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Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?

Jimbob54

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Driving itself is just unexciting to me, more of a necessary chore than anything else. Now, a teleporter would excite me, but that's because it removes the drudgery. Lots of people love cars, I'm just not one of them. If I had the money to blow on a Corvette, I'd be far more likely to buy an old Cessna 172.

"Looks and admiring comments" aren't my motivation, unless you're talking about good looking women reacting to me taking off my pants.:cool:

What's the going rate for an admiring comment over there? With social distancing, I'm having to pay danger money on top of the standard rate.
 

Robin L

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. . . I always believe in advocacy for transparency when it comes to electronics/analogue parts of the chain. Finding transparent speakers/room/headphones is much more difficult to accomplish.
I'd say impossible. Important to note that one will not find transparent phono cartridges or microphones either. It's in the nature of transducers to have resonances, to have feedback issues and other "tells" indicating their presence in the audio chain.
 

Sal1950

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But, what if I listen to a device and like it despite the fact that it measures poorly ?
Am I wrong picking that up instead fo the one offering better measures but that I did not liked when I performed subjective listening tests ?
Wrong? That's a strong word but I believe it's a mistake to buy it. The deal with a colored component is that you can never remove that color, it will be with you as long as that piece is in your system.
On the other hand if you start by putting together a neutral, transparent system, you can then add any color you like via things like tone controls, DRC, etc, etc. Heck even just a few room treatments can skew the tonal balance of your rig. It's your system and you have every right to tune it to your preferences but starting out from the centerline allows you to go anywhere you want, even to transparent and revealing if you want to join us on the dark side. ;)
 

Robin L

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Wrong? That's a strong word but I believe it's a mistake to buy it. The deal with a colored component is that you can never remove that color, it will be with you as long as that piece is in your system.
On the other hand if you start by putting together a neutral, transparent system, you can then add any color you like via things like tone controls, DRC, etc, etc. Heck even just a few room treatments can skew the tonal balance of your rig. It's your system and you have every right to tune it to your preferences but starting out from the centerline allows you to go anywhere you want, even to transparent and revealing if you want to join us on the dark side. ;)
Most of my music these days comes from me playing guitar. It's one of the gifts of the pandemic, staying home and having too much time on my hands. I've got a halfway decent guitar, a Martin DRS2. Holds pitch, rings like a bell, easy to play. If I play the guitar unplugged, I've got the "Absolute Sound", nothing between the strings of my guitar and my ear but air.

However, the guitar is even easier to play if it's plugged into the MicroCube with too much reverb and chorus. Sometimes the volume of the mini-amp is set just low enough to suggest hall reinforcement, sometime loud enough for gobs of sustain. Either way, it's a lovely, albeit distorted, sound.

I've owned and used more than enough vintage tube gear to know the quality of euphonic distortion of a Fisher receiver, Dynaco pre/power combos, Audio Research amps and preamps, tubed microphones, tubed microphone preamps, the whole lot. The hybrid Stax headphone amp was the most sonically neutral of all, triodes driven by JFETs direct coupled [no transformers] to the electrostatic ear speakers. When I had a Scott 299b integrated and a nice turntable, I was in love with the connectedness of the sound of old Sinatra or Maria Callas LPs. I had nearly all the Capitol Sinatra issues in vintage pressings. I can understand someone having a preference for that sound.
 

Wes

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I think if you owned something that really excited you to drive and own you'd take more interest in it. Most cars/trucks are just as you state "conveyance", but many are something a little special. They draw looks and admiring comments and you want to keep it looking it's best.
Drive around in a new C8 Corvette for a while and see what I mean. LOL

Vintage sports car owners who really drive their cars often delight in the bugs and rock chips on them. It's a sub-group. But it's real.

I dunno if they care about the admiring looks and comments they get.

Here's a hint: I am not talking about Italian concoursmobiles.
 

Wes

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...
I've owned and used more than enough vintage tube gear to know the quality of euphonic distortion of a Fisher receiver, Dynaco pre/power combos, Audio Research amps and preamps, tubed microphones, tubed microphone preamps, the whole lot. The hybrid Stax headphone amp was the most sonically neutral of all, triodes driven by JFETs direct coupled [no transformers] to the electrostatic ear speakers. When I had a Scott 299b integrated and a nice turntable, I was in love with the connectedness of the sound of old Sinatra or Maria Callas LPs. I had nearly all the Capitol Sinatra issues in vintage pressings. I can understand someone having a preference for that sound.

ok, how about a brief summary of the ARC euphonic distortion qualities?

specific as possible, not just 'tubey goodness'
 

Robin L

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ok, how about a brief summary of the ARC euphonic distortion qualities?

specific as possible, not just 'tubey goodness'
In general, there is a reduction of grain and a rounding out of detail. I have not had a long time with Audio Research gear, having heard that brand mostly via demos at audio shops and at the home of one of the folks who worked at an audio shop. A better example would be the Marantz 8b, which I had for a couple of years. The edge definition and clarity increased mid-band, got looser at frequency extremes, turning deep bass to mush and almost eliminating high treble. So the audio focus was in the mid band. I thought of the 8b as the perfect amp for folks that mainly listened to pop vocal recordings, stuff like old Sinatra or Sarah Vaughan LPs. That sort of gear made the vocals pop out of the mix, like vaseline on a camera lens, fogging out the background while moving the vocalist forward. Play orchestra recordings and things fall apart. And as I was recording orchestras, that mattered a lot to me.

The Scott 299b was tighter top and bottom, but still muted at either end compared to solid state. A lot of older solid state gear, like the Pioneer Receivers or Krell amps, had more edge definition but more grain. Better solid state has less, but truth to tell, am not all that acquainted with SOTA solid state. As it is, I find my Schitt Magni 3 more open and detailed than the solid state amplification gear I otherwise owned. Pretty smooth too. I know it's not SOTA but it's really good. As I said before, the best tube amp I heard was the Stax energizer/amp for the signature earspeakers. Switching from the solid state energizer to the tube model had the least elimination of treble content I've experienced with tube gear, there was a lot of treble detail with the Stax SRM T-1. But the T-1 still had a reduction/smoothing of the treble content compared to the solid state energizer. One could call it sweeter, one could also say it smoothed out the edges. The Stax gear was pretty good in the bass, better than any other tube gear I've heard.
 
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Wes

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Thx Robin - I've heard people talk about the differences in early Audio Research pre-amps vs. later ones, with the later ones being a bit less lush but having more detail.

Of course, people's talk is just subjective anecdotes, tho listening tests might be fun.

I have an ARC LS 25 Mk II
 

Robin L

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Thx Robin - I've heard people talk about the differences in early Audio Research pre-amps vs. later ones, with the later ones being a bit less lush but having more detail.
That seems to be the general direction modern tube gear is moving towards. Of course, one man's "lush" is another man's "bloat".

I'd bet that measurement tests would be really revealing, as even the best tube gear has obvious measurable distortions.
 

North_Sky

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I didn't read the over one thousand posts in this thread, but I did read the OP's first original post and I'm wondering if he found what he was looking for.
Was he looking for a good deal for a good DAC with a marvelous Sound Signature or one with the utmost neutrality? Or was he looking for how to deal with people who think in life?
 

Jimbob54

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I didn't read the over one thousand posts in this thread, but I did read the OP's first original post and I'm wondering if he found what he was looking for.
Was he looking for a good deal for a good DAC with a marvelous Sound Signature or one with the utmost neutrality? Or was he looking for how to deal with people who think in life?
I don't think you read. Or, if you read, you didn't understand.

Or, possibly, you are throlling.
 

rebbiputzmaker

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Thx Robin - I've heard people talk about the differences in early Audio Research pre-amps vs. later ones, with the later ones being a bit less lush but having more detail.

Of course, people's talk is just subjective anecdotes, tho listening tests might be fun.

I have an ARC LS 25 Mk II
Sonic progression.
Early AR3x 12AX and less sophisticated power supplies. Better regulated power and 12AX SP6x. Later SP10x - 6DJ8s
 

Robin L

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I didn't read the over one thousand posts in this thread, but I did read the OP's first original post and I'm wondering if he found what he was looking for.
Was he looking for a good deal for a good DAC with a marvelous Sound Signature or one with the utmost neutrality? Or was he looking for how to deal with people who think in life?
From the OP:

"Saying a DAC has a sound signature is like saying a cable has a sound signature"

So that's what the OP assumed.

I have had experiences where changing interconnect made the combined gear have a 5db drop at 15k, so it's clear that interconnect/cable can have weird interactions depending on application. Of course, if said gear [Ampex MX-10 microphone preamp] had a cathode follower, this wouldn't happen. I suspect there are similar situations involving naturally "broken" designs, like SETs.

But I digress, a DAC includes an analog output stage that can alter sound quality. And bad implementation of the digital side can result in audible distortion. Here's the point. There are DACs that have distortion/noise of lower than -115db. Those DACs, or so Amirm says, ought to be transparent as their self noise/distortion is less than can be perceived.
 
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Julf

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I have had experiences where changing interconnect made the combined gear have a 5db drop at 15k

I would love to see what specific situation was.

so it's clear that interconnect/cable can have weird interactions depending on application.

No, nothing is "clear" from a single anecdote.

Here's the point. There are DACs that have distortion/noise of lower than -115db. Those DACs, or so Amirm says, ought to be transparent as their self noise/distortion is less than can be perceived.

So what is the point actually? Are you saying that they aren't transparent?
 

Robin L

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I would love to see what specific situation was.
Hooking up a very old piece of gear [Ampex MX-10 microphone preamp] to something modern [cassette deck] using different kinds of interconnect. You could say this was a situation where things were just plain wrong, but it does indicate that it is possible to have interconnect affect the sound in an obvious fashion. You could say it's wrong because of severe impedance mismatch. You could say that in order for the MX-10 to work properly with modern gear it would require a cathode follower. That's what Jack Vad told me, anyway.
No, nothing is "clear" from a single anecdote.
Sorry for the lack of clarity. There are situations, like the use of single ended triode gear, where the output impedance is high enough that that speaker cable interaction is audible in a way that it wouldn't with more "normal" gear. Similar to the situation with the MX-10.
So what is the point actually? Are you saying that they aren't transparent?
I'm saying that in certain situations, cables aren't transparent.
 

tomelex

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I remember a trip to an audio saloon when I was in early twenties, and I was comparing, with the sales guy the more expensive newly released McIntosh cd player and another unit, not quite as expensive but still state of the art at the time is all I remember about it. I could hear a difference between them at one point in the song, only at that point as in a tenth of a second or so, after a bit of coaching the salesman could hear it too (coaching as in moving my hand when I heard it, he initially did not hear it, and he was about my age as well) but as I looked back at that over the years, it was probably a high level recorded signal and the audible difference was probably how clipping was being handled between the two units. As I say in my tag line, if you can't hear it, it doesn't matter. But the McIntosh looked so much better, so had I been in the market I would have purchased it on looks, as in that comparison that was the only differentiator.
 

Jimbob54

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I remember a trip to an audio saloon when I was in early twenties, and I was comparing, with the sales guy the more expensive newly released McIntosh cd player and another unit, not quite as expensive but still state of the art at the time is all I remember about it. I could hear a difference between them at one point in the song, only at that point as in a tenth of a second or so, after a bit of coaching the salesman could hear it too (coaching as in moving my hand when I heard it, he initially did not hear it, and he was about my age as well) but as I looked back at that over the years, it was probably a high level recorded signal and the audible difference was probably how clipping was being handled between the two units. As I say in my tag line, if you can't hear it, it doesn't matter. But the McIntosh looked so much better, so had I been in the market I would have purchased it on looks, as in that comparison that was the only differentiator.

Has anybody does that test, do we think? But to extremes. Not blind testing, but putting a stellar device (measured as great) in crap case and a piece of crap( measured as crap) in a beautiful box and asked for sighted opinions on sound?
 
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