and current switches. An R-2R network is used for generating the scaled currents for the current sources for the lower bits. The current sources for the highest bits use a special DEM technique.