Digital shoot-out at the fantasy factory...

[Phelonious Ponk]

Forgive me if you don't get the reference to the old Traffic album. Though if you don't, you may want to listen to it...

Several years ago, I just completed my final digital transformation (ripping many hundreds of CDs to lossless files), and at the same time, I was captivated by reviews I read about the Benchmark DAC/Pre. It had been as measured as any component as I can think of in years, by The Audio Critic and a number of pro sites, and on paper, it was damned near perfect. At the time, and to this day, my speakers are a pair of active monitors - Avi ADM9.1s - with a built-in DAC/pre based on the same Wolfoson chip in the Benchmark. The press for this Benchmark DAC/pre was so good that I needed to try it. But I'm a cheap sumbich, so I found a way to borrow one for couple of weeks. And for a couple of weeks, I switched the Benchmark in and out of the signal chain while playing the most challenging (heavily overdubbed analog recordings from the early to mid 70s) and the most beautiful recordings (old, simply recorded jazz from the late 50s to the mid 60s, and some excellent modern digital recordings) I had...

...and I really couldn't reliably differentiate between them. This wasn't truly "blind," though sometimes I forgot where I was, and wasn't at all good at guessing. Sometimes I would swear I heard a difference, other times I wasn't at all sure.

I concluded, in my ignorance, that this conversion technology must be pretty mature, because it was hard, approaching impossible, to tell the difference between a $2k pro DAC that measured almost...freakin'...perfect, and the same chip, inserted in a pair of active speakers that didn't cost that much more.

Did I miss something then? Am I missing something now? How far...audibly...has digital to analog conversion advanced?

Tim

 

[amirm]

I don't think you missed much. I am still living with my Mark Levinson DAC that I bought in 1999. I don't buy much of the hype on the new DACs. I do have some low cost DACs (e.g. iFi) and I plan to compare them to the Levinson. The big pain is level matching. Sticking a noisy pre-amp between the DACs to match levels would shoot down any incremental difference that might be there. And without level match as you know, this is not a viable comparison.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I don't think you missed much. I am still living with my Mark Levinson DAC that I bought in 1999. I don't buy much of the hype on the new DACs. I do have some low cost DACs (e.g. iFi) and I plan to compare them to the Levinson. The big pain is level matching. Sticking a noisy pre-amp between the DACs to match levels would shoot down any incremental difference that might be there. And without level match as you know, this is not a viable comparison.

Yeah, it was not scientific, but I carried it on for a couple of weeks. Sometimes, I'm sure, one DAC was louder, sometimes they were pretty close. There wasn't much there. In a strict A/B with levels matched, there may have been an identifiable difference, but it would be very close, and which was better would be pretty subjective.

Tim

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yes, I have similar experiences. I first obtained an ADC when I was going to go all digital. The ADC was for my TT, tuner, tape machines. Well firstly it was wow! Never have active pre-amps sounded so transparent. Eventually tried ADC to DAC vs direct wired connection to amps without any digital between from the tape and TT rig. I thought there might be a little difference though I wasn't sure. If it wasn't equal to straight wire it was all but equal. Rather turned on its head the idea digital had this hard unnatural sound endemic to the technology. Sorry, that myth was BUSTED. That was more than 15 years ago.

I have heard files posted on some pro sound boards where a mic pre with multiple outputs is concurrently fed to multiple ADCs. Prices ranged from $400 to $9000 on the ADC. Only one was audible and it had a response down -3 db at 18 khz (it was not the $400 option). The others were indistinguishable. In this case I had never heard of any of the brands being used except for one. So I had no expectations. The names weren't revealed until later.

So when I read these reviews with all the detailed explicit descriptions of sound differences in ADC or DAC determined under uncontrolled, sighted, non-level matched long term conditions I have to laugh. I suggest people starting out on a serious rig to get a $200-400 DAC/pre which has features to match their needs and tell them they aren't missing out on anything.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I have a couple of ADC's around the house, but I really don't know what they cost, because they're built in to cheap project studio equipment I have. The most recent is a chip that enables a usb output from a small Yamaha mixer I use for small gigs - four perfectly acceptable mic pres with phantom power, two more channels of line inputs, a chipful of digital effects, yada yada - 200 bucks. I think the same mixer without the usb output is maybe $50 less? The other is just a smaller version of the same idea - 2 mic pres, usb out. 100 bucks. Both do 24/192. SOTA? No of course not, and if I had really good mics I'd probably hear it.

Pro equipment, even cheap pro equipment, can make you very, very skeptical of the high end. We talk of diminishing returns? I sometimes wonder if there are any returns in DACs above about a thousand dollars. Maybe less. Not for those of us whose music choices are all Redbook anyway.

Tim

 

[Opus111]

Did I miss something then? Am I missing something now?

Perhaps you missed enjoyment? Its really really hard to listen for differences (at least that's my experience), but I've found there are differences in enjoyment between DACs. Some DACs put a smile on my face.