After playing with Gungnir and Bitfrost 2, I realized I can’t stand Modi 3 sound... I just can’t listen more than 10-15 min with it. But with either Bitfrost 2 of Gungnir I can listen and listen. Vocals and strings - they sound so much better. I do not know why and I will not use silly words to describe it.
So I expect that’s the reason we hear a rolled off treble and music usually sounds softer
May I ask you bifrost 2 is the r2r or DS one?And better me ;-) I could no hear a difference either.
To be fair ADI is much more functional vs Modi 3. It has remote, it has volume control, it has balanced out, it has digital EQ and a nice display. But all I remember that both sounded the same on a speaker system (Schiit Aegir to B&W 702 S2). Maybe now I would hear a difference? Do not know.
And now I listen more on headphones. After playing with Gungnir and Bitfrost 2, I realized I can’t stand Modi 3 sound... I just can’t listen more than 10-15 min with it. But with either Bitfrost 2 of Gungnir I can listen and listen. Vocals and strings - they sound so much better. I do not know why and I will not use silly words to describe it.
Ohh and I learned that I also like Rogue Audio The Pharaoh - that has tube pre-amp and class D power amp. I always though that these are two things that I should not like - tubes add distortion and that class D will never sound as good as A or A/B... Something must be really wrong with me - but how do you measure that ;-)?
The psychoacoustics of having a bigger box of a DAC make you perceive better sound lol. I have the Bifrost 2 myself and upon volume matched A/B with my $9 Apple lightning DAC/amp. I find that they sound exactly the same.
Right, I am kind of feeling in the tidal mqa the holo spring 2 in nos do sounded better than the 16/44.1 songs though, maybe that’s just illusion or it’s the case. But when the treble roll off is due to this and not actually hearing some weird distortion this would be a nice effect to a lot (me included, I tried the os sound for quite a while but really love those effects though lol)Exactly. The effect becomes less at lower frequencies. At 192kHz sample frequency there is no audible effect at all in the audible range.
All bifrost 2 are R2R, only old one had DS option.May I ask you bifrost 2 is the r2r or DS one?
In fact comparison of shapes of differentwaveforms on different frequencies and levels is all that you need to know about dac measurements in 2020.
Simillar thing with headphones and speakers - squarewave rendering is one of the most important parameters.
Just for example 2 headphones on same stand with squarewave at 300 hz.
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What in fact we want from dac\speaker\amp\headphone? Correct rendering of input signal, agree? And those 0,00001% THD measurements doesn't answer this question at all.
Right, I am kind of feeling in the tidal mqa the holo spring 2 in nos do sounded better than the 16/44.1 songs though, maybe that’s just illusion or it’s the case. But when the treble roll off is due to this and not actually hearing some weird distortion this would be a nice effect to a lot (me included, I tried the os sound for quite a while but really love those effects though lol)
I'm confused. Expectation bias is only a factor if someone says components sound different not if they sound the same? And a sighted A/B test isn't an acceptable way to prove components sound different but it is okay to prove they sound the same.
I think that’s exactly why a lot of ppl actually prefer NOS dacs, or those old Philips chips, possibly beside the change in waveform in actual multi tone music, our brain adapt to the missing information better than some oversampling artifices like ringing?
And better me ;-) I could no hear a difference either.
No. Some people just like listening to distorted sound.
Less a problem of distortion and more a combination of bad tuning, not knowing better, and prioritising crappy fashion wear headphones..True. Many people using Beats, Monster, Sony XB headphones and they like that sound.
OK, tested the NOS mode. Dashboard remains the same. Filtering almost goes away resulting in this:
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If you like pumping ultrasonic noise into your amplifier and speaker, by all means, use the NOS mode.
Now I need to move on to other testing folks.
It is a measurement artifact though. That test uses wide bandwidth so if you don't filter above 22.05 kHz as you are supposed to, all of that gets included in that graph. And hence my comment about ultrasonics.1% at 4KHz and rising (probably why so many love the extra harmonics this thing produces in the violins, flutes, sax, etc. in NOS mode). Now I kinda see how people perceive a massive difference between NOS and OS mode not just on this Denafrips but on Holo Audio Spring L3 Kitsune Edition impressions as well
This dac sounds a lot better!!!Still, apparent performance no better than $90 D10, and arguably (imo) not much better - if any - than the $9 Apple dongle.. Look at all that grass! Why would anyone in their right mind pay $680 for this thing???