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In Reply to: RE: Are`DACs with the ESS Sabre the best DACs? posted by jseverino50 on March 17, 2012 at 08:49:25
You will get many different answers which might start the usually war, but the honest answer IMO is clearly yes.
If you look at many of the good major and minor DAC manufactures out there the to chip of choice seems to be the ESS. There must be a reason...
People can spin things, and add lots of superfluous info, but the simple answer to you question again is yes.
People love to talk, but often say very little of substance. Of course you need a good output stage and a good power supply, this is a given. But you really do not need 144 xyz regulators to get good sound.
Will you get bad sound from a DAC if the associated circuitry is poor, of course. As with any equipment. But this is a moot point. Manufactures are not going out of their way to build bad products! There is always something better out there, and more costly. But there are a number of really good choices too.
I built the Buffalo which is very good, but at this point I would not recommend going that route. I own a Mini Max Plus which is a very good DAC. With a bit of upgrading IMO it is a killer. The W4S is also a great DAC! TAS gave it a super review. Lots of inmates own it and love it.
The Mytek 192 look like it might even be better from what people are starting to say. The I/O and feature set is really amazing, and it has been reported to sound really great. You did not mention price, but theses are all well under $2,000.
You then go up in price... Plenty of DACS out there! There is allot of really good stuff IMO and probably more coming out as we speak.
Follow Ups:
Not really...AKM, Cirrus Logic, Burr Brown and Wolfson are still pre-eminant in the high end players. Implementation is everything. I had a ML No. 39 back in the mid 90's that would still outperform most digital offerings today because it was built by very smart people who "listened in" their products. For example, the Oppo 95 is extremely a-musical to my ears and it has ESS Sabre DAC's....the name sounds cool, but the results are mid fi:O)
dave_b
"Not really...AKM, Cirrus Logic, Burr Brown and Wolfson are still pre-eminant in the high end players."
Yes you will find all manufactures covered.
I was actually focusing more on stand alone DACs in my comments as that is what I currently use connected to a computer via USB, or to a Squeeze Box Touch with coax.
" Implementation is everything. "
Yes it is important.
"For example, the Oppo 95 is extremely a-musical to my ears and it has ESS Sabre DAC's....the name sounds cool, but the results are mid fi:O)"
Well I have not heard it but I believe EVS does an upgrade which vastly improves the Oppo.
My preference for the most part is better information retrieval. So far I prefer the ESS. (but nothing is carved in stone) But IMO and depending on one's system,source material and listening preferences sometimes too much can sound worse.
I also previously owned a NOS DAC which I enjoyed very much.
People tend to take this way to seriously...
I think your examples make the case for me:O) Cheers!
dave_b
Quote - "If you look at many of the good major and minor DAC manufactures out there the to chip of choice seems to be the ESS. There must be a reason..."
You really need to do some more research...
If you look at most companies flagship DAC's and CD players you most often find the Burr Brown PCM1704...and if the PCM1702 was still in production I'm certain you'd find that chip just as often.
Feel free to post back after you've done some real research...but the ESS is not the "chip of choice".
See my post above re: these old chips which won't decode 24/176.4 or 24/192 files. Don't you think you should at least propose comparing to a newer BB chip design?
Just not at 8x oversampling. You could feed it 4x oversampled data from the digital filter since it can run at over 24MHz bit clock, which is the 96K sample rate with 8x oversampling. Or better yet, get rid of the digital filter at the higher sample rates and feed it your 24/192 files directly, then it really starts to sound good. Some have been doing this for many years now.
What about Ladder DACs, where do they fit in the scheme of things (MSB, TotalDAC, etc.)?
Also, the new DEQX HDP-4 is supposed to use a 32-bit Burr-Brown DAC (not sure of the specific model).
The Burr Brown PCM1702 and PCM1704 are ladder DACs.
"If you look at most companies flagship DAC's and CD players you most often find the Burr Brown PCM1704...and if the PCM1702 was still in production I'm certain you'd find that chip just as often."
Well you are entitled to an opinion. I would think Burr Brown has a very large or maybe the largest market share, but this fact does not make it the best sounding. There is nothing wrong with BB! I sill think the BB OPA627 is one of the best sounding op-amp available.
To my ears the ESS implementations are better? Although I have not heard every DAC. Have you? My take on the question was: Should he go with ESS, is it the best sounding?
IMO, and many others it is... Have you listened and compared? If so, please give us some listening impressions?
As to manufactures, I would rather not start listing all the manufactures, it is not really a numbers thing,,, And cost consideration also come into play.
I think the conservation is about sound.
If you like...
Check out http://www.computeraudiophile.com
Bob,I've been following this thread and feel compelled to interject here. Earlier in the thread you wrote this: "If you look at many of the good major and minor DAC manufactures out there the to chip of choice seems to be the ESS. There must be a reason..." Now, you write this: "I would think Burr Brown has a very large or maybe the largest market share, but this fact does not make it the best sounding." It seems that you are trying to have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand cite the popular use of the ESS DACs as evidence for their superiority, then deny the same such evidence when someone cites the greater popularity of the Burr-Brown DACs. Such anecdotal citations are, of course, specious either way.
It strikes me that you make an effort to belittle the comments of others in this thread. Perhaps, you are just trying to be provocative, but, so far, you have presented your own opinions as fact without anything approaching convincing substantiation, or even reasonable argument. That's fine by itself, we all often casually do that here. Your trouble begins when you then ridicule others for having their own such opinions. You appear to recognize the truth that having a strongly held opinion doesn't alone equate to being correct when others express theirs, but I wonder why you don't seem to recognize this same truth when you express your own?
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 03/20/12 03/20/12 03/20/12 03/20/12 03/20/12 03/20/12
"Earlier in the thread you wrote this: "If you look at many of the good major and minor DAC manufactures out there the to chip of choice seems to be the ESS. There must be a reason..." Now, you write this: "I would think Burr Brown has a very large or maybe the largest market share, but this fact does not make it the best sounding." It seems that you are trying to have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand cite the popular use of the ESS DACs as evidence for their superiority, then deny the same such evidence when someone cites the greater popularity of the Burr-Brown DACs. Such anecdotal citations are, of course, specious either way."Maybe I was not that clear. You have to remember the ESS is a relatively new chip. Again, I do not want to really get into manufactures, if you look you will see it being chosen as the top chip of certain lines. Things are always changing BB has a newer DAC.
"It strikes me that you make an effort to belittle the comments of others in this thread. Perhaps, you are just trying to be provocative, but, so far, you have presented your own opinions as fact without anything approaching convincing substantiation, or even reasonable argument. "
I presented my opinions as opinions. and you are just trying to be provocative. LOL
"That's fine by itself, we all often casually do that here. Your trouble begins when you then ridicule others for having their own such opinions. "Ridicule???? lol
Thanks for the laugh...
Edits: 03/20/12
It's little surprise, unfortunately, that you would claim to find humor when someone simply points out your rather silly behavior. My children used to do that too. I suppose it was expecting too much, that you would take my mild constructive feedback like an adult.
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 03/20/12
nt
Maybe so, but they were not as smart as THEY thought. I'll venture to guess that, neither are you.As for what I've added, you only need search my comment history here, and at diyAudio. Simple enough to do for yourself.
_
Ken Newton
Edits: 03/20/12 03/20/12
When my kids get out of line I just beat them with the DACs I am no longer using! Works every time as even they prefer the ESS...
regards
as is your inability to self evaluate.
Well, I just sold my Mac MCD500, right here on AA in fact.
You can find my posts regarding my experience with the MCD1100...really liked it but the differences between it and the MCD500 did not justify the price differential.
Very recently I had the Wyred 4 Sound dac-2 in my home being fed by a heavily modded VRDS-25, very nice sounding, not in the same league as the Mac, but very nice.
Here's the catch - had the Lessloss dac in the house for a few days while the Wyred was here...um...no comparison. If you're in this hobby for music, the PCM1704 and PCM1702 multibit dacs are just too special to ignore.
If we're going to debate gear and that's what it's about for you, then the point will be for nothing...if we're going to talk about music being reproduced by gear and which gear does that the best, then I would strongly suggest you invest some time in hearing a number of dacs and players with the chips I've mentioned.
Find yourself a Denon DCD-S10 MKII...and just listen!!!
"If we're going to debate gear and that's what it's about for you, then the point will be for nothing..."
Trust me, this is one of the last things on my mind.
"if we're going to talk about music being reproduced by gear and which gear does that the best, then I would strongly suggest you invest some time in hearing a number of dacs and players with the chips I've mentioned."
I have owned and still own some, and I now have what I feel is the best sound in my system. That is all that matters. My main intent is to enjoy listening. I was not unhappy with previous DACs, just find the ESS and the computer set up I have now better to my ears.
The research is in a my ears say Ess Sabre via an Oppo stock 95! Flat out a sweet dac!
That doesn't mean that they sound better. I don't care that they cost more. I use a Modright tube modded Oppo 95 and it kills the Playback Designs CD Player. I like it better than the esoteric, have not heard the K series.
''People love to talk, but often say very little of substance''.
of many of your many posts.
You are just so sad... The guy asks about the ESS chip and you tell him he needs 7 power supplies. You are a real help...smh
lack of comprehension of what has been said
"lack of comprehension of what has been said"
Really... Well let's see... The question was bascily, should I get an ESS DAC?
David spoke about his experiences with the Buffalo, and his recomindation about the best he has so far. Below your response...
"that the quality of power supplies make a big difference; I have seven ALW-Jung super regulators on mine, all hand tested.
Also important are the analog stages. Balanced out is much better because it eliminates a mixer stage. The roll off freq point is also important and needs to be tailored to your rig."
How does this help the thread and answer the original posters question???
Do you like the ESS, dislike the ESS? How do they sound? Do they taste better with mustard, or mayo? Any real opinion... Anything???
PLEASE!!!!!!!!!! SMH...
Actually, most of the best dacs don't use the sabre. My personal favorites use Burr Brown. My favorites are the Arc Dac 8 and the Naim nDac. I had a Minimax here for a while and thought it was fine for the money, but spend more and you get more. I believe the Weiss's also use Burr Brown. I have also liked the sound of some Wolfson based days such as the PS Audio.
I am very curious about the Centrum Octave, which does not use a conventional dac chip at all... And it comes in about $1000.
Edits: 03/18/12
What LessLoss has to say:
Our empirical tests showed that these differences are indeed audible and that Burr-Brown's PCM 1704 is the very best converter chip in existence today. Earlier achievements in quality such as the legendary PCM63 have been bettered by the PCM 1704.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
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