Next is to measure actual dB at 100hz and 2000hz for each DAC.It's all about learning.
Obviously aside from the 2 mentioned DACs @Pdxwayne also had an UCA 202.
It was clear from the start it could not be the E30 but he wanted to learn how to confirm this.
Next is to measure actual dB at 100hz and 2000hz for each DAC.
All these started because I heard something with E30 in the highs that I didn't hear with x16. Since this is ASR, people will not accept subjective observations.What would be the point? If you want to measure the frequency response, download REW and use that. Should be plenty of guides out there to help you.
Aren't you the one who said due to perception bias, people say new toy sounds better? In this case, my old toy (E30) sounds more magical in the highs than my new toy (X16) when played back in my stereo system. Thus I would like to find out why.Why not not use Occam’s Rasor and eliminate the most logical thing that could be the cause of all this first: your own perception bias?
Aren't you the one who said due to perception bias, people say new toy sounds better? In this case, my old toy (E30) sounds more magical in the highs than my new toy (X16) when played back in my stereo system. Thus I would like to find out why.
Yes, pure sine tone created by Audacity at 0.8 out of 1.0 intensity. Both E30 and X16 was at 0db. OK, I will do -10db for both E30 and X16 and measure again.Is that a pure 2Khz tone? If so, looks like the ADC is clipping badly. In that case, quite useless.
I do have REW. My previous voltages measurements were using REW.Just try REW. It will give you a proper way to first get the levels correct, and also had more tools to discover.
Actually, the magical "sparkle" of E30 could be just harmonic distortions. : (
I just used Audacity to captured 2Khz RCA playback from both Gustard X16 and Topping E30.
It would appears that E30's 6Khz harmonic is ~2.5db higher than X16. It could that additional harmonic distortions for all higher freq is making it having more "sparkles" than x16.
The top one is Gustard. Bottom is E30. As you can see, Gustard X16 6khz db is -14.7db. E30 6Khz db is -12.1. Gustard is definitely cleaner looking for the rest of higher freq.
I think I have answered my own question about why E30 having more "sparkles"....
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Likely my adc clipped like @voodooless said.How do you reconcile your results here to @amirm or anyone else's results of the same devices, or indeed any modern DAC? Neither chart looks like a device working properly. So either you have 2 broken devices, your whole set up is somehow flawed, or your measuring kit / methodology is flawed.
You are correct. Lowering both DAC to -10 db and I got much cleaner chart.Is that a pure 2Khz tone? If so, looks like the ADC is clipping badly. In that case, quite useless.
You might get confused by the time start different. This is because recording started slightly off for each DAC. If you deduct the end time from the first time selected for the freq analysis for each DAC, you should come to the same length: 461ms.Your selection seems way too inaccurate, it's not even the same length. You'd have to select the exact same samples are far as possible.
Can you share the files? You might also try someOr is this all for naught again? Bad ADC that caused the differences?
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