DAC NOS vs DELTA SIGMA, Who is the real winner...

[NTK]

https://www.ti.com/europe/downloads/Choose%20the%20right%20data%20converter%20for%20your%20application.pdf

 

[Blumlein 88]

You are missing the point of my thought experiment. Please read it in its context (there are little arrows that allow you to jump to parent messages).

Of course modern delta sigma DAC chips are relatively inexpensive and perfect. Any difference between the complete DACs originates in other components.

I'm missing the point too. What is it? DS dacs are pretty close to theoretically perfect results for audio. So with great expense we might equal that. Why unless there is a benefit for audio?

 

[mocenigo]

I'm missing the point too. What is it? DS dacs are pretty close to theoretically perfect results for audio. So with great expense we might equal that. Why unless there is a benefit for audio?

Somebody a few posts upstream asked which tech would be better if cost is no option. I responded with a thought experiment. Of course I believe that it would be a pointless exercise but this is besides the point.

Please folks, read the context and not only the last message before replying…

 

[mocenigo]

We do know that pure ΔΣ has potentially unbounded settling time. This graph does not seem to consider multilevel ΔΣ or at least it is without proper context.

EDIT: the presentation explicitly mentions “(One bit)” and therefore it does not address my question at all. It is also quite old, and covers only the basics. I therefore wasted some time…

 

[widemediaphotography]

You are trying to argue with the wrong person. And you are showing an extraordinary lack of tact, manners, and understanding. I am an objectivist and I am talking about properly conducted double blind tests published in reputable academic journals. I have read the papers years ago and i just know you can find them. Go to the AES site. I am not talking about subjectivist hi-fi magazines that publish what sponsors want.

Positive and statistically significant ABX differentiations are scientific data, with a specific “sigma”. Look at Archimago’s recent DAC test. It is a listening test. And it is scientific.

For instance, measurements are also data. But not the only type of data available.

So, no, I do not consider “measurements a religion of fanaticism” and you completely missed the mark. I consider measurements a fundamental way of evaluating audio equipment.

You, on the other hand, not only are rude, but display the utmost inability to understand both the English language and how science works.

Now, apologise.

Are you serious?

 

[mocenigo]

Are you serious?

Yep.

 

[OPTERON13]

Hi guys,
My toy has arrived - it is a discrete R-2R DAC Hat for Raspberry Pi ( Version V2.42 )

Up to 24bit 384K, non over sampling .
Support Pi 2,3,4, and 5
Distortion 0.004% ~0.005% ,......,.........................
And it is unbelievable good. What op-amps mods and other things, this is truly awesome: more detailed, more cold aka real, bass is very controlled and the soundstage is huge.
But be careful if you play low resolution music it will sound bad because it plays exactly what you fed it.
I play it via a modest sistem: volumio -raspberry 4 - Nvarcher super capacitor power filter - Nvarcher grounded grid tube pre moded - 2 Rotels 850 mono or Nelson Pass ACA paralel mono RCA - Chario Constellation Cygnus speakers.

So in my case R2R NOS is truly the one type of DAC that my ears love - analog and pure, no timber.

PS: DAC's that I had till now:
SMSL 1955+ / SA9027+WM8805+PCM1796+OP275+JRC5532DD but I've played also with OPA1656
AUDIOLAB 8200CDQ - ESS Sabre 9018K2M
Hifiberry Digi+ & Digi+ Pro
Linn Unidisk SC
China ES 9028

 

[staticV3]

But be careful if you play low resolution music it will sound bad because it plays exactly what you fed it.

No.
NOS DACs play a distorted version of what you feed them:


They fundamentally break the Nyquist sampling theorem that digital audio is built upon. They are the opposite of pure.

 

[OPTERON13]

No.
NOS DACs play a distorted version of what you feed them:
View attachment 449581

They fundamentally break the Nyquist sampling theorem that digital audio is built upon. They are the opposite of pure.

Maybe on the graphics but on my ears is pure joy to listen. I have nothing to complain abaout till now.

 

[NTK]

Maybe on the graphics but on my ears is pure joy to listen. I have nothing to complain abaout till now.

How much joy your "ears" (more like ears plus a whole bunch of other confounding factors) have had means nothing to anyone who doesn't have your "ears".

 

[DVDdoug]

this is truly awesome: more detailed, more cold aka real, bass is very controlled and the soundstage is huge.

"Detail" isn't really defined and a DAC would have to be BADLY BROKEN to change the bass or soundstage (or to affect detail, whatever that is). DACs "naturally" go down to DC (zero Hz) but the DC is usually filtered out because it's not sound and can cause problems. (There shouldn't be any DC in the digital audio but sometimes there is a little and it's just "good practice" to make sure there is no DC voltage coming-out of the DAC.) Sometimes there are measurable frequency response variations at the highest frequencies but they are rarely audible in blind ABX tests.

Proper ABX tests can be VERY humbling!

Nvarcher grounded grid tube pre moded -

It's possible to build a good tube amp but it's more expensive than with modern electronics, and it cracks me up when people mix 1950s technology with DACs. And buyihng one that doesn't perform properly without "modding" doesn't make any sense to me... It's pretty easy to make a preamp that's better than human hearing and super-easy if there is no (high gain) mic preamp or phono preamp stage.

Good tube power amps are much more difficult and much more expensive because they require an output transformer.

 

[OPTERON13]

Ok, I am not an electronist but I can understand principles and measurements.
My belief is hearing ( I can still gear 16000 Hz ) and testing.
I have a favorite playlist of songs,mostly jazz, rock and folk and throughout the years I listened them on diferent equipment and:
I like:
- CDs and SACD
- class A ( Nelson Pass builds ) and A/B amps
- tube preamps not amps
- TDA1541 dacs

dont't like for audiophile listening:
- class D amps
- class H amps
- Delta Sigma dacs
- new generation of solid state preamps

This is why I have arrived on this setup witch is temporarily for sure - testing and hearing.

 

[VientoB]

Ok, I am not an electronist but I can understand principles and measurements.
My belief is hearing ( I can still gear 16000 Hz ) and testing.
I have a favorite playlist of songs,mostly jazz, rock and folk and throughout the years I listened them on diferent equipment and:
I like:
- CDs and SACD
- class A ( Nelson Pass builds ) and A/B amps
- tube preamps not amps
- TDA1541 dacs

dont't like for audiophile listening:
- class D amps
- class H amps
- Delta Sigma dacs
- new generation of solid state preamps

This is why I have arrived on this setup witch is temporarily for sure - testing and hearing.

You use your hearing to listen to music, not to test DACs.

 

[staticV3]

You use your hearing to listen to music, not to test DACs.

You can use your hearing to test DACs, but only with the right controls in place which barely anyone bothers with.

Without controls, any conclusions are worthless since one cannot differentiate fact from cognitive bias.

 

[VientoB]

You can use your hearing to test DACs, but only with the right controls in place which barely anyone bothers with.

Without controls, any conclusions are worthless since one cannot differentiate fact from cognitive bias.

Nobody is going to bother putting the right controls in place so basically you cannot use your ears to test DACs.

 

[NTK]

Nobody is going to bother putting the right controls in place so basically you cannot use your ears to test DACs.

Not nobody. And for those who had, the results aligned quite uniformly with the understanding of the science by the mainstream scientific/academic community.

 

[watchnerd]

I'll just repeat one of my earlier posts:

Master Thread: Are Measurements Everything or Nothing?

Hypothesis =/= theory. Sorry to be pedantic, but meanings matter. My insistence on accepting the possibility that we don't know everything that goes into making a device truly transparent is not an attempt to create a placeholder for "voodoo audio science" that claims otherworldly reasons exist...

www.audiosciencereview.com

R2R DACs are like mechanical watches.

Cheap ones are garbage, ludicrously expensive ones can be surprisingly accurate, but anyone claiming their Grand Seiko is more accurate than some G-Shock Quartz watch is a clown in my book.

You buy them for their novelty or because you appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into them. Not because they're better at telling the time.

You buy R2R DACs for their novelty or because you appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into them. Not because they're better at turning Digital into Analog.

Anyone who claims they do hasn't done their research.


In other words:
If you want no nonsense, accurate time keeping, you buy a Quartz watch.
If you want no nonsense, accurate D->A conversion, you buy Delta-sigma.

But…

My Grand Seiko is a quartz regulated mechanical spring powered watch with auto / manual winding.

 

[watchnerd]

Why?

Ringing from brick wall filters.

This was known last century, ancient problem.

 

[watchnerd]

Hi guys,
My toy has arrived - it is a discrete R-2R DAC Hat for Raspberry Pi ( Version V2.42 )

Up to 24bit 384K, non over sampling .
Support Pi 2,3,4, and 5
Distortion 0.004% ~0.005% ,......,.........................
And it is unbelievable good. What op-amps mods and other things, this is truly awesome: more detailed, more cold aka real, bass is very controlled and the soundstage is huge.
But be careful if you play low resolution music it will sound bad because it plays exactly what you fed it.
I play it via a modest sistem: volumio -raspberry 4 - Nvarcher super capacitor power filter - Nvarcher grounded grid tube pre moded - 2 Rotels 850 mono or Nelson Pass ACA paralel mono RCA - Chario Constellation Cygnus speakers.

So in my case R2R NOS is truly the one type of DAC that my ears love - analog and pure, no timber.

PS: DAC's that I had till now:
SMSL 1955+ / SA9027+WM8805+PCM1796+OP275+JRC5532DD but I've played also with OPA1656
AUDIOLAB 8200CDQ - ESS Sabre 9018K2M
Hifiberry Digi+ & Digi+ Pro
Linn Unidisk SC
China ES 9028

Interesting, I wonder if I could fit it to my Roon endpoint running RoPiee and have it work.

I could then compare contrast to my Schiit Modius, which uses AKM DAC

What is the cost?

 

[tmtomh]

Let us make instead a thought experiment.
The question was regardless of budget.

So, suppose you can manufacture resistors with the highest possible precision.
Then, you parallel SEVERAL (16? 32? 64?) sign-magnitude R2R DACs, or, even better, you actually consider them as differential, you have 2^n positive contributions and 2^n negative contribution - and each R2R ladder has a different offset to balance every imprecision, it is important that 1) the offsets sum to zero and 2) they are randomised with each sample. The latter decreases distortion, and the heavy parallelism decreases noise.

The final result could easily reach or surpass the performance of a good implementation of a delta sigma DAC, with the advantage of a shorter settling time.

Of course the cost would be horrible.

(And I am aware that you can to the same with Delta Sigma DACs, whether discrete or parallel — this was not my point.)

The point is that no technology would have an advantage over the other.

Yes, if you set up your thought experiment to eliminate all the advantages one technology has over the other (under the heading of "we'll compensate for the problem by spending more money"), then no technology would have an advantage over the other. It's a tautological claim and not meaningful. As a thought experiment it actually does a very good job of highlighting why R2R isn't worth doing.