Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?

[Brian Hall]

I know the thread is old but ESS are clinical sounding and I am also a fan of Burr Browns..

Define clinical sounding. Do you mean accurate reproduction without added distortion or "color"?

 

[Mr. Widget]

I know the thread is old but ESS are clinical sounding and I am also a fan of Burr Browns.

If you are just interested in people's subjective opinions here is one comparing ESS and BB... his opinion is the opposite of yours, but he does describe it in great detail and uses an interesting platform with which to make the comparison.

 

[Doodski]

I know the thread is old but ESS are clinical sounding and I am also a fan of Burr Browns.

How do you propose they sound different. (Before I go off about they don't.)

 

[pkane]

Sure. Here's a DO-300 sine wave at -100dBFS. That's quiet, but perceptible, especially with good fitting headphones. The AP2722 analog plot exhibits self-noise at this level, so we developed a special measurement technique. I can share the signal path if anyone's interested. Every other single-path DAC we've tested at -100dBFS looks far worse than this plot. Some are just pure noise, including a >$20,000 DAC, which will remain nameless.

That does look much worse than it should. Here's DO300, -100dBFS signal captured without an AP, with 60dB amplification and low-noise ADC:

 

[Great Sun Jester]

How do you propose they sound different. (Before I go off about they don't.)

They are warmer and sound more relaxed and yes i've abx'd blind.

 

[Doodski]

They are warmer and sound more relaxed and yes i've abx'd blind.

Well if you've blind tested then I could argue but I'm not because you did a blind test. How big was the difference? Was it obvious or subtle etc? I am very curious.

 

[Brian Hall]

They are warmer and sound more relaxed and yes i've abx'd blind.

So you are saying they are bad at accurately reproducing the music and the bad design adds distortion you prefer?

 

[Great Sun Jester]

Define clinical sounding. Do you mean accurate reproduction without added distortion or "color"?

Yes

 

[Great Sun Jester]

So you are saying they are bad at accurately reproducing the music and the bad design adds distortion you prefer?

Not really the Burr Browns are warmed and more relaxed, sort like the difference between my Hd580's and 400i's.

 

[Great Sun Jester]

Well if you've blind tested then I could argue but I'm not because you did a blind test. How big was the difference? Was it obvious or subtle etc? I am very curious.

It is easy enough to pick out.

 

[Doodski]

It is easy enough to pick out.

IC. What age where these DACs? Are they new gear or dated? I'm trying to understand this.

 

[Great Sun Jester]

IC. What age where these DACs? Are they new gear or dated? I'm trying to understand this.

The burr's are at least 10 years old, ess is newer as well as an akm.

 

[Doodski]

The burr's are at least 10 years old, ess is newer as well as an akm.

IC. Interesting. It could be that the technology has improved that much over the ~10 years and the peripheral audio circuitry is lacking compared with the newer audio ICs. It would be very cool if you could send that old DAC to @amirm for a test. To see what is going on.

 

[krabapple]

I know the thread is old but ESS are clinical sounding and I am also a fan of Burr Browns.

Much older than this thread, is testimony like yours being offered as sufficient evidence of sonic diffence between DACs.

It's not.

 

[signalpath]

That does look much worse than it should. Here's DO300, -100dBFS signal captured without an AP, with 60dB amplification and low-noise ADC:

Thanks. I checked my notes. The waveform I shared was 30uVrms, which at 5.2V max I think is -105dBFS. What system are you using to capture a visual waveform? And what preamp for the +60dB gain?

 

[IAtaman]

In the pro audio world, we listen to reverb tails. Pathological, indeed . We listen to music and ambience until the moment we lose perception. Of course, recording levels this low are only as good as the recording itself (room, mic, adc, pre, technique, program, etc). Some studio friends did a DAC shootout in L.A. a while back, like 25 DACs. Blind. They listened only to complex-pulsed reverb tails, at levels most people (perhaps like yourself) would never consider. Hugely revealing. Very-low-level DAC performance impacts atmospherics and timbre purity. Recording engineers know that imaging and depth is best perceived in the very quiet passages, and DACs with the best very-low-level waveform purity deliver the best spatial reality.

That remindes me of homeophathic treatments - the active ingredient is extremely diluted but if you believe it works, it might just as well.

What can you say that supports your claim that very-low level performance has in impact on timbre purity and spatial qualities?

 

[solderdude]

It is easy enough to pick out.

Can you record the same song twice and make the recordings downloadable ?
At least 3 mins of recording with music you feel shows it the most ?
Does not need to be level matched but should be recorded a few dB below 0dB and in peaks.

 

[Mnyb]

That remindes me of homeophathic treatments - the active ingredient is extremely diluted but if you believe it works, it might just as well.

What can you say that supports your claim that very-low level performance has in impact on timbre purity and spatial qualities?

But is not the low level performance excellent in most modern DAC’s anyway ? Amir does not do the -100 or -90 dB sine test but it can be inferred from his other test for example linearity that this must be the case .

Someone tested the latest Topping D50III and did a -90dB sine and it looked textbook.

So every decent DAC must then have these spatial qualities and timbre purity ?

There are always outliers bizarre high end contraptions like the Total DAC and or very very old designs from before 24bit chips and before Delta Sigma ?

Even if a 16bit DAC only shows some 3 level squares at very low level it would still be on par with the actual content to be played CD’s

I think the guys arguing that there are differences to heard in normal use cases also needs to prove that 24bit recordings are necessary , the levels are so low .

I wonder if normally recorded acoustical reverb tail would do ? For the pathological test case of cranking up the level very high and listen to -100dB signals would not a synthesiser tone made in some plugin be better ?

Under these conditions it migth be possible to hear a difference, but would it translate to normal usage ?
And would not all decent modern DAC’s pass this contrived test ? Even if historical products migth not .

Hence why SINAD 115dB and better DAC’s are transparent to even this test . They are transparent under all conditions.
Lesser products a DAC from late 90’s with SINAD of 95dB migth fail this test but still be good enough for music listening.

 

[tetragrammaton]

Getting audiophiles to listen to their ears rather than their ego is like getting an astrology girl into actual science and the scientific method

 

[Mnyb]

Clarification I do understand the difference between music production and music listening.

24 bit might ofcourse be needed in the process of doing the recording and mixing and mastering.