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This has me buffaloed. I've been auditioning various CD/Blu Ray/DAC combination for some time, and while the performance in general has improved with age, the one DAC that I keep coming back to (and will not give up) is a vintage Wavelength Audio Cosine NOS unit. This sports the TDA 1543 Select grade DAC, employes no oversampling, and has a single 6GM8 tube buffer out to transformers. The unit does not have the hyper level of detail many of the new 32 bit SABRE DAC's, but what it does have in spades is a natural sound that is very analog sounding, with not a hint of what most folks complain about digital sound. It almost reminds me of a high end Reel to Reel unit of days gone by.So, the question is, why does such a vintage unit still sound so good? Is it the NOS approach? I've been thinking of getting a Metrum DAC, as I am intrigued by their design approach.
"What this country needs is a good 5 watt amplifier!" (Paul Klipsch)
Edits: 05/29/14Follow Ups:
Freo,
Thanks for the nice comments. I can still make the Cosecant USB v3 in NOS that would almost identical to the Cosine but would have async USB, which of course would be much better than SPDIF.
Or we make the Brick NOS version. This would be similar to the Cosine with async USB.
Sometimes these older dacs really sound more musical than all these new fangled units.
Thanks,
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
Well I have reviewed several maga buck DACS up to $50,000. I'm mainly a vinyl guy and most often I have no digital in my reference system. I am currently reviewing the little 47 Labs Midnight Blue CD player. It has been my biggest surprise in my years as a reviewer. Now I have to admit that I did not expect much, but it is wonderful. It is NOS with no digital filtering. Constantine and I spent the morning and a lot of the afternoon listening to it and we just can't believe how good it sounds. It doesn't just sound good for the money it simply sounds good. It does benefit from really good AC, but what doesn't.
Beatnik's stuff http://web.me.com/jnr1/Site/Beatniks_Pictures.html
It has no digital filtering, Modern DACs that can turn-off or minimize the effects of digital filtering will sound just as good, but with more detail.
Hi and sorry for this late question on an old but i am very interested to get a your kind advice
i am playing with a cheap Muse 1543 nos dac now and i am positively surprised indeed ! especially the midrange is very nice.
I need more time but i feel something good.
Given that the secret is the absence of digital filtering, you say " Modern DACs that can turn-off or minimize the effects of digital filtering will sound just as good, but with more detail " and this is exactly what i am interested in,
Could you name some of these dacs working without digital filtering ?
Spdif in would be perfect.
Thanks a lot indeed.
Kind regards,
bg
Edits: 03/31/15
My experience mirrors yours. After years of different dacs, I bought a used Audio Note 1.1 dac several years ago. After removing the analog filter, upgrading all the power supplies(to an extreme degree) and replacing the Audio Note output capacitors I was shocked at the results. I don't use the term "analog like"; it sounds authentic and I get the SAME pleasure listening to redbook as analog. Quite frankly, I listen to CDs more than LPs. I lambasted digital for years; it only took me 29 years to realize I was wrong. It was on the CDs all along and the hardware sucked.
I had the same experience. For years I blamed the uninvolving and/or annoying sound from CDs on the discs. Now I blame oversampling and the like used by profiteers.
I had given up on CDs again until I got a Metrum DAC.
I noticed that T. H. E. show that whether a DAC was NOS or not was fairly obvious to me, but most speakers do not have the high frequency extension of ribbons which would make it more obvious.
Resonessence was one of the better ones that I heard.
Hint...it probably has to do with the use of a ladder DAC...
Ladder dacs are the only dacs that keep pcm as pcm. Delta Sigma dacs convert PCM to single bit and then have to do a lot of digital processing to get the analog output. They stopped making ladder dacs because they were to expensive to make. Also a ladder dac cannot directly handle single bit sources like DSD
Alan
"Ladder dacs are the only dacs that keep pcm as pcm"
Sorry, no DAC keeps PCM data as PCM. All DACs convert digital data into an analog waveform. What matters is what this analog waveform is and how it sounds, not the internal workings of the DAC.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
I disagree Tony. I think the workings are important because all of them create unintended artifacts that seem to have an impact on the final outcome as heard by humans.
"I think the workings are important because all of them create unintended artifacts that seem to have an impact on the final outcome as heard by humans."
The workings are relevant only to those who know and understand the mechanisms involved and how they interact with perception. In most cases the inner workings of DACs are proprietary and the public information inadequate. In addition where there is more detailed information available it is generally beyond the scope of most audiophiles' understanding.
Most audiophiles are challenged by the implications of the various digital formats and the artifacts these necessarily imply. Unless they are technically curious and prepared to do a lot of homework, these people should confine themselves to the "What?" rather than the "How?" or "Why?". This means listening to a range of recordings in a variety of formats through a variety of playback systems and being very careful about attributing causes for what one hears. Components interact with recordings and with each other and it can be very hard to sort out these interactions by subjective listening. Measurements are also likely to be useless, because they were developed for older technologies and are being used and abused for marketing purposes.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
I think you are wrong, whether or not someone is technically savvy has no bearing on what they hear. My point is that those details of how the DAC actually works create artifacts that are AUDIBLE. I don't really care who understands what. I am quite sure many of these artifacts have audible consequences...mostly detrimental to realistic playback.
The issue isn't what someone hears, it's whether they correctly identify the cause of what they hear, so as to be able to make intelligent decisions about their system and its setup.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
As long as it is a repeatable phenomenon then it is not really that important to know the details of the root cause.
I guess what I was trying to say was that the nos ladder dacs process a pcm file staying as multibit as opposed to converting to single bit.
Alan
Alan,
The great majority of current production Delta Sigma DACs are not single bit, but rather, utilize relatively low resolution multibit PCM resistor-ladder quantizers. Examples include, Burr-Brown's PCM179x series, Analog Devices' AD1853 and AD1955, Cirrus' CS4398, AKM's AK439x series, Wolfson's WM874x series, and ESS' Sabre series. True single bit DACs featuring noise-shaping, such as utilized for DSD, are the less common devices.
Multibit sigma-delta DACs are a sort of hybrid, combining low resolution, but still PCM, resistor-ladder quantizers with noise-shaping.
_
Ken Newton
The ESS SABRE DACs running in stereo mode convert digital data to 8 bits at a very high sampling rate, typically 44 MHz or higher. (When run in mono mode they operate at 9 bits.) Allowing for the 1024x sample rate increase and without even considering noise shaping, this gives an effective resolution of these DACs of 18 bits. With noise shaping, the effective resolution is considerably greater measured in the band below 20 kHz, around 23 bits if the chip is used in the best possible circuitry.
The SABRE chips use MOS current switches, all identical, not resistor ladders. There are 256 one bit switches used per channel to achieve the 8 bit resolution in stereo mode, a technique called "thermometer code". Because these are not all exactly identical there is a technique used to randomly rotate these bits and this evens out small variations in individual components, so that one hears random noise (e.g. at -138 dB) rather than music related distortion when the individual switches differ due to manufacturing tolerances. The details of the SABRE chips are described in the ESS technical white paper and the ESS patents.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
I was under the impression that multi bit delta sigma dacs take the pcm signal and convert it to single bit and then do the noise shaping from there and only a true ladder dac keeps the signal as a pcm signal. Is this true or not or is it more complicated then that
Alan
Multibit sigma-delta-modulation (SDM) DACs take a higher resolution PCM signal and re-quantize it to a lower resolution PCM signal. This lower quantizer resolution (producing higher quantization noise) of multibit SDM DACs is more than compensated for by noise-shaping processing. Such noise-shaping is essentially the same as for 1-bit SDM, except that the quantizer resolution is now as low as possible. Which therefore requires 1-bit SDM DACs to utilize the strongest degree of noise-shaping to compensate. Strong noise-shaping processing is the key innovation of SDM. My recollection is, that the first SDM DACs were single-bit resolution, and that the multibit versions were later developed in recognition of the performance compromises of single-bit SDM.What both multibit and single-bit SDM DACs share is the spectral relocation of their quantization noise to outside the desired audio band. Full resolution PCM DACs don't typically need to do this. The relocated energy is often termed, out-of-band-noise. Since full resolution PCM DACs natively feature lower quantization noise, they don't require noise-shaping. So, you may be wondering, if the first thing SDM DACs do is to reduce the available resolution of an PCM audio signal, why are they so common today? I think the primary reason is because it's very difficult (meaning, expensive) to make a low distortion, yet full native resolution, PCM quantizer. SDM processing enables the utilization of an inexpensive, low distortion quantizer while delivering the low quantization noise of an expensive, full resolution quantizer.
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 06/02/14 06/02/14 06/02/14 06/03/14 06/03/14 06/03/14 06/03/14 06/03/14
From what I have heard, the sonic consequences of doing all of this complicated math to move the noise "out of band" has some audible consequences that people seem to like to sweep under the rug. For me, it is often audible when the DAC is not a ladder type...regardless of the analog output stage.
Could be that your amplifier is non-linear in the presence of high frequency noise. This can convert inaudible artifacts into audible artifacts.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
unlikely as I have heard this when listening through many different types of amps...I seriously doubt that they all had issues...of course I could also win the lottery...if I actually played that is.
No one seems certain about why NOS (digital filterless) DACs produce the sound character that they do. Typically sounding more at ease, and closer to the character of vinyl. There are several theories, but I don't believe that anyone has yet conclusively shown the reason. However, the sound isn't universally better via NOS, in my subjective opinion. NOS DACs also typically exhibit certain subjective faults which digitally filtered DACs don't. Even so, for many among us, the subjective positives of NOS overrides the subjective negatives. It seems that whether an audiophile will prefer NOS over OS or not, depends upon the kind of subjective faults that audiophile finds the more annoying. Rather than one approach always being subjectively superior to the other.
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 05/31/14
"NOS DACs also typically exhibit certain subjective faults which digitally filtered DACs don't"
I am curious about what you have heard in this context. I use ladder DAC chip based DACs but both have a DF and an analog filter. I think they sound quite organic overall although I still think my analog rig is superior.
I haven't listened too much to NOS DACs but the ones I have impressed.
Following, are excerpts of some of my previous comments regarding my own subjective observations of NOS.OCTOBER 2, 2010:
While NOS (more descriptively called, digital filter-less) DACs has long been a popular topic of discussion here, it appears that many may not have seen those past discussions. Below, are some of my own past comments. There are many posted comments from many others which can be found by doing a search on the terms, DAC and NOS. Here then are my extended observations of NOS via an AD1865 based DAC of my own design which allowed me to switch a typical half-band digital FIR filter in and out of circuit on-the-fly via a toggle switch.What NOS gets right:
1) NOS delivers CD digital which is non-fatiguing or relaxing, indeed, much in the way that vinyl is. I can listen to NOS for many hours without tiring while standard digital usually has me feeling anxious and switching the music off before even a single CD has been fully played.
2) The soundstage is very open, separating what is often a rather congealed sounding mass of music from standard digital in to a much more natural and three-dimensional sounding presentation. There is a naturalness absent with the FIR filter in, well, except for what sounds like a tonal energy shift to the upper midrange (see further comment on this below).
3) I also found cymbals and bells to have a very natural tone and long decay. The FIR filter seemed to add what sounds like synthetic splashes of white noise to such higher register instruments, making them sound more homogeneous.
4) The sense of dynamic freedom by NOS is not to be overlooked. It's not so much that NOS sounds louder, or like it has greater dynamic range. It's that there is much less of that distracting, 'on alert to quickly turn down the volume' feeling which so often accompanies the build up to crescendos while listening to common, sharply digital filtered, CD playback.
What NOS gets wrong:1) There is the well known high-frequency roll-off of about 3dB at 20KHz due to the zeroth-order hold operation of R2R ladder DACs. I don't believe that sigma-delta DACs have this problem due to their high inherent oversampling operation, pushing any such roll-off way up in frequency.
2) NOS seems to shift musical energy from the upper bass-lower midrange region to the upper midrange region, altering the tonality of most instruments and vocalists. This highlighting of the the upper midrange is initially pleasing by presenting more musical detail, but ultimately, becomes increasingly noticeable until is reaches distraction. This effect also seems to soften or loosen the impact of bass register instruments, almost as if they were no longer dampened properly.
3) Actually, I'm uncertain whether the following final observation constitutes a flaw or a benefit. Along with the aforementioned shift of energy to the upper midrange I hear a large increase in the ambient field via NOS. While this greatly illuminates the upper midrange, and may even be what's responsible for creating the impression of there being more upper midrange energy in the first place, I'm not convinced it should be there. It's almost as if out of phase (inter-channel difference information) is being artificially added rather than being naturally revealed.
3) While the soundstage sounds deeper and more three-dimensional via NOS, it also sounds less wide. That may seem contradictory, but that is what I hear. The left to right spread of instrument placements was much wider with the FIR filter switched in, but was also much flatter in front to back depth and separation.
My Conclusion:
NOS DACs can provide outstanding overall musicality, aside from an apparent shift of energy out of the lower midrange, and a vaguely unfocused quality.. An anti-SINC equalizer to counter the zeroth-order hold based in-band treble roll-off when if utilizing an R2R ladder type DAC chip also benefits tonality.
OCTOBER 4, 2010:
....Regarding the tonal energy shift which I described. It may just be that there is not an actual energy deficit in the lower midrange, maybe I'm just perceiving an excess in the upper midrange. Such perceived tonal energy aberrations can be difficult to isolate - do I hear a deficiency in the lower midrange creating the impression of an excess in the upper midrange, or do I hear an excess in the upper midrange creating the impression of a deficit in the lower, or some combination of the two? Or, perhaps, as I indicated as another possibility, I'm perceiving the expansion of the ambient field via NOS as disproportionately illuminating the upper midrange, thereby giving the impression of greater energy there and a relative deficiency in the lower midrange.
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 06/03/14
Well my experience so far with NOS DACs is only at the upper end of the price range (auditioning not purchasing that is) and they are very analog as you say but I didn't listen long enough to get the weaknesses as clearly as you have pointed out.
THat being said I have found that ladder DACs with a proper 8x oversampling digital filter and very well designed analog output stage can also sound very analog and lifelike and lacking the synthetic feel of most so-called "high end" DACs.
For reference, I am talking about the Monarchy Audio M24 DAC that uses the BurrBrown PCM63K 20bit ladder DAC with the BB DF1704, passive I/V conversion and an SRPP tube output stage. Resolved, dynamic, and organic.
I also have a Kinergetics Research KCD-55 Ultra that used 2 of the famous UltraAnalog 20bit DAC modules. Also with a Sony 8x oversampling filter and all discrete solid state output stage. Not quite as organic as the Monarchy but even better resolution and very natural tone and world class imaging and soundstaging. Very solid and tuneful bass as well.
Am finding this with my new Lite Audio system too. Most impressed with their implementation of the DAC-83.
big j.
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
"...THat being said I have found that ladder DACs with a proper 8x oversampling digital filter and very well designed analog output stage can also sound very analog and lifelike and lacking the synthetic feel of most so-called "high end" DACs..."Yes, and, not only via high native resolution oversampled ladder DACs, but also via low native resolution delta-sigma DACs, I've found. That's the great news, digital didn't kill the music after all. It's only been hiding it beneath many implementation details, including some which otherwise would seem quite trivial.
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 06/06/14 06/06/14 06/06/14 06/06/14
Thanks for sharing your observations. While I agree with some of your conclusions, have to demur on some others.Case in point is the sound stage. The digital playback I've heard that has both the widest and deepest sound-stage is from a Electrocompaniet ECC-1 player. It provides a significantly richer/fuller overall sound compared to NOS DACs, and the stage is both wider and deeper. However, the imaging seems more precise with the NOS DACs. There is more space around the instruments with the NOS DACs, but it (the sound) can seem a bit threadbare compared to a player like ECC-1.
If one could combine the best traits of both approaches, one could retire all vinyl playback rigs. :-)
"What this country needs is a good 5 watt amplifier!" (Paul Klipsch)
Edits: 06/04/14
to explain why it sounds better. This DAC from AN however still used an Analog filter. Still it's close enough for this discussion.
It was a well done review.
Yes, the reviewer highlights some of the well known technical differences between NOS and OS. However, drawing conclusions about how those technical differences alter the subjective character of the sound amounts to mere supposition.Some believe that linear phase digital SINC filter pre-ringing is the reason for the difference in sound character between NOS and OS, while others believe that it is because OS magnifies the affect of conversion jitter, while yet others believe that it's due to the presence of ultrasonic alias images with NOS. I've even read an theory which holds that NOS provides additional, though unintended, dithering to the the D/A unit. Many theories, but no proven conclusions, to my knowledge.
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 06/03/14
I suppose that's true of most things in audio. Trying to prove that A is better than B is a difficult task when you can put 20 engineers in a room and say here is $20,000 build me what you think is the best sounding loudspeaker and you get 20 completely different products. ESL, Active, Ribbon, line array, open baffle, T-Line etc etc etc.
At some point virtually all of them (that bother to listen not just read graphs) will "make a call" on how the thing sounds and if the superior sound comes from something detrimental to the measured result then a decision is made. At Audio Note the decision is made on the sound. Many companies may make the decision based on a future soundstage or Stereophile review measurements and or which one makes them the most profit margin. Knowing that good measurements is the only way to get a class A designation = more sales they may opt for the better graph over what they actually hear.
I suppose we're left with blind level matched preference based tests. Stick 30 classically trained musicians in a room and see how many choose the NOS versus the "jitter to zero at all costs" units. But even this doesn;t prove much - if it is 16/14 or even 29/1 there is still the chance you'd agree with the 1.
Having recorded professional musicians for over 20 years they are notorious to have very different ideas as to what is good sound. After all they are used to the sound behind there instrument or from within the orchestra. As an audio engineer I usually took a musicians comments about sound with a grain of salt unless he was paying the bill. Heifits once told an engineer I don't care what I sound like but I better be louder than the orchestra.
Alan
My late musician wife refused to help me audition amplifiers some years ago when I had several on loan for in-house evaluation. She said that she could sometimes hear differences, but didn't care. She told me that she was listening to what the musicians were thinking while playing, not the sound that came out of my speakers. (I know she did listen attentively; she once memorized an entire Schubert sonata by listening to an LP that I played twice.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
As other musicians may also attest, I recognise this description so well - listening to what musicians were 'thinking'. Very, very few systems seem capable of suggesting this, no matter how esoteric they sound.
The last system that gave me a sense of this was a complete 47 Labs system. Another, was a non-descript Marantz SACD surround-sound system set up by Ken Ishiwata himself at a UK hi-fi show with some very modest speakers. Still another was one set up by Kevin Scott (such that everyone was compelled to stand and clap at the end of a CD performance). And these still stand out.
My present systems often fool me into thinking the instruments are there. But rarely the musicians themselves, and their intent.
big j.
"... only a very few individuals understand as yet that personal salvation is a contradiction in terms."
"It seems that whether an audiophile will prefer NOS over OS or not, depends upon the kind of subjective faults that audiophile finds the more annoying. Rather than one approach always being subjectively superior to the other."
Hmmm, I think you've just summed up audiophilia in a nutshell. Perfection isn't possible in a spatially undersampled system even if perfect capture and reproduction existed. However I do think there are some things that are universally trying such as crossover distortion and dragging voice-coils. There are levels of "unnaturalness" and as you say, our tolerance varies.
I'm coming to believe that Stereo itself was a mistake. Mono is a clean capture of that which it does then I'd say binaural, surround, stereo. Given the current popularity of "personal audio" I'd opt for binaural especially since I think it works fine in a stereo set-up.
Ultimately it is indeed in the ear of the listener but the GIGO principle is an unavoidable no matter how much loot is poured into the reproducer.
Regards, Rick
You may be onto something. We all have subjective preferences with regard to sound. For example, I find well made tube amps to sound closer to my expectations for sound reproduction than solid state. They have a mid-range presence that no solid state amp can quite achieve. Not everyone would agree, hence the preferences.
Within solid state, I find most class D amps are sorely lacking in midrange presence compared to well made class a a/b amps. The one exception I've heard is the Yamaha MX-D1, which sounds great, especially for class D. It is a special, one of a kind high end unit, which in part explains its outstanding performance.
Getting back to the DAC's the NOS DAC's I've heard just seem to sound more natural than the OS DAC's (in general). The waveforms when looking at the signals from the O-Scope conform that they are different.
The Cosine DAC has a single S/PIDF input (no USB).
"What this country needs is a good 5 watt amplifier!" (Paul Klipsch)
A few audio component designers, i.e. the ones with the power to call the shots in their organizations, strive for the the "good" sound that many music lovers can really appreciate while other engineers strive to design a component that their corporate employers can brag about, i.e. featuring the kind of printed specs that the measurement whores in the magazines and the mass media just love to crow about.
Horses for courses, as they say.
Cheers,
Al
Distortion specs: Who looks at those anymore?? I certainly don't. I think even ordinary people just buy a box nowadays and don't pay attention to the specs. Output power is still looked at, but maybe only by audiophiles and auto shakers ;-)
.
About the newer DACs having hyper-detail. I think that is great.
So far, I can determine some characteristics that are desirable in a DAC:
1. Detailed sound.
2. Rich sound.
3. Good timing.
4. Good bottom end.
5. Good interface.
Are they related? I don't know. I think the older audiophile DACs had the 'rich sound'. But, I wouldn't give up good timing for anything, that the newer DACs seem to have. Whether the other items follow or lead from that, I don't know.
Did the older DACs have that rich sound for the sake of it? Or did they maybe have a touch of warmth added to offset the occaisional brightness of early digital recordings? Taking it a bit further... now that digital recording has somewhat come of age, compensation on playback is no longer necessary.
In the bedroom rig I have the first Resolution Audio product. I recall it was their Masters thesis while at MIT. It has the UltraAnalogue DAC chip in it. It provides excellent sound for a 20 something year old DAC.
I also have a 20 year old DAC with the UltraAnalog DAC chips in it. Sounds very good indeed and quite musical
This is exactly what I don;t want in a DAC. I actually didn't like any of the initial tube CD players on the market because they all seemed to me to be distortion generators (in fact I didn;t like many of the tube amps I heard either and still don;t care for a number of them). They MIGHT help a system with bright speakers I suppose but the problem is adding "warmth" or adding a softness will effect every recording.
Now sure I might take this over a lot of gear that is ear bleedingly bright and which also doesn;t seem to go away regardless of recording but I'd prefer the discs to be presented as is - the system that will sound bright with bright recordings and mush with mush recordings and will present a soundstage THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS big when it's on the disc and "tis" big when that is the way it was recorded.
There is a difference to me with properly executed tube gear (ie new tube amplifiers from good manufacturers) where the tube isn;t being used as a mushing distortion buffer and one that is actively engaged in the circuit.
A good SET amp will be dead quiet, will have pin drop fast bass and treble extension of a SS amplifier - what it doesn't do is sound gritty and grainy and "processed" and "fake" and "thin" and lacks a sens of the hall ambiance. I directly compared Bryston to an 8 watt Audio Note amp a decade ago ( I was a SS guy and ready to buy Bryston). I played classical music and listened to a Barber piece "Adagio for Strings" (better known as the theme from Platoon). The bass was deeper on the Audio Note for a start (better power supplies and transformers despite the blathering about watts). The treble extension was just as extended but the violin upper notes didn;t have any artificial "fuzz" surrounding the note. It is not evident if all you audition is SS and Bryston. It IS noticeable and very much so when you directly A/B the amplifiers. I want the note and only the note not the note with some sort of echofuzz crap along with it. It was "brighter" which to inexperienced ears may seem like "more treble" but in fact it is noise and the SET amp went just as high in frequency without the grunge.
And you could actually hear the hall - which you could not hear via the Bryston. Interestingly, you could hear it all better on the AN at a much lower volume level - with the Bryston you had to keep cranking the volume with the hopes that it would come through better.
So in spite of the fact that I was there to buy Bryston Separates with a 20 year warranty and good build and easy to sell later and 150 watts per channel and raved about press and excellent measured response and (that I'm Canadian) I elected to buy an 8 watt tube integrated amp with average build quality with only 1 year warranty from a no name company (to me back then). And I play trance, techno, pop, hard rock, metal, as well.
The same comparison with the AN K/SPE versus Paradigm's best standmount and B&W's 805 followed. The supposed superiority of metal drivers and tweeter on top both just blared "metal tweeter over here" at me. Again noise in the treble (break-up) and the K just frankly embarrassed the hell out of them on acoustic instruments like the piano. Halfway through Moonlight Sonata and those speakers dropped off the list instantly.
But I have also heard the mushy distortion boxes over the years and not been impressed. The Ack! - meh, older tube amps from Copland - blegh and the ST70 eesh WTF? I bought the Solid State Rotel preamp 1585 or whatever over the ARC SP(something) tube preamp - eesh that preamp SUUUUUCKED - muddy has hell.
The big problem with tubes is the HUGE variance from one end of the spectrum to the other. Audio Note DAC's can sound shockingly Shrill - no one would ever call them "warm" (see above review). They are absolutely NOT the DAC to buy if you want to make a bright system sound warm. You could add a Rega Planet if you want that - and it is SS.
If you haven't heard a DAC with an UltraAnalog chipset then you haven't heard the best commercially available ladder DAC. It sounds really, really good. Very high resolution but with natural tone and great dynamics...really surprised me because I bought for a VERY reasonable price.
My experience does not support that theory. Regardless of the music I listen to with the NOS DAC, it just sounds very natural. Be it a symphony, a piano sonata, classical guitar, Miles Davis jazz, blues, rock, etc, the NOS DAC delivers a natural playback that is very much like a high end analog master recording.
On a very few DVD Audio/SACD recordings, a slight improvement in some areas of music reproduction is noted with the SABRE 9018 DAC’s, but even that is subject to debate.
Makes one wonder why most DAC manufactures use oversampling (low cost?). I did read on one of the university websites that to make a proper DAC and filter, there is some cost involved, and oversampling was a cheap method to work around the non-linearity issues encountered when designing a DAC.
"What this country needs is a good 5 watt amplifier!" (Paul Klipsch)
Not only is an digital anti-image interpolation filter (oversampling, as it's often simply called) less costly than an analog anti-image filter, it performs much better as well.
_
Ken Newton
That the cheaper oversampling DAC chips are a form of "mild" fraud.
Regarding the Metrums, I suspect what you may gain over yours is dynamics and resolution, I'm not sure. But I do love my Octave.
I think that R2R is part of the cost of the properly made DAC chips also.
Well, the Wavelength, IIRC, sold for about $3000 new, ten years ago or so (hardly vintage, though it uses some older technologies)
That's about $5000 in today's dollars. If you can't get a good sounding DAC for $5000, there's something wrong with the world.
But seriously, 95% of the products out there are mass produced for an audience who can't afford much more than a few hundred for a DAC, outboard or not.
It all has to do with filtering, input sample rate handling, oversampling, and the need to be compatible, the need to be mass produced, etc.
It is very difficult to get a DAC sounding right when it has to accept every input stream, every input sample rate, be under $1000, etc.
These days a DAC has to be an input switcher, a headphone amp, a preamp, blah blah, and if it doesn't have these features, won't sell because the competition has those features, etc.
The Wavelength has only USB input, IIRC. It uses proprietary coding on the USB input, I think. The rest, the tubes, transformers, power supply, etc., are not designed to be mass produced. Very few bother to spend so much on a DAC alone. The nonoversampling itself is only a small part of the solution. You can get a oversampling DAC to sound that good too, if you use all that nice hardware and get it right at the analog output stage.
Still, your question is a good one. The industry is too busy trying to solve every problem at once and make swiss army knife products at low prices, to get stuff really sounding good. AND the big companies have to keep changing formats to keep up with patent expirations. So HDMI, BlueRay, SACD/DSD, blah blah, none of which inherently improves sound.
Sony could have made a great sounding external DAC if it wanted to, but they're not interested in splitting up the digital signal chain because it allows the competitors to copy everything. They're also arguably not interested in really good digital sound, so that you go out and buy the latest and greatest in the hope of getting something good, only to be disappointed. That's what keeps audiophiles going in the marketplace, for better or for worse.
But seriously, one can buy a universal DVDCDSACDBluRay player for less than a $100. It'll output all formats to your TV and stereo system. But you didn't really expect that machine to sound exceptional, do you? There are limits. Think about all that technology, more than was able to be dreamed about 40 years ago, in one little box for that little money. All I can say is, it's a loss leader. And we pay for the loss every time we 'upgrade' to something 'better'
Cheers
new batteries and use some nice vintage oil caps ,plugged in an old proceed transport straight to an diy 2a3 amp
even those early eighties electro music sounds great
i now use small mike opt from the outputs of cd players it does take the edge off
i regret selling my wavelength cosine
I have the cheap, HRT MusicStreamer II+ and I think it's awesome.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Humility is the true mark of genius. Just get used to it."
-Anonymous
Whether or not you're going to prefer a NOS DAC is going to be dependent on the genres
of music you spend the most time listening to.
What sound characteristerics work well for some types of music ( & recording enviorments)
"gloss over" some of the recorded elements of other types of music.
I disagree w/ having a different system for different music types. I listen to all types of music and enjoy them all on my Metrum.
At T. H. E. show this weekend, I think that there was one OS DAC that I liked the sound of, but it cost $13k as I recall (Macintosh).
It comes down to whatever gets you there. The problem with computer audio somewhat is that audio is now becoming an instant disposable commodity. The music is bit files floating on the net to hard drives but like buying laptops or Cell phones rather than actually listening to "sound quality" we are instead reading numbers the same way we read processing speeds when deciding which laptop to buy.
Of course we want out laptop to operate faster or "perhaps" have the new GUI interface but having a chip with a higher resolution chip in audio is less relevant.
I have long auditioned (and reviewed) Audio Note CD player/DACs which in their lower models also use the 1543 chip and basically the idea behind the whole thing (and most every product Audio Note puts out) is to not create a problem that has to be fixed later.
They design stuff in attempt to do as little damage or interference of the initial signal as is possible. Almost all current technology uses various forms of error correction (negative feedback) to fix something that their design created in the first place (usually because they use cheap parts and because they use cheap parts they then have to "design" an error correcting device to fix the problem. Then the error correction device creates 2-3 other problems and then they have to design error correcting devices to fix the error correcting devices.
NOS is simply a simpler approach and if you use good parts and you don;t have all the crap in the chain the interfere with the sound.
It's a reason that I have long been a fan of AN equipment in terms of sound quality and design because you can see the same approach to their loudspeakers, turntables, and amps. NOS is to make as direct a path from reading the disc to output. The amps being SET typically are the simplest most straightforward processes - (no feedback = error correction) to turntables which don't try to dampen the sound, to speakers that try to release energy as fast as possible without storing sound to linger. The overall result when set-up properly in a good room is astonishing clarity vibrancy and live feel.
The only problem is that it's difficult to afford so you do the best you can with affordable alternatives.
Your DAC doesn't surprise me = plenty of others here rave about various NOS DACs. They create a sense of easy, a bigger sense of ambiance (a sense that you're hearing the hall) where as most digital seems to define the outline attack of a note it seems conspicuously absent of the rest.
I do believe you can get good sound with alternatives - (I have one) and it does make computer audio listenable on long sessions so you can get there. Still after auditioning good Computer Audio DACs from Ayre, Bel Canto, dCS, MSB, Lindemann, Classe, and Bryston - I go back to the Audio Note DAC 3.1.
Wavelength makes a Computer Audio DAC and so you may want to give it a try - When NOS makers do it they probably wish to create something that actually sounds right rather than JUST win Stereophile bench test measurements.
My understanding is that the audio note dacs use the AD1865N DAC chip from the 1.1 to the 5 signature
Alan
They use the TDA 1543 in their level 2 and lower CD players. (you are right it appears they use the 1865 in their DACs and the 1543 in their lower priced one box players.
Audio Note is pretty good at telling you what they use in all their products - the chips, caps, resisters, transformer winding materials transport mechanisms as well as who they took from (Snell, SystemdeK, Rega) etc when or where they took stuff and what they did to it to make it better.
Now that you say this I may rethink the 3.1 DAC - I thought it was the 3.1 level and up that use the 1865N chip and now see the 1.1 and 2.1 DAC also use it.
Still the 3.1 uses a much better output IHiB C core transformer and much better parts. Plus I've recently heard it here in HK so unless something comes along that betters it (playing music and not just on a test bench screen) then it's the ugly baby I want.
I have the 2.1 and love it but I am sure the 3.1 is even better. What made a major upgrade in performance is when I found a used Audio note transport. They are expensive but really make a difference. I was previously using my Sony 5400 as a transport but the AN is much better
Alan
"They design stuff in attempt to do as little damage or interference of the initial signal as is possible."
This is a good design principle when it is applicable. To apply this principle you have to know what the original signal is, so you can compare your output with the input. Unfortunately, in a sampled system such as digital audio you can not know what the original signal was, since you have only a sample of the input.
In some cases it is not hard to make a guess as to what the input signal was before it was sampled. In those cases, it is easy to see that the NOS approach (with no analog filtering) does not produce an output that is anywhere close to the input. In these cases there is no doubt that the original signal was damaged.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
" Unfortunately, in a sampled system such as digital audio you can not know what the original signal was"You can by listening. And Audio Note's design principals (via listening) is their "Comparison by Contrast" method which was written by classical composer music reviewer Leonard Norwitz and Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note to indeed figure out what was on the original recording by noting that all recordings sound different from each other. Contrast is the ability of a system to contrast those recorded differences - the system that has the highest level of contrast is the system that is being far more truthful to the original discs. (or at least has a fighting chance of accuracy).
Alternatively any system that makes difference recording sound pretty much the same is a system of low contrast and has no shot at being accurate. Which is why I am not a fan of a number of speakers where when I put in a Lady Gaga album or a classical album or a rock album I get a washed out flat presentation then that tweeter or driver while it may be "clear" and it may sound very pleasing to the ear (and may even have less distortion) is not at all accurate compared to speaker B that makes those three sound radically different from each other (even with more distortion).
These debates never go anywhere. The guys who knock NOS makers like Audio Note will say "I have 15 years of digital experience) - yes well Audio Note had HP's head technical guru (with 30 years in digital training) and Voyd Reference turntable designer (and founding owner) Guy Adams helping design AN DACs and turntables as well as the founder and designer of Sonic Frontiers who were at the forefront of tube CD replay as well as their own engineers. So they have 30 years in digital on multiple fronts in their stable. Versus "some guy" on a forum.Kondo-San who founded Audio Note headed the microphone division at SONY. So when "some guy" with zilch credentials or back-up calls out Audio Note I sometimes wonder.
Edits: 06/01/14
" 'Unfortunately, in a sampled system such as digital audio you can not know what the original signal was'
You can by listening. And Audio Note's design principals (via listening) is their "Comparison by Contrast" method which was written by classical composer music reviewer Leonard Norwitz and Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note to indeed figure out what was on the original recording by noting that all recordings sound different from each other. Contrast is the ability of a system to contrast those recorded differences - the system that has the highest level of contrast is the system that is being far more truthful to the original discs. (or at least has a fighting chance of accuracy)."
This is complete BS. One may imagine what one hoped the original might have sounded like, but if the record producers and engineers put something different on the disk then you'd better hear this. If you don't you might as well blame your CD player when the artwork says "Beethoven" and you hear "Beatles". As to the "contrast" principle, this is also a bogus concept. One will automatically hear more differences by turning up the volume to unnatural levels, but the ability to do does not mean that the resulting reproduction will be more realistic, more pleasant, or even safe to hear.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
If you didn't understand that article then I can't help you - it is very easy to follow and logically sound and has nothing to do with touching the volume control - in fact it would be advisable to NOT touch the volume control.
"An Ideal Audio System Should Re-Create
An Exact Acoustical Analog Of The Recorded Program
If so, then it would be very useful if we had meaningful knowledge of exactly what is encoded on our recordings. Unfortunately, such is not possible. (This assertion may appear casually stated, but on its truth depends much if the following argument; we therefore invite the closest possible scrutiny.)
Even if we were present at every recording session, we would have no way of interpreting the electrical information which feeds through the microphones to the master tape--let alone to the resulting CD or LP -- into a sensory experience against which we could evaluate a given audio system. Even if we were present at playback sessions through the engineer's monitoring (read: "presumed reference") system, we would be unable to transfer that experience to any other system evaluation. And even if we could hold the impression of that monitoring experience in our minds and account for venue variables such knowledge would turn out to be irrelevant in determining system or component accuracy since the monitoring equipment could not have been accurate in the first place. (More about this shortly.) But if this is true, how can we properly evaluate the relative accuracy of any playback system or component?
The Old Method:
Comparison By Reference
We should begin by examining the method in current favor: The usual procedure is to use one or more favored recording and playing slices of them on two different systems (or the same system alternating two components, which amounts to the same thing); and then deciding which system (or component) you like better, or which one more closely matches your belief about some internalized reference, or which one "tells you more" about the music on the recording.
It won't work! ... not even if you use a dozen recordings of presumed pedigree ... not even if you compare for stage size, frequency range, transient response tonal correctness, instrument placement, clarity of text, etc. -- not even if you compare your memory of you emotional response with one system to that of another -- It makes little difference. The practical result will be the same: What you will learn is which system (or component) more closely matches your prejudice about the way a given recording ought to sound. And since neither the recordings nor the components we use are accurate to begin with, then this method cannot tell us which system is more accurate! It is methodological treason to evaluate something for accuracy against a reference with tools which are inaccurate -- not least of which is our memory of acoustical data.
Therefore it is very-likely-to-the-point-of-certainty that a positive response to a system using this method is the result of a pleasing complimentarily between recording playback system, experience, memory, and expectation; all of which is very unlikely to be duplicated due to the extraordinarily wide variation which exists in recording method and manufacture. (Ask yourself, when you come across a component of system which plays many of your "reference" recordings well, if it also plays all your recordings well. The answer is probably "no;" and the explanation we usually offer puts the blame on the other recordings, not the playback system. And, no, we're not going to argue that all recordings are good; but that all recordings are much better than you have let yourself believe.)
Recognizing that many will consider these statements as audiophile heresy; we urge you to keep in mind our mutual objective: to prevent boredom and frustration, and to keep our interest in upgrading our playback system enjoyable and on track. To this end it becomes necessary that we lay aside our need to have verified in our methodology beliefs about the way our recordings and playback systems ought to sound. As we shall see, marriage to such beliefs practically guarantees us passage to AUDIO HELL. It is our contention that, while nothing in the recording or playback chain is accurate, accuracy is the only worthwhile objective; for when playback is as accurate as possible, the chances for maximum recovery of the recorded program is greatest; and when we have as much of that recording to hand -- or to ear -- then we have the greatest chance for an intimate experience with the recorded performance. It only remains to describe a methodology which improves that likelihood. (This follows shortly.)
Listeners claiming an inside track by virtue of having attended the recording session are really responding to other, perhaps unconscious, clues when they report significant similarities between recording session and playback. As previously asserted, no one can possibly know in any meaningful way what is on the master tape or the resulting software, even if they auditioned the playback through the engineer's "reference" monitoring system.
Anyone who thinks that there exists some "reference" playback system that sounds just like the live event simply isn't paying attention: or at best doesn't understand how magic works. After all, if it weren't for the power of suggestion, hi fi would have been denounced decades ago as a fraud. Remember those experiments put on by various hi fi promoters in the fifties in which most of the audience "thought" they were listening to a live performance until the drawing of the curtain revealed the Wizard up to his usual tricks. The truth is the audience "thought" no such thing; they merely went along for the ride without giving what they were hearing any critical thought at all.
It is the nature of our psychology to believe what we see and to "hear" what we expect to hear. Only cynics and paranoids point out fallibility when everyone else is having a good time.
Another relevant misunderstanding involves the correct function of "monitoring equipment." The purpose of such equipment is to get an idea of how whatever is being recorded will play back on a known system and then to make adjustments in recording procedure. It should never be understood by either the recording producer or the buyer that the monitoring system is either definitive or accurate, even though the engineer makes all sorts of placement and equipment decisions based on what their monitoring playback reveals. They have to use something, after all, and the best recording companies go to great lengths to make use of monitoring equipment that tells them as much as possible about what they are doing. But no matter what monitoring components are used, they can never be the last word on the subject, and it is entirely possible to achieve more realistic results with a totally different playback system, for example a more accurate one. Notice "more accurate," not accurate. It bears repeating that there is no such thing as an accurate system, nor an accurate component, nor an accurate recording. Yet as axiomatic as any audiophile believes these assertions to be, they are instantly forgotten the moment we begin a critical audition."
Continued
TL;DR.
That was all I really needed to say, but for one sentence that is worth quoting and translating into language that idiots can understand.
"Recognizing that many will consider these statements as audiophile heresy; we urge you to keep in mind our mutual objective: to prevent boredom and frustration, and to keep our interest in upgrading our playback system enjoyable and on track. "
For those who don't have a brain, let me translate the emphasized phrase, "So we can collect more of your money into our pockets".
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Once again I will have to partially (at least) disagree with you. I think that comparison by contrast has some validity in the sense that it can help you detect subtle things that are going on between components. I don't think as Peter Q does that it can help you find the absolute best sounding component...this can only be with regard to an absolute reference or the closest thing to that a recording made by the evaluator in real space with one or more real instruments...not an easy task. Comparison by contrast might get you to the best sound in a small group of comparison units though.
WHile I do not condone the high prices for some of their gear, I must admit that their top products sound the business. With simple circuits, parts selection really does become critical. With complex circuits they will never give realistic sound regardless of the parts.
I have had a similar experience with my Monarchy M24 DAC, a non-oversampling DAC which uses the Burr-Brown PCM-63K converter. I don't have much experience with more modern DACs or CD/SACD players but, whenever I have made the comparison, I always prefer the M24. The modern machines do provide more detail but they are just not as pleasant to listen to as the M24.
Terry
I have some Audio note stuff . Also uses nos dac and tube output. I also have a Mytek dac that does up to DSD but I prefer the sound of the audiomote playing redbook over any downloads to the Mytek. I think the lack of filtering and no up or over sampling has a lot to do with the analog like sound but also the tube outputs also contribute to ther sound
Alan
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