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In Reply to: RE: So now you know more than Rob Watts? posted by Freo-1 on June 11, 2024 at 14:28:32
Your latest post seems to be a variety of the "argumentum ad verecundiam" fallacy.
And you STILL haven't clarified whether you believe you can hear the supposed "digital stair-steps" on non-Chord equipment. Why did you even bring up the subject then? I suspect it was because you were star-struck by their promo videos, which attempted to show that stair-steps were part of all digital playback, but that Chord had "refined" their approach SO much that their stair-steps were MUCH tinier and less audible. LOL!
And talk about declaring "absolute results":Headphone listening is much more revealing of DAC performance over standard loudspeaker playback."
Sez you - LOL! BTW, many years ago, I believed that myself - but I've now come to see the error of my old ways! (Well, for one thing, it depends on which headphones and which speakers, doesn't it?)
Follow Ups:
Guess you are having trouble grasping the engineering behind the advancement in DACs.
Try actually listening sometime. You might be surprised.
" Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you"
Satchel Paige
. . . and I wish you the VERY BEST - no matter how divorced from reality your understanding is.
The engineers at Chord and PS Audio know FAR more about DAC design than most people, including the so called audio critics/reviewers. Arrogance is no substitute for actual knowledge. Reading a flawed review from ASR does not suddenly make you smarter than the design engineers.Believe whatever you wish, but there is a body of evidence that suggests the DACs with advanced filtering DO sound better. For example, Stereophile DOES a creditable job with evaluations on audio hardware, and conduct a good set of measurements. Their rankings strongly suggest that FPGA filtering DOES offer sonic advantages.
" Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you"
Satchel Paige
Edits: 06/12/24
"The engineers at Chord and PS Audio know FAR more about DAC design than most people, including the so called audio critics/reviewers. Arrogance is no substitute for actual knowledge. Reading a flawed review from ASR does not suddenly make you smarter than the design engineers."
Sure they know how to cheat your ears and make their stuff more "musical". Some people simply like distortion and soft sound.
I never think of ASR as a subjective review site though Amir will give his impressions. And those might be clouded by expectation bias if a device does not measure well but, then, compare that to all the subjective reviewers who give stuff great reviews based on their expectation bias driven by company marketing material like the Chord video linked earlier in the thread.The ASR DAC measurements are completely valid, they tell you very specific things about what a DAC does. It is ironic that DAVE does not measure so well as some low priced DACS that use the cheap DAC chips treated with disdain in Chord's video. Rob Watts does talk a lot about atributes, like noise floor modulation, that could be a big thing but cannot be measured. And he claims to be able hear an artifact that is -300dB (this is, of course, ludicrous). These things may be the most important aspects of a DAC but after all Chord's talk about the objective performance I'd expect them to get the obvious, measurable, things right and at least be at the top of the ASR SNR table.
As to 'advanced filtering' I am in the filter-schmilter camp. Most DACs have a digital filter to remove aliases (these are related to a stair stepped waveform, remove the aliases and you remove the stair steps. That is why you still see stair-steps in NOS DACs). Different manufacturers adopt different approaches e.g. Meridian and Ayre promoted minimum phase filters that have no pre-ringing for an impulse response. Rob Watts uses a straight forward filter but his twist is make it as close to a brick wall as possible hence his pursuit of many, many taps. His filter will pre-ring for a long time. And pre-ringing is a red herring anyway as any music signal should be band limited before sampling so it does not have any edges sharp enough to make the filters ring.
No doubt Ted Smith and Rob Watts are earnest and insightful but only the listener can determine if their products are worth the asking prices. One way to persuade the punters is to have a good back story and the whole 'FPGA' thing is part of that. I am pretty amazed there have been so many revisions of the direct-stream DAC firm ware, it kind of seems like they didn't get it right the first time, or the second time, or the third time - or is it Ted Smith's way to keep getting paid :). As an aside, Rob Watts is not an employee of Chord and lives off royalties from Chord products. Maybe Ted smith is the same. I suspect that PS Audio and Chord do not own those technologies but license them from the inventors.
Edits: 06/12/24
"The ASR DAC measurements are completely valid, they tell you very specific things about what a DAC does. It is ironic that DAVE does not measure so well as some low priced DACS that use the cheap DAC chips treated with disdain in Chord's video. Rob Watts does talk a lot about attributes, like noise floor modulation, that could be a big thing but cannot be measured. And he claims to be able hear an artifact that is -300dB (this is, of course, ludicrous). These things may be the most important aspects of a DAC but after all Chord's talk about the objective performance I'd expect them to get the obvious, measurable, things right and at least be at the top of the ASR SNR table."
I would proffer that the (ASR) measurements of the DAC do not tell one as much as it is inferred. For example, Chord maintains that jitter does not matter in their designs, due to the FPGA implementation. I think this subtlety is missed. Given the fact that the DAVE is considered among the very finest DACs in the world, the fact that ASR does not like the measurements tells me that something fundamental is being overlooked in the measurements. I will never forget the first time I heard a Chord Hugo 2 DAC. I was floored how much better it sounded compared to my Benchmark and RME DACs. I'm not knocking those DACs, they have excellent measured responses, and get great reviews. The Chord Hugo 2 just sounded way more like music. BTW, Rob Watts must have some method to measure noise floor modulation. That was a big tool in his filter designs. This goes back to my point about DAC measurements, some of the key factors with DAC performance are likely not being adequately captured.I get folks are cynical when engineers go on about their designs. Having said that, the information Rob Watts puts out is largely verifiable. It is complex, but most people can grasp the concepts behind the explanations. It made me understand why the Cord DACs sounded as good as they do.
"No doubt Ted Smith and Rob Watts are earnest and insightful but only the listener can determine if their products are worth the asking prices. One way to persuade the punters is to have a good back story and the whole 'FPGA' thing is part of that. I am pretty amazed there have been so many revisions of the direct-stream DAC firm ware, it kind of seems like they didn't get it right the first time, or the second time, or the third time - or is it Ted Smith's way to keep getting paid :). As an aside, Rob Watts is not an employee of Chord and lives off royalties from Chord products. Maybe Ted smith is the same. I suspect that PS Audio and Chord do not own those technologies but license them from the inventors. "
I wondered about the constant firmware with the Direct Stream DAC as well. I held off getting one until the firmware stopped updating and the price dropped to the point it was worth trying. Having been a Devialet owner since 2016, numerous firmware updates are not a big deal to me. It is definitely a great sounding DAC. I use it primarily as the processor for a high end headphone setup, which it really shines.
" Don't look back. Something may be gaining on you"
Satchel Paige
Edits: 06/12/24 06/12/24
An advantage of an FPGA based design is that you can control clock jitter everywhere whereas you cannot with DAC chips because you have no control of clock distribution inside the chip. That said, chip DAC designers know what they are doing and they won't allow the on-chip clock to limit resolution. And, further, I think the whole jitter thing is a red herring (see link) and it is only a thing for manufacturers to try to differentiate their products (except that everyone does it these days).I do not believe Rob Watts has a method to measure noise floor modulation (I watched his latest seminar video recently, I will look again to be sure) just he has he cannot measure the diode effects in contacts that he claims are audible. These effects may be important but my point remains why aren't the obvious common-or-garden measurements also first class? If there is a reason where SINAD is compromised to optimize for something not measurable why not say that and make that a feature? And don't forget about the -300dB artifact claim he makes - he sort of shrugs it off saying 'I know it's a big number but I can hear the effect'. That is not good enough, 300dB isn't just a big number it is a very hugely massively enormous number and Rob knows that. At best he is hearing correlation not causation, at worst it is hubris that he thinks his hearing is special.
That all said I've never heard a Chord DAC and if people like them that is great. But one of my mantras is that if you like something then enjoy and don't worry about it being the best objectively because you will be disappointed to find out it is not. Like supporting a football a team, if you insist they win every match then you won't have much fun. And I'm primarily a vinyl listener, a medium that is very compromised objectively but it makes me happy.
Edits: 06/13/24
. . . don't know a thing about DAC design?
And on one hand, you disparage audio critics and reviewers. And then you turn right around and say "Stereophile DOES a creditable job with evaluations on audio hardware".
LOL! Excuse me, Freo - I've got to get back to the real world now! ;-)
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