Review and Measurements of Totaldac d1-six DAC

[bozoc]

Describing the test as poor would suggest that you do not agree with it for some reason. I never said it was a test without trained listeners.

I do not agree with poorly designed tests. There is a lack of "hard/er" evidence for claimed phenomena in audiophile world , but I also have no sympathy for people that parrot double blind ABX as it is some kind of infallible spell to shed light on situation when in reality double blind ABX tests are hard to design, are not easy to be carried out properly and finally properly interpreted. Also, Blind tests and ABX tests are not always appropriate as other types of tests give similar or better sensitivity in detecting differences.

Everything that can be heard in a properly controlled ABX test can be found in the measurements.

That is a healthy presumption to be had. But then you have to be sure that good measurements strongly correlate with positive listening experiences and vice versa.

It is not "junk science" (yes there is plenty), it's the sort of science that got us to the moon, and developed the M2 et al speakers, it's based on demonstrable and repeatable evidence.

Scientists often come up with all sorts of stuff for which they have no evidence for(things that happen in psychology, exercise and pain science as examples). We can also talk about that instead if you want to appeal to authority of science that is seemingly infallible, all gracious and at the same time all knowing and instantly self correcting. My point is, these conjectures makes no sense as they are irrelevant to this conversation.

No one is blindly adhering to rules, just pointing out that uncontrolled listening tests are personal and not useful for comparisons.

Forums are not scientific journals nor should they be. You cannot demand from people to give you the results of listening tests and claim that are useful because they are useless for the same reason as the audiophile claims are. If one wants to do a well designed, carried out and well interpreted scientific study then his claims might appease your standards of useful.

 

[Juhazi]

"jonmarsh" is the moderator of HTGuide forum. He has Totaldac-D1 and has liked it. http://www.htguide.com/forum/showth...ophile-by-Michael-Lavorgna&highlight=totaldac

Here is an interesting comment by him at another forum - adding a preamp between Totaldac-6 and poweramp improves sound...
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/27414-totaldac-d1-six-tube-dac/?tab=comments#comment-587227

 

[Joachim Herbert]

I think there should be a cap on each category where it is within reach of most people. That's where the value lies.

Members of this forum would disagree, as is demonstrated by the popularity of this thread. I am always happy to see how much money I do not need to spend to get state of the art equipment. Apart from curiosity this is where value lies. And to have all those naked emperors be called out.

 

[Nightlord]

Tried to read thought the entire thread quickly as it was linked to from "our" forum.... I'm quite amazed.... this looks likes a product from someone who has enough knowledge to build a "thing" like this, but hasn't got the necessary theoretical background to build it correctly.... Tragical, but I'm not in the market for something in this pricerange anyway, so he didn't "loose a customer". Only DAC I run is a Benchmark DAC2.... I know I can upgrade it slightly, but I'm less sure I'd HEAR any upgrade. Bank account would, though....

 

[Krusty09]

Members of this forum would disagree, as is demonstrated by the popularity of this thread. I am always happy to see how much money I do not need to spend to get state of the art equipment. Apart from curiosity this is where value lies. And to have all those naked emperors be called out.

Understood but you know already from many reviews that this money doesn't need to be spent.

 

[KSTR]

Thank you for your post, however I do not remember having read @amirm comments abt. 'this DAC is basically flawed in its execution' but rather what we read in his #1 post' conclusions as well as in his #281 post, just to name a couple ...

Yes, Amir didn't say this explicitly but I feel this is the impression people might get anyway as they cannot be assumed to know what causes the bad performance.

 

[Krusty09]

Read this, seriously, take your fingers off the keyboard and read it.
http://matrixhifi.com/ENG_contenedor_ppec.htm
Does something like this really seem to be beyond the wits of an averagely intelligent person?
It's not perfect but it's good enough.
The reason manufacturers don't do such tests is simple; their equipment is likely to test much the same as their competitors.
ABX testing is not a complicated business. I don't understand why some think it is.
The shocking thing about ABX testing is even if you don't do the statistical analysis you are likely to be shocked to the core by just how little differences there are between one bit of kit and another.
Trouble is, people don't actually want to know. What they like is going on forums and typing stuff, getting into arguments and trying to show how knowledgeable they are on the subject of audio reproduction.

Hey. So i took my fingers off for a minute. So in their ABX or what ever you want to call it they didn't use any of their own equipment and they make a state of the art dac and more then one i'm sure because they didn't want the $700.00 system to beat them? Is this your point?

 

[sweetsounds]

24-bit 1 kHz digital stream was output at 44.1 kHz sampling. Capture is at 48 khz with 22.4 kHz bandwidth.

What is your expectation if you change capture to 96kHz? 48kHz sounds awfully close to get sampling artifacts for a stepped signal.

The second particularity of TotalDAC is, that you can short signal ground and earth (option in the menu). The DAC might collect all kinds of ugly stuff.

While I don't expect this DAC to ever yield stellar performance, I am still concerned about measurement artefacts here.

 

[sweetsounds]

Dear measurement believers, dear audition believers,

Many of you simply repeat your convictions, you aren't interested in the opinion of the other anyway.
So why do you continue to post here?

This forum started to objectively characterize audio equipment by measurements. Let's stick to it.

It is more important to clarify if there are artefacts still in the data of the TotalDAC and how this peculiar design actually behaves.

No point in discussing if the measurements are discernable or if measurements are capturing all there is in a DAC. Useless debate!

 

[BDWoody]

Dear measurement believers, dear audition believers,

Many of you simply repeat your convictions, you aren't interested in the opinion of the other anyway.
So why do you continue to post here?

This forum started to objectively characterize audio equipment by measurements. Let's stick to it.

It is more important to clarify if there are artefacts still in the data of the TotalDAC and how this peculiar design actually behaves.

No point in discussing if the measurements are discernable or if measurements are capturing all there is in a DAC. Useless debate!

So, were you like the hall monitor or something? A handful of posts, and half are finger wags...

 

[daftcombo]

Yes, Amir didn't say this explicitly but I feel this is the impression people might get anyway as they cannot be assumed to know what causes the bad performance.

Actually Amir used the word "broken".

I don't think we have ever seen anything as broken as this.

Was that adjective only refering to the curve?...

 

[diegooo1972]

From just "fidelity" and scientific point of view just don't buy a NOS.
Do you think it's great and you like it and wan't to buy it. Your business.
But coming here, where people want fidelity and really appreciate Amirm measurements, to attack the concept and Amirm himself is unacceptable.
From a scientific point of view and fidelity point of view Totaldac is not a 13k$ range equipment as meaures shows. Point.
It did a lot of other thing to the original wave that some people love ? Again, their business. But not fidelity.
But coming here pretending to change the mind of people that want scientific facts without giving any is absurd.
Simply useless.
Many people are here for scientific measurements from Amirm. People here want real fidelity and nothing less.
They are attacking science with chatter and without accepting ABX tests. The opposite of this forum intent.
People can still think they can hear a 10k$ power cord difference. Or that a usb cable is gonna make the difference.
Or, my favourite, that audio grade switch and overpriced ethernet cable make the difference. I can destroy that in a second.
Even if ABX may destroy their world in a while. Their business.
But don't bother us.

 

[Shadrach]

Hey. So i took my fingers off for a minute. So in their ABX or what ever you want to call it they didn't use any of their own equipment and they make a state of the art dac and more then one i'm sure because they didn't want the $700.00 system to beat them? Is this your point?

 

[Krusty09]

that's how i felt when you answered me the first time.

 

[peanuts]

it looks like the analog output of a chromecast audio is better than totaldac? thats funny.

 

[graz_lag]

... I like to combine sex and music, but I don't have sex with the gear... Takes too much lube.

Do you give me green light to do it with the assistant doing the gear fine tuning's of the foreseen ABX session?

 

[BDWoody]

Do you give me green light to do it with the assistant doing the gear fine tuning's of the foreseen ABX session?

View attachment 30340

I'm all for abXXX testing...

 

[Joachim Herbert]

Understood but you know already from many reviews that this money doesn't need to be spent.

I love to be reassured over and over again. ;-)

 

[jparvio]

The goal of my speaker wire is not to transmit feelings and emotions, it is to carry an electrical signal. The goal of my amplifier is to take a teeny signal, and make a bigger one just like it. The job of my DAC is to take 1's and 0's and follow accepted reconstruction theory to replicate the analog signal, as it was signed off on by the recording engineer.

None of these functions involve emotions.

Indeed those functions are needed to get the music out. Funny thing is though, some of the necessary equipment do it better than others (by ears and/or by measurements). But there is no need to make a big deal of it.

And at the end, most people (probably here at ASR as well) listen to their music in less-than-perfect room with less than full bandwidth speakers with less than authentic levels with less than perfect recordings.

 

[Dialectic]

Not to disrupt the current discussion, but this thread is now the 10th result if I google "Totaldac."

I hope we can continue to link this thread elsewhere to illuminate some of what is going on in the high-end industry.