even $75 hidizs s8 betters DCS bartok

[Killingbeans]

So dacs with over 96db sinad should sound same ?

Probably. Unless you're painstakingly listening to the gear, and not the music.

Most of audiophilia is driven by unsubstantiated anxiety.

 

[Veri]

Audible jitter, by the way, is sooooo overstated. People comparing modern devices thinking the jitter is making an audible difference, are frankly just fooling themselves.

DEMO / MUSINGS: Let's listen to some jitter simulations with sideband distortions...

A blog for audiophiles about more objective topics. Measurements of audio gear. Reasonable, realistic, no snakeoil assessment of sound, and equipment.

archimago.blogspot.com

It's not at all audible at 800+ ps... these femto second clock DACs are worlds below that.

 

[PierreV]

Ok, how many years back that limit was reached ?

In CD players. Well before external DACs even entered the minds of consumers.

What was that limit ?

roughly 96dB 44.1 kHz 16-bits

How that limit was decided ?

Our hearing abilities. One might argue endlessly at the edge about the actual number of bits, or that the frequency should have been 48kHz to give a bit more room for the filters, or that a bit more than 96dB gives you a safety margin.

If all modern dacs are beyond that limit then does that mean all dacs should sound same ?

Yes, excluding some intentional variations on filters, design issues. Signal reconstruction is a mathematical process, with some constraints given what you target and how you filter.

If not then what are the factors for creating the difference in sound ?

Intentional "house sound", design issues, immunity to interference, quality of the auxilliary parts such as clocks, optical converters etc... But all of these things have been solved, which is why we have so many devices in the sub $100 or even the sub $20 that are closely tracking what the pure "mathematical" output of the theoretical DAC should be.

Note: I own DACs in the $20 to $10000 range (part of a streamer) ranging from 96dB to 111dB measured characteristics and am not able to hear a difference. The only differences I ever was able to hear was 1) when I tried the analog output of the Chromecast audio vs using another Chromecast audio as a transport to the $10000 streamer DAC 2) possibly the analogue output of my old TEAC CD in the same config.

 

[BDWoody]

So dacs with over 96db sinad should sound same ?

In a normal room, listening to music under non-pathological conditions, yes.

 

[aj625]

In a normal room, listening to music under non-pathological conditions, yes.

so what about many dac group tests on youtube ? or claims like r2r dacs sound more natural if certain limit of sinad is the only criteria ?

 

[aj625]

In CD players. Well before external DACs even entered the minds of consumers.



roughly 96dB 44.1 kHz 16-bits



Our hearing abilities. One might argue endlessly at the edge about the actual number of bits, or that the frequency should have been 48kHz to give a bit more room for the filters, or that a bit more than 96dB gives you a safety margin.



Yes, excluding some intentional variations on filters, design issues. Signal reconstruction is a mathematical process, with some constraints given what you target and how you filter.



Intentional "house sound", design issues, immunity to interference, quality of the auxilliary parts such as clocks, optical converters etc... But all of these things have been solved, which is why we have so many devices in the sub $100 or even the sub $20 that are closely tracking what the pure "mathematical" output of the theoretical DAC should be.

Note: I own DACs in the $20 to $10000 range (part of a streamer) ranging from 96dB to 111dB measured characteristics and am not able to hear a difference. The only differences I ever was able to hear was 1) when I tried the analog output of the Chromecast audio vs using another Chromecast audio as a transport to the $10000 streamer DAC 2) possibly the analogue output of my old TEAC CD in the same config.

so what about so many group tests on youtube of dacs ?

 

[Mart68]

so what about many dac group tests on youtube ? or claims like r2r dacs sound more natural if certain limit of sinad is the only criteria ?

They're all complete nonsense.

 

[aj625]

1/ Ok, how many years back that limit was reached? 10 to 20 years ago.
2/ What was that limit? 16/44100.
3/ How that limit was decided? ABX testing, initially the DSD vs CD PCM debate. Later, comparing to 24/96000 to 16/44100.
4/ If all modern dacs are beyond that limit then does that mean all dacs should sound same? Yes.
5/ If not then what are the factors for creating the difference in sound? Jitter. Choice of anti-aliasing filter, for younger ears than mine. Poor recording technique, some DACs have more headroom to deal with inter-sample overs. There will be other reasons.

Some of what I have said is contentious. Amirm has written some good articles on how you can learn to pick differences. If 16/44100 is borderline I would say 24/48000 is very defendable. For me, having the latest DAC gives me a nice warm glow ergo, it must sound better. Well, to me at least.

formats capability is different and human threshold is different. if format is limited to 96db it does not mean human brain is only sensitive to 96db dr. human brain is much more sensitive to time related distortions.

 

[BDWoody]

so what about many dac group tests on youtube ? or claims like r2r dacs sound more natural if certain limit of sinad is the only criteria ?

If they aren't using tight controls on sight and levels, you can ignore all that.

Our host did a video on what a valid comparison would need.

 

[JJB70]

DACs are a commodity, it is harder to find one that doesn't just work than get one that just does its job perfectly well. And it has been that way for many years, it has been a mature technology for a long time. Ignore the mystique and fixation on measurement and just accept it is the part of the audio chain for which transparent performance is most accessible. You don't even need to buy a DAC, most device onboard DACs sound fine.

 

[PierreV]

formats capability is different and human threshold is different. if format is limited to 96db it does not mean human brain is only sensitive to 96db dr. human brain is much more sensitive to time related distortions.

some food for thought (not exhaustive)

- what is the background noise level in your room currently?
- what is the performance of your speakers compared to the performance of your DAC?
- can a human simultaneously or near-simultaneously hear the lowest and highest level he can hear?
- how many recordings have a DR higher than 96 dBs?
- what is a bandwidth-limited signal, how accurately can it be reconstructed, under which constraints? What does that mean for "time related distortions"?

 

[MaxBuck]

Most of audiophilia is driven by unsubstantiated ananxiety.

Preach it, brotha!

 

[Robin L]

So you mean with increasing sinad sound quality does not improve ?

Yes.

And one more time:

Human hearing sucks.

Measurement tools for audio don't suck.

LPs aren't even at a SINAD of 60, but plenty of people like the sound of LPs. There's your proof of how much our hearing sucks.

 

[daftcombo]

You can pick more girls if you have a dCS Bartok at home, than with an apple dongle, though.

 

[Robin L]

You can pick more girls if you have a dCS Bartok at home, than with an apple dongle, though.

That's only 'cause money doesn't talk, it screams.

Truth is, only a select group of nerds even knows what this expensive crap is.

 

[Killingbeans]

formats capability is different and human threshold is different. if format is limited to 96db it does not mean human brain is only sensitive to 96db dr.

With hard training you'd might be able to hear differences in single tone test signals at -120dB, assuming you sit in a near perfectly sound dead room and use really good headphone gear. And those differences will be right at the brink of "There's a 50/50 chance that I'm crazy, but I think I hear something... maybe?".

With normal headphone listening conditions the threshold quickly rise way above -110dB. And we're still talking ridiculously minute differences. Not anything remotely near "Do you guys hear this? That sounds terrible!".

A speaker setup in a normal living room playing music? You can only dream of hearing -96dB, no matter how "high-end" the setup is and how well acoustically treated the room is. The music will mask most of the stuff that was apparent with single tones, and if you're enjoying the music, your brain will filter out the rest easily. Even if you have a monster setup with 120dB dynamic range, and you play music (recorded with 120dB DR???) at that SPL in order to make the stuff at -96dB "loud", the 120dB part of the music will make damn sure that you can't hear the difference

human brain is much more sensitive to time related distortions.

What do you mean by "time related distortions"? *fingers crossed it's not step/impulse response vs. frequency response... again*

 

[FrantzM]

You can pick more girls if you have a dCS Bartok at home, than with an apple dongle, though.

Welllllll if the dongle is not Apple’s and of appropriate size …..