Recent content by Unplugged

I’m saying dac A probably has boosted bass in its frequency response. Again, not sure how this is out of the ordinary. But sure.

And if this is the case. Great! Thanks for the info. But again, going from there, to saying someone doesn’t think (when they just don’t KNOW) there’s a big stretch.

It’s possible I messed up matching. I don’t deny. Note I was able to switch inputs instantly from a remote and it was instant. not like I had to stand up and switch a wire. It wait 1 second between streams. so imperceptible that I had to keep checking if the input had been changed (when there...

I don’t believe engineers haven’t checked that or don’t know. There’s always a tradeoff to be faced. I’m an engineer (not sound engineer but engineer still) and face design choices daily. There’s always a “better” solution that takes more time, money, rare materials, or manpower to implement...

Sorry for the mess. I’m just using my phone and replies kept creating new threads. I had not realized OP had been moved.

Yeah. That’s sad. I am trying to get a good all around Dac. I was willing to spend $2-5k because I thought I “had to”. but I am going to drop my limit down to $2k. After all, I do want something that looks nice (good materials, good enclosure design, etc) I’d have A LOT HARDER justification...

BTW, I’m just theorizing here, I am just trying to be devils advocate here. The freq response differences between two dacs may be nil when looking at a single (or small group of sine waves). But what about if we start looking at time domain as well ? In other words, How does the dac performs...

No voltage measurement. Volume Just by ear. As I mentioned this wasn’t scientific at all. However, I was able to switch between inputs without a silence gap. it was easy to get volume matched to at least ear discernible level.

Linn Selekt with their 2nd most expensive DAC option vs Boulder 866 built-in dac. The boulder had more bass. I think a byproduct of more bass was muddier mids. And if I’m nitpicking, the highs in the boulder sounded like distorted a bit at the top end of high vocals. Technically, the Linn...

I was thinking on words like: air, body, instrument separation, soundstage, imaging, etc.

From what I’ve seen, $5k is just the start on some brands lol. They provide comparable metrics to cheap dacs but there lies the root of my question. I’ve seen lots of reviewers out there calling dac A sound “thin or lacking X, Y, Z” but Dac B is “airy, big soundstage, instrument separation...

Thanks. My question as well.

I need a dac streamer. By the numbers, I should be ok with a “cheap” dac from Amazon. However, I wonder if there is ANYTHING to gain looking beyond the raw measurements like SNR or SINAD. Is there any value in paying more for a dac other than raw specs? Yes there’s build quality (enclosure...

I will be I will be returning the A1H. It’s too much money for me not to be 100% happy. It’s an impressive spec sheet, but at this price I expect perfection.

Sound quality is a drastic step up from the old cheap Denon receiver. I will probably end up getting a 2ch amp. However, my next step is upgrading the speakers. However, I have to figure out the hiss first.