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Thread: Recomend me a DAC

  1. #91
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: W Lothian

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    I'm Grant.

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    yeah i'd swap my dac for that
    Regards,
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  2. #92
    Join Date: Apr 2008

    Location: Warrington

    Posts: 3,451
    I'm Neil.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Minstrel SE View Post
    Im just wondering if we can get to the nitty gritty of whats in a £50/ £100/ £500 Dac compared with what the hell could be in a £3000 DAC. Pick your price point.

    My gut feeling is that there is a lot of hype and clearly a flavour of the month thing going on. There are so many to choose from now as everyone has a stab at making them. A lot of style over substance going on which does sway me to some extent..see my comment about the DIY look

    Someone will recommend the Chord or Arcam and then someone else will say they have that DAC 3 which is fine for them (looks like a DIY kit..very low brow with its philips head screws on the front...only half joking )

    Then we have all the other Chinese direct order boxes with or without valves in a crowded marketplace. Then that Philips chipset was in a range from cd players and people argue that the 1541 is better than the 1543 with lovely tonal qualities....... not maybe the most resolving but lovely nostalgia blah blah.

    Ive seen these chips on a pcb board and I wonder about the pricing for whats in a separate DAC box

    I just want a nice little box with a brushed metal panel and lots of micro leds telling me Im getting a super duper D/A conversion...What was wrong with the Dacmagic 100?
    Some things in mine:

    * Custom shielded balanced mains transformer
    * Custom shielded transformer with 9x secondary windings
    * Obsolete expensive parts such as Black Gate N and selected TDA1541A
    * 2x Jensen jt-11-bmcf output transformers at $100 each alone
    * Big aluminium chassis
    * Don’t forget all the R&D and testing to get to production
    * No dealer markup etc. with mine, but this can easily double the price alone
    Mana Acoustics Racks / Bright Star IsoNodes Decoupling >> Allo DigiOne Player >> Pedja Rogic's Audial Model S DAC + Pioneer PL-71 turntable / Vista Audio phono-1 mk II / Denon PCL-5 headshell / Reson Reca >> LFD DLS >> LFD PA2M (SE) >> Royd RR3s.

  3. #93
    montesquieu Guest

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    Quote Originally Posted by Yomanze View Post
    Some things in mine:

    * Custom shielded balanced mains transformer
    * Custom shielded transformer with 9x secondary windings
    * Obsolete expensive parts such as Black Gate N and selected TDA1541A
    * 2x Jensen jt-11-bmcf output transformers at $100 each alone
    * Big aluminium chassis
    * Don’t forget all the R&D and testing to get to production
    * No dealer markup etc. with mine, but this can easily double the price alone
    Yes similar in terms of valve output stage with high-end balanced output transformers, I/V transformers, black gates, valve rectification and regulation of the (hefty) PSU etc.

    Generally speaking, in my view, digital is digital, with a fundamental divide between no oversampling/brick wall filtering approaches and ever more sophisticated oversampling and filtering techniques and ever higher bit rates.

    My Audio Note DAC sounds better on redbook than any hi-res DAC I've ever heard. (It goes to 24/96 and who realistically needs more than that?) Why is that? Well I think it's only partly to do with the digital gubbins (great care being taken around matching impedance in the digital signal on the way in, but no fancy stuff really beyond that on the DAC side of things). It has far more to do with what happens to the output of the DAC chip once you have analogue coming out.

    Apart from not seeing the need for it, this is the main reason all the supposed excitement about fancy DAC chip features leaves me cold. What's the point of fussing about bit depth and bit rates, flashing lights and conversion algorithms if all you do at the output end is stick it through an op amp - even an expensive one?

  4. #94
    Join Date: Mar 2016

    Location: Barnet, london UK

    Posts: 2,146
    I'm Adam.

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    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    Yes similar in terms of valve output stage with high-end balanced output transformers, I/V transformers, black gates, valve rectification and regulation of the (hefty) PSU etc.

    Generally speaking, in my view, digital is digital, with a fundamental divide between no oversampling/brick wall filtering approaches and ever more sophisticated oversampling and filtering techniques and ever higher bit rates.

    My Audio Note DAC sounds better on redbook than any hi-res DAC I've ever heard. (It goes to 24/96 and who realistically needs more than that?) Why is that? Well I think it's only partly to do with the digital gubbins (great care being taken around matching impedance in the digital signal on the way in, but no fancy stuff really beyond that on the DAC side of things). It has far more to do with what happens to the output of the DAC chip once you have analogue coming out.

    Apart from not seeing the need for it, this is the main reason all the supposed excitement about fancy DAC chip features leaves me cold. What's the point of fussing about bit depth and bit rates, flashing lights and conversion algorithms if all you do at the output end is stick it through an op amp - even an expensive one?
    +1 on that with bells on Tom..
    Check Slawa's writings on this similar line of thought and approach to digital
    http://sw1xad.co.uk/news-blog/
    worth a read.
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  5. #95
    Join Date: Apr 2008

    Location: Warrington

    Posts: 3,451
    I'm Neil.

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    Quote Originally Posted by montesquieu View Post
    Yes similar in terms of valve output stage with high-end balanced output transformers, I/V transformers, black gates, valve rectification and regulation of the (hefty) PSU etc.

    Generally speaking, in my view, digital is digital, with a fundamental divide between no oversampling/brick wall filtering approaches and ever more sophisticated oversampling and filtering techniques and ever higher bit rates.

    My Audio Note DAC sounds better on redbook than any hi-res DAC I've ever heard. (It goes to 24/96 and who realistically needs more than that?) Why is that? Well I think it's only partly to do with the digital gubbins (great care being taken around matching impedance in the digital signal on the way in, but no fancy stuff really beyond that on the DAC side of things). It has far more to do with what happens to the output of the DAC chip once you have analogue coming out.

    Apart from not seeing the need for it, this is the main reason all the supposed excitement about fancy DAC chip features leaves me cold. What's the point of fussing about bit depth and bit rates, flashing lights and conversion algorithms if all you do at the output end is stick it through an op amp - even an expensive one?
    I would much rather have a DAC that you just plugged in and it worked. Having filter choices on the DAC would wind me up to no end. If I want to do any fancy stuff like oversampling or upsampling, I do it in DSP on the computer side before it reaches the DAC. However, after extensive testing, I prefer native files - more natural to these ears, so am back to where I want to be: plug it in and play CDs or files.

    I think the DAC side is important, with particular respect to multibit vs. delta/sigma DACs. I think a lot of this is that with a delta/sigma DAC you are locked into having to use digital filtering, heavy oversampling etc. whilst this can be a lot gentler, or even non-existent as I prefer, with multibit DACs. I think digital filtering is one of the main reasons digital sounds different.
    Mana Acoustics Racks / Bright Star IsoNodes Decoupling >> Allo DigiOne Player >> Pedja Rogic's Audial Model S DAC + Pioneer PL-71 turntable / Vista Audio phono-1 mk II / Denon PCL-5 headshell / Reson Reca >> LFD DLS >> LFD PA2M (SE) >> Royd RR3s.

  6. #96
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: Switerland

    Posts: 1,199
    I'm rupert.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Yomanze View Post
    I would much rather have a DAC that you just plugged in and it worked. Having filter choices on the DAC would wind me up to no end. If I want to do any fancy stuff like oversampling or upsampling, I do it in DSP on the computer side before it reaches the DAC. However, after extensive testing, I prefer native files - more natural to these ears, so am back to where I want to be: plug it in and play CDs or files.

    I think the DAC side is important, with particular respect to multibit vs. delta/sigma DACs. I think a lot of this is that with a delta/sigma DAC you are locked into having to use digital filtering, heavy oversampling etc. whilst this can be a lot gentler, or even non-existent as I prefer, with multibit DACs. I think digital filtering is one of the main reasons digital sounds different.
    The second paragraph seems to negate the first digital sounds different to .... analogue ? So, analogue has a sound ? With so many conversions going on, no wonder you prefer native files

  7. #97
    Join Date: Sep 2017

    Location: Wellington New Zealand

    Posts: 35
    I'm Corne.

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    Yea lets go back to where we live, a good photographer will make a photo of a turd and make a
    It look like gold. In the South Island things tend to be pre painted and not much work needed for the gold look but I prefer stable ground. After the last quake 3 years ago Christchurch is only 30cm closer to Australia and with the quake in kraikoura last year the sea floor lifted by more than a meter and a half.

    I'd not go to Australia it's not my scene I do love NZ for a fast majority of the time it's only when you need to buy any tech where things get stupid.

    Back to the dac though got a Cambridge dac on loan from a friend well it makes zip zero nada change to any sound from the rotel and it degrades the sound from the yba so it went flying back to its owner pretty fast. Turns out both the rotel and Cambridge use the same wolfston chip appears they must be programmed very similar. Or that dac does not work which I think is more the case 3 filters cannot hear any real change bar maybe a touch more base from the one filter.

    Much bigger change by putting the yba cd on the rotel amp much better bass response with heaps more detail in the mids and down low. Does the blue led actualy make a difference??? I'll have the 17 year old yba amp and cd any day over the rotel. Now the look for a slightly grungier yba not that it's lacking but more must be better. Why would a 50w yba amp out drive a 120w rotel? The rotel and dali sound great with the b&w good the yba and dali sound good at low vol horible past 10% but superb on the B&W up to 75% ( way too loud by then) where it starts to clip the rotel never gets it that loud. Also a huge change in ground noise the yba is olmost dead quiet at 50% between songs where the rotel is audible even at 30% and it just gets worse as the dial goes on. Have to add the rotel is very soft at 30% and I tend to have it at 50% for normal background and 65% for nice loud but not eardrum damaging sound levels. Yba is 10% for background 15-20 for loads of fun and rather big bass too much for the little dalis but very satisfying on the B&Ws.

    Maybe I should put this in another post poor op going to hunt me down for being off topic.

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