Best dac for my cd transport ?

[Calexico]

I forgot to add that a good power supply with lo noise and enough power is essential for good sound.

 

[GGroch]

Do all modern dacs sound the same when converting 16 /44.1. Or are there some better than others.

Hi Standin!

Just last week the results were published of a well designed scientific test of over 100 experienced listeners to answer exactly your question. The discussion HERE. It is LONG...in 3 parts, but not too hard to understand, and certainly worth the read if you are serious about finding the answer to your question.

RANT: I am disappointed and frankly surprised by most of the answers you have received so far. You ask an excellent question and have received mostly responses that are either techno-babel nonsense or totally subjective. The techno-babel is nonsense because you can argue digital theory all day without ever addressing the question "can you hear it". The simple answer is that if a DAC is defective or poorly designed you can hear that at 16/44, but almost no people can otherwise. Those that statistically can here differences between DACs of widely varying quality (like a high end OPPO vs a Noisy Motherboard DAC) still make more wrong guesses than right.

The other subjective opinions offer what is perhaps good advice (I really like the build quality and features of the RME DACs too) but say nothing about whether it will sound different (without its sophisticated DSP EQ settings turned on) than a $99 Sanskrit 10th. It almost certainly won't. That is, it will not play back 16/44 noticeably more accurately or sound different. But if you want additional features like an excellent digital tone control, you got it.

 

[Calexico]

Hi Standin!

Just last week the results were published of a well designed scientific test of over 100 experienced listeners to answer exactly your question. The discussion HERE. It is LONG...in 3 parts, but not too hard to understand, and certainly worth the read if you are serious about finding the answer to your question.

RANT: I am disappointed and frankly surprised by most of the answers you have received so far. You ask an excellent question and have received mostly responses that are either techno-babel nonsense or totally subjective. The techno-babel is nonsense because you can argue digital theory all day without ever addressing the question "can you hear it". The simple answer is that if a DAC is defective or poorly designed you can hear that at 16/44, but almost no people can otherwise. Those that statistically can here differences between DACs of widely varying quality (like a high end OPPO vs a Noisy Motherboard DAC) still make more wrong guesses than right.

The other subjective opinions offer what is perhaps good advice (I really like the build quality and features of the RME DACs too) but say nothing about whether it will sound different (without its sophisticated DSP EQ settings turned on) than a $99 Sanskrit 10th. It almost certainly won't. That is, it will not play back 16/44 noticeably more accurately or sound different. But if you want additional features like an excellent digital tone control, you got it.

It's interesting that musicians which should have little hear loss have detected easily the motherboard. I'm pretty sure we are not egal in sensitivity and maybe 1or 2÷ can can be more sensitive to subtle differences

 

[Calexico]

@GGroch and don't forget to mention that in the conclusion of the aticle it's said

Remember that science is based on empirical observations to confirm or reject results. Consider these test results as "data points". Nothing here is dogma. In time, perhaps the conclusions may change with further systematic testing.

The article was interesting and what is shown is also that while majority cannot easily discern the sounds some where more sensible and could discern. And that was not necessarily the audiophile ones.

 

[andreasmaaan]

@GGrochThe article was interesting and what is shown is also that while majority cannot easily discern the sounds some where more sensible and could discern. And that was not necessarily the audiophile ones.

I agree, but I think it's more interesting I think that nobody could detect any difference between any of the devices other than a Realtek laptop DAC chip

 

[SIY]

RANT: I am disappointed and frankly surprised by most of the answers you have received so far. You ask an excellent question and have received mostly responses that are either techno-babel nonsense or totally subjective.

I wonder if Amir can stick a tag equivalent to the "Technical Expert" one on people who are clueless about audio science, but are happy to spew nonsense anyway. Maybe "Dunning-Kruger"?

 

[Calexico]

@andreasmaaan For people like me that are more sensitive it prooves that it's not placebo to have some preferences. And that we don't know yet what parameters make this preference. So reviews here may be incomplete for such people that are more sensitive. Aslo it's obvious that people listening only low dynamic range music will have less trained hear and more difficulties to discern differences.
Lot of people listen to modern bad sounding too much compressed music with low dynamic range. If they think it sound good enough they have no credibility for making preferences.

I agree 90÷ people maybe more will be satisfied but they are also satisfied by low dynamic range music. Some sensitive people will need more knowledge to best suit their tastes. That's why it's not idiot to share personnal preferences.

 

[SIY]

For people like me that are more sensitive it prooves that it's not placebo to have some preferences. And that we don't know yet what parameters make this preference. So reviews here may be incomplete for such people that are more sensitive.

Of course that's nonsense. If you bothered to read the Archimago article and were able to understand it, you would have seen that there was only a single outlier among the DACs.

 

[Calexico]

Of course that's nonsense. If you bothered to read the Archimago article and were able to understand it, you would have seen that there was only a single outlier among the DACs.

On conclusion it's written
Remember that science is based on empirical observations to confirm or reject results. Consider these test results as "data points". Nothing here is dogma. In time, perhaps the conclusions may change with further systematic testing.

 

[Calexico]

I wonder if Amir can stick a tag equivalent to the "Technical Expert" one on people who are clueless about audio science, but are happy to spew nonsense anyway. Maybe "Dunning-Kruger"?

Remember that science is based on empirical observations to confirm or reject results. Consider these test results as "data points". Nothing here is dogma. In time, perhaps the conclusions may change with further systematic testing

 

[Calexico]

@SIY your only contribution here is to criticize people without respect. Do you enjoy it?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Hi Standin!

Just last week the results were published of a well designed scientific test of over 100 experienced listeners to answer exactly your question. The discussion HERE. It is LONG...in 3 parts, but not too hard to understand, and certainly worth the read if you are serious about finding the answer to your question.

RANT: I am disappointed and frankly surprised by most of the answers you have received so far. You ask an excellent question and have received mostly responses that are either techno-babel nonsense or totally subjective. The techno-babel is nonsense because you can argue digital theory all day without ever addressing the question "can you hear it". The simple answer is that if a DAC is defective or poorly designed you can hear that at 16/44, but almost no people can otherwise. Those that statistically can here differences between DACs of widely varying quality (like a high end OPPO vs a Noisy Motherboard DAC) still make more wrong guesses than right.

The other subjective opinions offer what is perhaps good advice (I really like the build quality and features of the RME DACs too) but say nothing about whether it will sound different (without its sophisticated DSP EQ settings turned on) than a $99 Sanskrit 10th. It almost certainly won't. That is, it will not play back 16/44 noticeably more accurately or sound different. But if you want additional features like an excellent digital tone control, you got it.

Okay, I can answer the question definitively. No, not all DACs sound the same playing 44.1/16 audio. Does that ease you in you rant?

And about that noisy motherboard wasn't the noise at - 104 db? I'm wondering if that is the reason.

 

[Calexico]

Okay, I can answer the question definitively. No, not all DACs sound the same playing 44.1/16 audio. Does that ease you in you rant?

And about that noisy motherboard wasn't the noise at - 104 db? I'm wondering if that is the reason.

Do you have ideas of the reason? I don't think noise is the reason because noise in the records of real music is generally much higher than -104 db. Then noise of the recording masks noise at -104 db. I believe precision of clock can make differences also what do u think? Also the mitherboard may have an output that has less power to drive the amp ( or impedance mismatch). And the oversampling filter could be less precise. Do you think measuring sine wave show the precision of a resampler? Maybe we should measure if the output frequency obtained is exaxtly 1khz or mybe is 1.001 khz. Do such test exists to measure precision on the freqency?

 

[bennetng]

Okay, I can answer the question definitively. No, not all DACs sound the same playing 44.1/16 audio. Does that ease you in you rant?

And about that noisy motherboard wasn't the noise at - 104 db? I'm wondering if that is the reason.

I just tried DeltaWave. With default setting, compared with the original 1644 files, clicked "Match", waited for it to finish, then selected File > Save Delta Wave... then here are the waveforms, track 1, 2, 3, 4 are file A (AsRock mainboard), B (iPhone 6), C (Oppo), D (Sony SACD).

How about your results?

PS: iPhone and Oppo use minimum phase filter, AsRock and Sony are linear phase.

Crowd Chant:

Wild World:

 

[DuxServit]

Do all modern dacs sound the same when converting 16 /44.1. Or are there some better than others.

I would suggest you try some of cheaper DACs to see if these satisfy your needs before spending 1000 pounds or dollars.

On the ASR hardware master list, there are a few good-performing DACs for under $200. I bought the Topping D50 and am satisfied for my desktop setup.

If later you want to spend more (e.g. RME DAC is a good one), you can always sell the D50 on eBay or elsewhere.

 

[andreasmaaan]

For people like me that are more sensitive it prooves that it's not placebo to have some preferences.

You haven't proven you're more sensitive though You need to do a controlled test first before you can make statements like that.

PS do you have Foobar? I can prepare some files for you with noise and distortion added that you can then use to test yourself against the originals using Foobar's ABX comparator. You just need to send me your preferred test track(s) and the levels/types of noise/distortion you think you can detect and I can do the rest.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Do you have ideas of the reason? I don't think noise is the reason because noise in the records of real music is generally much higher than -104 db. Then noise of the recording masks noise at -104 db. I believe precision of clock can make differences also what do u think? Also the mitherboard may have an output that has less power to drive the amp ( or impedance mismatch). And the oversampling filter could be less precise. Do you think measuring sine wave show the precision of a resampler? Maybe we should measure if the output frequency obtained is exaxtly 1khz or mybe is 1.001 khz. Do such test exists to measure precision on the freqency?

I don't think it is a small frequency shift. Yes you can test for that. Pretty common for devices to be plus or minus 100 ppm on speed. As for what it might be I'm working on it and will report if I see something that looks like it is the reason.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I just tried DeltaWave. With default setting, compared with the original 1644 files, clicked "Match", waited for it to finish, then selected File > Save Delta Wave... then here are the waveforms, track 1, 2, 3, 4 are file A (AsRock mainboard), B (iPhone 6), C (Oppo), D (Sony SACD).

How about your results?

PS: iPhone and Oppo use minimum phase filter, AsRock and Sony are linear phase.

Crowd Chant:
View attachment 26615

Wild World:
View attachment 26616

I've been busy and haven't used Deltawave on Arch's files yet. I'm going to get to that maybe later today.

 

[Calexico]

You haven't proven you're more sensitive though You need to do a controlled test first before you can make statements like that.

PS do you have Foobar? I can prepare some files for you with noise and distortion added that you can then use to test yourself against the originals using Foobar's ABX comparator. You just need to send me your preferred test track(s) and the levels/types of noise/distortion you think you can detect and I can do the rest.

Ok i can do it. Well just send me files with accoustic instruments and good dynamic range. I've no ideo of the threshold of thd i can hear neither if it's the factor that is most important to my preferences.
Maybe we could start with a level and redo the test until i detect a difference. We could do the same test with a file converted to 48khz to see i i can detect effect of the frequency converting . And same test with different filters

If i made test with shuffle on my portable player is it ok? (Click next then listen to see how i like it compared to the one before and then looking number of the track)

Thank you

 

[andreasmaaan]

Ok i can do it. Well just send me files with accoustic instruments and good dynamic range. I've no ideo of the threshold of thd i can hear neither if it's the factor that is most important to my preferences.
Maybe we could start with a level and redo the test until i detect a difference. We could do the same test with a file converted to 48khz to see i i can detect effect of the frequency converting . And same test with different filters

If i made test with shuffle on my portable player is it ok? (Click next then listen to see how i like it compared to the one before and then looking number of the track)

Thank you

Great

Yeh we can do it that way. I think it will be of limited value though, since the ABX test is what allows us to know whether a listener can detect a difference. If you're just listening to the files and ranking them by order of preference, we'll have no way of knowing whether it's a fluke or not.

With the Foobar ABX comparator you can listen to a file for as long as you like before changing, and the changes are instant and seamless, which will give you a much better chance of hearing any differences compared to having to hit stop and then opening a new file.

But if we do it the way you suggest, how about we make 3 files: 10% nonlinear distortion, 1% nonlinear distortion, and 0.1% (and of course the original).

Also, it would be better if you choose the track.

And let's continue this by PM, will be much less pressure than doing the whole thing publicly, don't you think?