2$ DAC vs $2000 DAC Old article but very interesting!

[PolkFan]

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733.html



I found this article to be a good read and its quite interesting how strong confirmation bias is in the audiophile community!

I remember when i was a kid i had a old Celeron PC(2003) from Walmart didn't even have a AGP slot and i ended up getting a sound card for my speakers and i noticed a BIG difference even more so with the sound stage in games.

Now i actually only own a objective 2+Odac on my Ryzen rig and it has a Realtek ALC1220 dac, but i tried just using the DAC in my PC and i couldn't tell a difference even with my 770's, AKG K712's,

I remember when i used to be into audio back in 2014 or so and watched this as well and found it to be true

I feel in todays world not enough people respect good audio and are fine even with the tinny sounding speakers that come with their new TV's. Part of me thinks the audiophile community and most companies kind of turned a lot of people away.

Anyways i wanted to know what you guys thought?

 

[Ron Texas]

This is ancient and today a $120 DAC measures better than the $2k DAC in that article. There are other defects in the test as there were only 2 listeners and the selection of music was weird.

 

[PolkFan]

This is ancient and today a $120 DAC measures better than the $2k DAC in that article. There are other defects in the test as there were only 2 listeners and the selection of music was weird.

Very old i wouldn't mind seeing this again actually.

With 20 people and using ABX comparisons

Its probably more true today then back then as DAC's have even gotten better even cheaper boards are using decent DAC chips.

Typically just use the audio from the back of the PC not the case and you will probably be just fine with most headphones with 250ohms or less

Looking at the cheapest AM4 board on newegg i see they have this DAC Realtek 892

• DACs with 95dB SNR (A-weighting), ADCs with 90dB SNR (A-weighting)
• Ten DAC channels support 16/20/24-bit PCM format for 7.1 channel sound playback, plus 2 channels of concurrent independent stereo sound output (multiple streaming) through the front panel output
• Two stereo ADCs support 16/20/24-bit PCM format, multiple stereo recording
• All DACs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
• All ADCs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate

It also even looks like it has a few decent caps for the amp portion

 

[M00ndancer]

That's why I use my HAD-1 DAC/AMP instead of ASUS Xonar DGX or the Realtek ALC892 onboard. Convenience, nothing more. Having Toslink in/ADC/DAC/headphone out in with a hardware volume control in the same unit. Is it objectively better than the others, probably not. But having it on my desk with easy to reach controllers and the possibility to be used as a stand-alone unit (Toslink in or ADC in) if the computer is off, priceless.

 

[ZolaIII]

I read that article long time ago & it's bad & ill done. You can buy perfectly good DAC for little more than 100$, make it 200 to 250 if you insist on balanced & or LRX processing & output. Everything else simply doesn't have sense. In the end it's not how expensive used components are but how good they are implemented and how convenient it is to use.

 

[FrantzM]

The video should have been done better... The flaws are numerous ...
What they're saying however stand truer today. Amir has reviewed a $9 Apple dongle and numerous other DACs among which a $15,000 Total Thing ... We know the $15,000 model wasn't as good as the $9 DAC... The Total's objective performance remains at, or near the bottom of all DAC tested at ASR... Not a proof but an illustration

 

[anmpr1]

You can buy perfectly good DAC for little more than 100$, make it 200 to 250 if you insist on balanced & or LRX processing & output. Everything else simply doesn't have sense.

There are sensible reasons to spend more then two hundred and fifty dollars on a DAC. The reasons do not turn on audible DAC performance, but are related to ergonomics/build quality/support/warranty/system-studio integration/network capability, etc. I'd probably draw the line at about $1500.00, or possibly 2K (for something with full preamp features such as the DAC3-HGC). Add more for wireless...

Some of the cheaper DACs are built cheaply, and look worse. I've mentioned it before, but the LED indicators on my Cambridge Audio DAC are failing. I can't get too excited about it since it didn't cost much to begin with (although I think an LED ought to last a long time).

If dollars are not an object, and if one wants bragging rights to 'the best' spec-wise, then I can understand forking out for something like the Mola DAC that was reviewed here. It's not my thing, but I understand the pride of ownership argument for someone who must have the best. Unfortunately, the best hardly stays the best for long. That's why spending large dollars on a DAC is questionable, especially if you expect any return for your money when you try and sell it a few years down the road.

 

[ZolaIII]

There are sensible reasons to spend more then two hundred and fifty dollars on a DAC. The reasons do not turn on audible DAC performance, but are related to ergonomics/build quality/support/warranty/system-studio integration/network capability, etc. I'd probably draw the line at about $1500.00, or possibly 2K (for something with full preamp features such as the DAC3-HGC). Add more for wireless...

Some of the cheaper DACs are built cheaply, and look worse. I've mentioned it before, but the LED indicators on my Cambridge Audio DAC are failing. I can't get too excited about it since it didn't cost much to begin with (although I think an LED ought to last a long time).

If dollars are not an object, and if one wants bragging rights to 'the best' spec-wise, then I can understand forking out for something like the Mola DAC that was reviewed here. It's not my thing, but I understand the pride of ownership argument for someone who must have the best. Unfortunately, the best hardly stays the best for long. That's why spending large dollars on a DAC is questionable, especially if you expect any return for your money when you try and sell it a few years down the road.

Aesthetics are highly subjective and in the end you won't spend time looking at the dammn thing but listening to it. I don't know about you but I prefer it as solo & stand alone as possible all unnecessary additions which you probably won't end up using anyway will just add on cost and noise. Simply enough as simple it is there's less probably that something fails of or not function properly. Quality is a bit hard category to determine objectively this day's & so is the long lasting product support. Certainly products that sell good & manage to attract developers community towards it will stand better regarding that but those are never very expensive one's. There's no need to spend more than 120~150$ at all if you don't want Balanced and/or LRX. Examples LOXJIE D10, Sound BlasterX G6... Best regards.

 

[anmpr1]

...all unnecessary additions which you probably won't end up using anyway will just add on cost and noise.

Quality is a bit hard category to determine objectively

I agree one ought not pay for 'unnecessary' features. However, the 'added features' of, say, the DAC3 HGC do not add noise... but they do add some cost. The analog section will add some noise compared to the digital, but that's analog for you. There are DACs that have even lower S/N than the Benchmark. But then you are not talking two hundred and fifty dollars.

Your are correct that 'quality' can be a vague term, hard to pin down. Warranty, tech support, reputation of company, fit 'n finish are all things that each consumer must weigh. For instance, I think most people would be able to distinguish 'quality' in a relative way, allowing them to rank order the Sabaj D5 v. something from Matrix or Okto Research...all having good specs, even if they didn't know the price.

Again, I agree with you that for most folks and for most systems a two hundred and fifty dollar DAC (or less) will be fine. If it breaks, buy another one and you've still spent less than the high priced spread. So anything more depends on what 'feature's one would like (to include aesthetics).

 

[ZolaIII]

I agree one ought not pay for 'unnecessary' features. However, the 'added features' of, say, the DAC3 HGC do not add noise... but they do add some cost. The analog section will add some noise compared to the digital, but that's analog for you. There are DACs that have even lower S/N than the Benchmark. But then you are not talking two hundred and fifty dollars.

Your are correct that 'quality' can be a vague term, hard to pin down. Warranty, tech support, reputation of company, fit 'n finish are all things that each consumer must weigh. For instance, I think most people would be able to distinguish 'quality' in a relative way, allowing them to rank order the Sabaj D5 v. something from Matrix or Okto Research...all having good specs, even if they didn't know the price.

Again, I agree with you that for most folks and for most systems a two hundred and fifty dollar DAC (or less) will be fine. If it breaks, buy another one and you've still spent less than the high priced spread. So anything more depends on what 'feature's one would like (to include aesthetics).

I have 20+ years old Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zs which still works great and still has community support drivers, Creative whose always quirky regarding drivers but did had a long lasting support... In the end no one can't tell how G6 isn't quality properly & fairly good built product that will probably have much more longer lasting support than the most things that are on the market now & it has a lot of futures too. It's 150$.

Best regards.

 

[Veri]

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733.html
[...]
Anyways i wanted to know what you guys thought?

Just something to keep in mind, the search function would show that this article was already discussed multiple times.
search https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...&q=high-end-pc-audio,3733-19.html&o=relevance
previous thread https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...io-quality-you-pay-for-features-article.9810/

 

[NoMoFoNo]

The way to go is to wait until the pre-Corona audiophool becomes the post-Corona bankruptee. The very expensive gear will be available for pennies on the dollar!

Too soon?

 

[anmpr1]

I have 20+ years old Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zs which still works great and still has community support drivers,

That is a good story. Reminds me of the Dynaco tube update scene. But really, in its own way its great when people work to keep something going in spite of the changing world. Was that a Win 98 or XP device? How do folks continue to work on the drivers? Is it reversed engineered? I presume the original design was proprietary and Creative has not shared their code?

I don't don't much about the proprietary driver scene, but much old stuff is simply abandoned because of copyrights. I recall reading an IBM statement about their old 32 bit OS/2 code. Some hobbyists asked IBM to open source it, but the company said there was too much third party code in it, and they couldn't release it due to cross licensing agreements, etc.

 

[ZolaIII]

@anmpr1 it's a repack of official drivers from Creative with numbers things fixed out which Creative didn't done among other things suport for Windows 10.
http://danielkawakami.blogspot.com/2017/01/sb-audigy-series-support-pack-62.html?m=1
There whose & another effort of even more costume ones with fully costume DSP programming support (visual component connecting pin by pin with good components library actually more advanced & user friendly than any up to date FPGA used in a audio product) that stopes couple years back. It whose Open Source & code is still available:
https://github.com/kxproject
Audigy 2 whose originally an Windows XP product & Creative never made some of the software components for it or reset of the later series work on the newer version of Windows. Recently (last year) independent Open Source Linux driver emerged. Those are probably historically longest supported audio card's (Audigy series).