Hello Folks,
It's that time of year when I start looking at the upgrades of my hifi chain so I decided to go for a new DAC. I currently have TEAC UD-H01, few diy USB dacs (PCM2707C/PCM1794A) I built myself, and two chinese dacs (zero and diyeden) which don't have USB.
I was looking at something along the lines of AudioLAB MDAC or Topping D70, or maybe to build something myself that can beat both soundwise. I am fan of transparency, detail and precision, and looking for a chain that plays everything equally well (don't you just hate when they position speakers for a certain kind of music??), mostly FLAC and DSD rips.
The rest of the chain is: RMI-FC100 with LDR Pre MkII, Zaph Audio ZD5, Denon DVD-2900.
It's that time of year when I start looking at the upgrades of my hifi chain so I decided to go for a new DAC. I currently have TEAC UD-H01, few diy USB dacs (PCM2707C/PCM1794A) I built myself, and two chinese dacs (zero and diyeden) which don't have USB.
I was looking at something along the lines of AudioLAB MDAC or Topping D70, or maybe to build something myself that can beat both soundwise. I am fan of transparency, detail and precision, and looking for a chain that plays everything equally well (don't you just hate when they position speakers for a certain kind of music??), mostly FLAC and DSD rips.
The rest of the chain is: RMI-FC100 with LDR Pre MkII, Zaph Audio ZD5, Denon DVD-2900.
Best is chip is probably AK4499. However, there are no commercial dac products using that part yet, and evaluation boards are in short supply (and not cheap at $600). If you can hit numbers like that and want to build a 4-channel dac from an eval board then it is quite doable. To make sound quality even better, a fast i7 or i9 computer running HQ Player software can convert CD or other audio to top quality DSD512. No other option I am aware of at this time can beat the SQ of the best HQ Player DSP algorithms, but HQ Player isn't cheap either.
EDIT: To fill in a little more info, there is an AK4499 here that has been subjectively tested with various configurations, sample rates, and formats (by way of listening tests using an ultra-low distortion headphone amp and Audeze LCD-X headphones, and evaluated by multiple experienced listeners). Using HQ Player it can compete with dacs in the several thousand dollar range (as it should, considering the overall equipment required: eval board, ancillary equipment (multiple power supplies, USB board, MCU, etc.), i9 PC, and HQ Player software.
EDIT: To fill in a little more info, there is an AK4499 here that has been subjectively tested with various configurations, sample rates, and formats (by way of listening tests using an ultra-low distortion headphone amp and Audeze LCD-X headphones, and evaluated by multiple experienced listeners). Using HQ Player it can compete with dacs in the several thousand dollar range (as it should, considering the overall equipment required: eval board, ancillary equipment (multiple power supplies, USB board, MCU, etc.), i9 PC, and HQ Player software.
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The DAC chip is not really important. The implemantation is by far the most important part... There also is a reason, why many people still try to find PCM63 or TDA1541A chips. Only measurements do not tell anything about sound quality.
Its also questionable if any kind of DSP makes the sq better. It only makes it "different". For me its important to hear music as close as possible to how it was recorded. And any kind of processing destroys this experience.
AK4499 is nice on paper, but this does not tell anything. If implemented right, the TDA1541A, PCM63K or even sigma-deltas like PCM1794A are very musical and hard to beat.
But why converting PCM to DSD512 ? Don't you want to listen to music like it was intended to ? All this conversions "color" the music experience.
So to your question :
There is no "best" DAC. Hear for yourself and judge then. For me for example a NOS TDA1541A in async mode with tube or well done discrete output stage are best DACs.
And a clear YES to DIY. At the moment i am testing Ryan's D3 DAC with async input and my Linn sounds not anything near that...
Its also questionable if any kind of DSP makes the sq better. It only makes it "different". For me its important to hear music as close as possible to how it was recorded. And any kind of processing destroys this experience.
AK4499 is nice on paper, but this does not tell anything. If implemented right, the TDA1541A, PCM63K or even sigma-deltas like PCM1794A are very musical and hard to beat.
But why converting PCM to DSD512 ? Don't you want to listen to music like it was intended to ? All this conversions "color" the music experience.
So to your question :
There is no "best" DAC. Hear for yourself and judge then. For me for example a NOS TDA1541A in async mode with tube or well done discrete output stage are best DACs.
And a clear YES to DIY. At the moment i am testing Ryan's D3 DAC with async input and my Linn sounds not anything near that...
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On the contrary, the DAC chip sets a limit on what is possible with a great implementation.
There is no question that the best DSP anyone knows how to do today can bring out more of the information encoded on a CD than people generally suspect is there. Of course, for people who have only hear typical quality DSP that is assumed to be good enough by the designers, but isn't all that good in reality, one might come to believe that good DSP is not possible. It is. Just expensive to implement given the cost of processing power using present technology.
Regarding ladder dac popularity, it is quite understandable. Looks like a resurgence in ladder dacs is starting to happen. The Holo Spring dacs with proprietary resistor error correction is probably the best available right now. Sounds best with DSD1024 upsampled and converted to DSD by HQ Player. Also, a major high end Japanese company is working on a similar approach. At this point ladder dacs still can't beat SD dacs in some regards, and SD dacs can't beat the best ladder dacs in other regards. For most people and for today, the best SD is probably still the overall best.
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If you're a measurements type guy then audiosciencereview.com has the most comprehensive compilation of DAC tests that I know about. Here's a link to their Master DAC Comparison graph: LINK. And if you're not a measurements guy you'll have to go by someone's opinion (pick one of several thousand 
).
).No, not really. There are certain specs that need to be met, rest depends on implementation and is fanboy stuff...
You seem not to understand the problem... "bring out more than encoded on the CD" is the problem. This means that the DSP did alter the stream and "colored" it. Its not a matter of money, its just simple physics. There are always algorythms involved and they change the input stream. This is what changes the way it sounds. For me any kind of DSP is a no-go.
I worked with 500K$ equipment on daily basis for years and you dont need this for home usage. Highend DSPs are meant for room corrections and live music. At the moment i use the MIDAS Heritage D at work and in case you think that the DSP inside there is not highend, please tell me what you mean by "highend".
I didn't say anything about bringing out more than is on the CD, only everything that is there. That is the goal. Are will all the way there yet? No, I don't think so. Are we getting closer and closer? Yes, but its complicated expensive to do everything the best we can in terms of implementation. It also depends on how a CD was encoded in the first place, it could be there there are some small but technically illegal values produced by the ADC (that violate Nyquist). What to do with those? Enough filtering seems to smooth out those errors, but again, technically they are on the CD. Aside from that, there are many complications in overall reproduction system design. Even with a simple ladder dac, at 44kHz sample rate a very steep anti-aliasing filter is required. However it is implemented, it will have some sound of its own. The best we can do is to try to minimize errors and produce a very musical result that can be listened to for long periods of time (say, a few hours) without listening fatigue setting in.
For a dac? Chord Dave with the optional preprocessor is said to sound very good for PCM. About $25,000 for stereo (two channels only). For DSD, probably T&A DAC8 DSD, even though its getting a bit long in the tooth. Again, upsampling to DSD with HQ Player is currently the hot setup.
As far as DSP for live music, too many Sharc chips and digital amps are often being used which would sound awful in a studio or mastering room. There are some iTech 5000 amps (with integrated Sharc DSP) here for the JBL M2 speakers and those things sound terrible, really awful, unlistenable (except only if the volume level is turned up to deafening so one can't hear the distortion). One of my projects is to improve the DSP a whole lot or or go to analog crossovers and corrective EQ, and then drive them from some AHB2 power amps.
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I wonder what is meant by unprocessed digital to analogue conversion. Even if you don't count the conversion itself as processing, a digital recording by definition has a periodic spectrum with a period equal to the sample rate. Unless you want to drive your amplifier into slewing and blow up your tweeters, you will need some kind of filter to get rid of all these images. Whether that's a digital or an analogue filter or something in between, the filter will always have its imperfections and colour the sound to some extent. For example, a zero-order hold as used in a NOS DAC will attenuate the treble with its sin(x)/x-shaped response.
The Sabaj D5 with ES9038Pro is the best ESS implementation I have heard - <$500 at any rate. It's the first dac period I've experienced where the USB sound quality is indistinguishable from the SPDIF. No glare or digititis, just smooth and natural, warm even. I don't know what they did differently but it worked. If it weren't for my Soekris, I would have happily held on to it.
It is a fan club i have never understood. To me upconverted pcm through HQplayer into DAC8 sounds like a bad overly smoothed caricature of PCM sound. In DAC8 pcm is handled particularly poorly compared to dsd, so this alone may offer some explanation.
And yes, i agree that implementation is by far the most important part of a great dac.
There is nothing wrong with the SHARC. It’s an excellent DSP and you hopefully realize that the chip has nothing to do with what’s implemented on it.
Not everyone agrees with your unmeasured and evidence-free cult-like assertions on conversion to DSD via HQPlayer. It would be good if you treated it as your own unverified opinion rather than a fact or truth, because it’s not.
You haven’t even identified the supposed flaws in the DSP implementation on the Crown, nor do you have a DSP background, so how do you know it’s deficient? Did you test it separate from the Class D amp? Replacing it with an analog crossover is a step backward, but whatever.
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Yes, it is a cult or clique. One of many here. No more or less valid than the Non-OSers, tube lovers, multi-bit gang, etc.
That can certainly be the outcome. It depends dramatically on the filter and modulator used. If you don't have something like a >3GHz i9 and a great dac that can make the best of that DSD input, you won't be able to find out for yourself.
Hi Chris,
I understand ishizeno has lots of frequent flyer miles. Maybe he would be willing to fly you out here to see for yourself. You would be very welcome to visit as far as I'm concerned.
Regarding your opinions, I have email communications from a former JBL engineer who worked with the same drivers as in M2 and knows what the Crown amps sound like. I repeated his observations and advice and did my own listening too. I also have copies of some of his personal notes from the work he was doing.
Fact is, I happen to be right and you are wrong, but a huge amount of research would be involved in proving every single observation. I don't have that many years left on this earth to worry about trying to convince people who won't bother to listen for themselves. Sorry if that sounds impolite or rude, but I don't know how else to tell you something you seem not to want to hear.
From my previous research on HQPlayer, I think both Mark and analog_sa have standing: IIRC the creator of HQPlayer has provided plenty of measurements to support why he believes the conversion is worthwhile. I believe those measurements/data are over at ComputerAudiophile (now AudiophileStyle) where he posts often.
However, there's plenty of subjective user feedback similar to analog_sa. Reports of an overly smooth presentation are common. Thorsten Loesch has also gone in some depth as to why the PCM/DSD conversion is questionable. No easy answers.
However, there's plenty of subjective user feedback similar to analog_sa. Reports of an overly smooth presentation are common. Thorsten Loesch has also gone in some depth as to why the PCM/DSD conversion is questionable. No easy answers.
It seems you have missed the Single Driver Society and a few others, but yeah, a pretty good sum up
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