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In Reply to: RE: No problem at all... posted by Ivan303 on August 30, 2015 at 20:20:09
These days, they all seem to measure well. How is a poor consumer able to tell the contenders from the pretenders?
JE
Follow Ups:
By listening. Also if you have a price range ask us and we will give our collective experiences sure to totally confuse you.
Alan
"we will give our collective experiences sure to totally confuse you"
True enough!
I've just noticed that the "differences" between modern CD players or DACs seem to be far subtler than the differences between different brands of phono cartridges.
JE
I have had several different dacs over the last few years and I have referred the differences to the differences in cartridges.
I have heard and owned 5 different dacs and they all had a definite signature sound
Alan
to Benchmark's latest and can't hear a difference then...
Whatever OPPO currently uses in their better products sure is more aggressive than the way Marantz goes about things, even in their 'mid-fi' lineup.
Then there is all of this new Chinese stuff, AudioGD and Lite Audio (I use one of their kit based pre-amps based on the 6SN7) which use hard-to-find, discontinued chips.
If I can manage to put together some decent work space and find all of my DIY crap in the storage room, I'd like to give one of the higher end ANK(Audio Note Kits) DAC a go. Heard one a few years ago mated to a Chinese top loading CD transport and it was a revelation.
I had an Audio Note CDII and my current Audio-GD Master 7 is simply better in every way you would compare dacs and I loved the Audio Note. The Metrum Hex is also a very good dac. The best cheap dac I own is the Teradac Chamelion at I think $580 with shipping. You will notice all these dacs are R2R Ladder dacs. I am sold on this technology
Alan
Perhaps some of these DACs are "voiced" to be more pleasing than accurate?
JE
DACs differ in sound for many reasons. The DAC processor, filter / filters, power supply, analog circuits, and on and on. How these variables are dealt with result in the voicing you are referring to.
It makes me wonder how much unit to unit variation there is between supposedly identical models. Could this explain why some folks like one model while others dislike the same one?
Do you think manufacturers might cherry pick units to provide to reviewers?
JE
My ears don't care much for digital to begin with, but the good news is that this changes with age so I'm not as sensitive to bad digital sound as I once was. Not being able to hear much above 10k helps, I guess.
20 minutes with a Benchmark DAC and I'd be confessing to just about any crime you could imagine.
Truth be told, DACs are getting better, I think. I can spend a day or two at an audio show now without running out most rooms screaming.
Still prefer vinyl but that's just me.
Oooh! That sounds expensive! Unless you've got a nearby shop (do they exist anymore?) with a very liberal return policy (an even narrower category of retailer).
At this point aren't we basically arguing over "flavors" of sound? Frequency response is for the most part ruler flat, distortion is negligible, obvious "wow and flutter" has been replaced by much more subtle "jitter." Again, we are arguing over such tiny variations from "correct," how is a consumer to know which product to pick? What if I prefer a "garage band" sound and you prefer a "string quartet" sound? Do we need to buy different DACs as a result?
For all the audiophile angst over digital as compared to vinyl, are there any papers or demonstrations that vinyl is somehow more musical than digital?
JE
Amen
Bill
Of course we then get into a discussion as to what do we mean by musical. I love both my vinyl setup and my digital setup. Both are very musical. I am convinced that R2R Ladder dacs can be as musical as vinyl. Vinyl and digital do sound different but I can enjoy both
Alan
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