Considering that this is a dc coupled amp, are there certain dacs that should be avoided? Do dacs like the topping d30, topping d10, sdac, ol dac and modi 3 have negligible dc output? Does one of them stand out as particularly low?
We've seen here measurements of equipment that performed badly in terms of low frequency hum specifically because of the use of an internal power supply that either needed to be external or a different design.
@amirm
It appears this is a pre-2016 bifrost since it lacks usb.
Compared to dacs like the musical fidelity vdac II from 2012, it still seems like a poor result. Schiit mentions that the bifrost has a fully discrete analog stage, which makes it kinda unique for a dac, but it doesn't seem like...
I like the new channel balance results being in decibels. Previously, I would bust out a calculator to do the conversion myself to make sense of the results.
One question is how fiio got the output impedance so low using the buffer they were using. Doesn't everyone else use 10 ohms with it?
This evga nu audio sound card https://www.evga.com/articles/01281/evga-nu-audio/
Weirdly, the specs don't mention it, but it has a lme49600 headphone buffer like the jdslabs atom. A little worried that they did however, mention that it has "audio grade resistors". It is also unusual in that it...
I think the x fi hd was released in 2010, since there is this review from that time period.
https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/sound-cards/creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-hd-913944/review
And yet it is still available on amazon for some reason.
@amirm
How is the signal to noise ratio test done? Is it the aes17 dynamic range test? I am concerned the apple dac was only able to reach such numbers because it switched itself off for the noise measurement.
The performance problems in this review mainly stem from a software issue, the apparent lack of 24 bit support. I have used other asus cards and didn't have an issue setting them to 24 bit, but I haven't used the stx II specifically, so it's either a bug specific to that series or we never...
The harmonic distortion is very low, and so is the jitter and that is pretty impressive, but the noise must be somewhat high if the sinad is only around 100 and the dynamic range is only around 110.