How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent?

[napfkuchen]

... my cabling is all Wireworld Eclipse and Silver Eclipse. Overall, my audiophile friends think my audio system is really quite good.

You should not go cheap on cables. That's the problem.

 

[caught gesture]

This is beginning to get really annoying — Heart Shaped World/Chris Issak;

Isaak again recorded “Game” with Silvertone among some tracks cut in 1988 at Berkeley, Calif.,-based Fantasy Studios. The team then adjourned to the now-defunct Dave Wellhausen Studios in San Francisco’s Sunset District, where they settled in and began cutting and pasting. Kenney Dale Johnson’s drum tracks were sampled into an Akai DD1000 sampler (Needham calls it an “ancient forerunner to Pro Tools”); then they began making loops and reinventing the groove.

“I’d been doing stuff with the early Eventide H3000s and other boxes,” Needham recalls. “Sampling was still in a primitive state, but we were making loops using samples and triggering them off MIDI. For ‘Wicked Game,’ the samples came from various 24-track outtake versions that we were never really happy with. We’d take six or seven different brush patterns and make loop patterns we could trigger off a MIDI note.”

Rowland Salley’s bass guitar tracks were also compiled from previously recorded versions of the song that were sampled. After samples were loaded into the Akai, MIDI tracks were built with Mark of the Unicorn (now MOTU) Performer software. Finished loops were dumped back to an MCI JH-24 analog 24-track on Ampex 456 tape at +6 level. Johnson then came back in to overdub cymbals. “As I remember,” remarks Needham, “we gave him a fake kick pedal so that he could feel like he was actually hitting something a little hard to play along with. We were trying to keep the live feel so it didn’t sound programmed, but it had that precision and regularity, which really helps make the verses work.”

Classic Tracks: Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game"

By Maureen Droney. Between that brooding, melancholy, impossibly romantic voice and languorous guitar, how could "Wicked Game" not become a hit?

www.mixonline.com

All of your state of the art playback equipment and you are mainly listening to primitive loops from samples triggered off MIDI. I wonder what “state of the art“ DAC was used to send them back to tape.

 

[ferrellms]

I know there are people out there that think cables affect sound, which is much worse, but there really is no response to something like that, but just to smile and nod. But what about people who talk about DACS as if they were headphone drivers or speakers, and talk about the SOUNDSTAGE, IMAGING, and MIDRANGE of a DAC? I actually don't know what to say to people to not be rude. If you try explaining that a DAC isn't something that actually changes the sound, they accuse you of having "a hard-on for measurements", as if it were the measurements themselves that tell you that DACs don't have a sound. What they don't get though, is that even if we had no equipment to measure distortion or other aspects of sound, still would not have a sound to them. So you try explaining by telling them that when you listen to different DACs using the same headphone and amp, that you cannot tell the difference. "You can't tell the difference between DACS????" "There must be something wrong with your system. You don't have revealing enough upstream and downstream equipment. Either that you haven't "learned" to tell the difference between them." Then you explain that in double-blind studies people are not able to tell the difference between Dacs any better than someone picking random answers. And their response is that the differences are "subtle", and them and other audiophiles who have spent time practicing and learning how to listen properly can hear a difference. "That doesn't sound like a very good way of testing that. Just taking a random group of people who know nothing about audio equipment and asking them to try to find the difference between DACs? Those people haven't yet learned to know the difference!" Then you ask them how they know that they actually hear the difference and it isn't just placebo. ETC.

The problem is that this isn't even an uncommon view. I would say that people who understand there isn't a difference between decently engineered dac (except perhaps small amounts of distortion in the lower end ones that may or may not be audible). Most audiophiles think there is at least a subtle difference between DACS and don't realize that saying the DACS sound different is like saying the portion of a DVD player that takes the 0s and 1s that are read off the disk and converts them into video can make the same DVD "look different" on the same exact TV. It's incredible, but if you want to be friends with audiophiles or even post on an audiophile board, you either have to pretend you agree or somehow remain silent when people talk about this stuff. Like "ohh have you heard the utopias in the chord hugo?? it really makes the mids stand out, but its a warmer dac". The main problem is actually that there is a confusion. They think that we mean that what makes a DAC "objectively good" is a TRANSPARENT DAC, and that we first define a good dac as a transparent DAC and then say that the measurements prove that the DAC is transparent, and therefore it is the better DAC. They think there are other dacs that are not transparent, but rather, color the sound in a good way, and therefore "measure worse" but sound better. This is nothing but a huge confusion. If that were how dacs worked, then I would actually agree with them. What matters most is how something sounds. However that is literally not what DACS do. DACs by nature do not have a sound signature. Saying a DAC has a sound signature is like saying a cable has a sound signature (well I guess if it is a really ****** dac it can have a sound signature of "fuzzy" or whatever dac distortion is, but you get the picture). Problem is, I don't think there will ever be an easy way to educate audiophiles about this, and so the only remedy will be like who the hell knows?

A fellow on YouTube compared a bunch of DACs sound,quality. He actually ran audio thru all these DACs (high end, cheap, in-between) 10 times to multiply any audible coloration by 10.

No audible difference. That does not mean that he doesn't have a favorite, of course, but not due to audible sound.

 

[BDWoody]

He actually ran audio thru all these DACs (high end, cheap, in-between) 10 times to multiply any audible coloration by 10.

No audible difference.

After that, he ran them through 50 iterations, and for the top box still couldn't tell the difference.

That's pretty remarkable

 

[Deleted member 72381]

This is beginning to get really annoying — reading posts of those ignorant self-professed experts.

...

The point I am trying to make is that all DACs are not the same, and the best of them help enable a listening experience truly better than most people will ever hear from a CD or streamed.

Yes, it is getting really annoying reading posts from ignorant, self-professed experts. They suggest that we should simply trust their qualitative statements about audio components without any evidence. No measurements. No double-blind tests. Nothing. We are just supposed to take it on faith that these self-professed experts, unlike normal human beings, are immune to confirmation bias and have near-perfect, long-term auditory memory.

Prior to coming, I had arranged to have a one hour private session with the CEO/founder of Grimm Audio — primarily to explore the capabilities of the company’s new MU2 DAC.

So you listened to an audio system comprised of completely different components than yours, in a hotel room you've likely never been in before, and somehow determined that the "improvements" you believe that you heard were due to the DAC. Not the speakers. Not the amplifier. Impressive.

 

[JP]

A fellow on YouTube compared a bunch of DACs sound,quality. He actually ran audio thru all these DACs (high end, cheap, in-between) 10 times to multiply any audible coloration by 10.

No audible difference. That does not mean that he doesn't have a favorite, of course, but not due to audible sound.

I reached out to him to see if he'll give out the uncompressed audio for those generation comparisons.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I reached out to him to see if he'll give out the uncompressed audio for those generation comparisons.

Look for a couple of 8 times through or 8th generation threads I've posted. Files are still available for downloads. No compression used. It is listed several times just in this thread. There is also an online place where someone did this for 1000 generations.

How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent?

...that is the best take on the subject I have seen so far... ...it is clear to any thinking person that there are asspects involved we have no way to measure... ...it was just stated there are only three asspects measured at the current state of the art...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[JP]

Look for a couple of 8 times through or 8th generation threads I've posted. Files are still available for downloads. No compression used. It is listed several times just in this thread. There is also an online place where someone did this for 1000 generations.

How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent?

...that is the best take on the subject I have seen so far... ...it is clear to any thinking person that there are asspects involved we have no way to measure... ...it was just stated there are only three asspects measured at the current state of the art...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Ya, I’ve seen those. The larger sample size of economical ADCs is what interests me.

 

[Deleted member 72099]

The Topping E50 appears to measure very well but when I put it into my system it was a disaster. Frankly, up until now, I was in the camp that DACs should have nearly zero sonic impact. With the Topping in the system there is a marked upper midrange resonance that pushes vocals so far back that some become almost inaudible. Yes, the soundstage appears to be wider and there is some additional "detail" in the upper midrange but at the expense of detail everywhere else. I put detail in quotes because the detail you get reminds me of when you use a tool to turn up "sharpness" in a digital photo. A little bit works but too much just makes it look digital. Is it possible mine is defective?

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Hello and welcome.

Please describe the rest of your system and what this DAC replaced. What are your sources of music?

 

[sonitus mirus]

In my experience, DACs ideally should have minimal to no sonic impact, serving merely as a transparent conduit for the audio signal. With that in mind, perhaps we can look at other factors in your audio chain that might be influencing the sound quality. Let's use the DAC's neutrality as our starting point and explore from there. What other elements do you think could be contributing to the issue?

 

[Deleted member 72099]

In my experience, DACs ideally should have minimal to no sonic impact, serving merely as a transparent conduit for the audio signal. With that in mind, perhaps we can look at other factors in your audio chain that might be influencing the sound quality. Let's use the DAC's neutrality as our starting point and explore from there. What other elements do you think could be contributing to the issue?

I thought about giving additional details up front but didn't want the initial post to get too long winded. So, the rest of my system is:

CD transport: Sony BluRay Player via coax out
DAC: (was and now is again) Schiit Modi+ (briefly) Topping E50
Pre-amp: Topping Pre90
Power-amp: Hypex Nilai Stereo 500
Speakers: Magnepan 1.7i with Rythmik F12SE Subwoofer
The analog side: Yamaha PX-3 turntable with a MicroAcoustics 630MP Electret cartridge into a Schiit Mani2

I was trying to improve on the Modi+ because I always felt it was slightly soft with slightly less tight bass compared to vinyl. Regardless of measurements the Topping was a huge mistake. FWIW: I play both electric and acoustic guitar and my comparisons are based on how my system sounds compared to live music and not other equipment.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

This one?

Schiit Modi+ DAC Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit Modi+ stereo USB DAC. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $129. There are three inputs and are nicely stepped through using the momentary switch. The white LED that indicates the selected input is nice but alas, there is some...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[gvl]

Most likely you’re experiencing the “new DAC effect” when you hear differences that don’t really exist. If your CDP also has optical connect both DACs and do some input switching on the Pre90 to see if this differences are imaginary, better yet have a helper do it for you and try to recognize the DAC that’s currently playing. If you actually can with definite certainty then it can be defective.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Looking at the review of the Modi+ it looks OK. Its anti-image filter is wrong, but otherwise it should be fine.

 

[DVDdoug]

With the Topping in the system there is a marked upper midrange resonance that pushes vocals so far back that some become almost inaudible. Yes, the soundstage appears to be wider and there is some additional "detail" in the upper midrange

There is a particular analog* defect that can subtract left from right, creating a center-channel "vocal remover" effect. Since bass is usually in the center it gets subtracted-out too. If you have a mono track it would get canceled completely (or almost completely). ...A broken headphone ground is one way to get this problem.

With Audacity you can make a mono file (or a file with identical left & right channels) and you make stereo tracks with one side silent. (If you're familiar with Audacity its pretty easy. If not, it will take some time to figure it out.) If you have this defect the mono (or dual-mono) track will give you silence. The left-only & right-only tracks will play through both sides.


* This can also be done digitally but it doesn't happen accidently.

 

[Deleted member 72099]

Most likely you’re experiencing the “new DAC effect” when you hear differences that don’t really exist. If your CDP also has optical connect both DACs and do some input switching on the Pre90 to see if this differences are imaginary, better yet have a helper do it for you and try to recognize the DAC that’s currently playing. If you actually can with definite certainty then it can be defective.

I'd expect psychological effects to be fairly subtle. This is not at all subtle. This makes high quality recordings harsh and unnatural, and problematic ones (think Clapton's Mayall Beano album) unlistenable.

 

[Deleted member 72099]

There is a particular analog* defect that can subtract left from right, creating a center-channel "vocal remover" effect. Since bass is usually in the center it gets subtracted-out too. If you have a mono track it would get canceled completely (or almost completely). ...A broken headphone ground is one way to get this problem.

With Audacity you can make a mono file (or a file with identical left & right channels) and you make stereo tracks with one side silent. (If you're familiar with Audacity its pretty easy. If not, it will take some time to figure it out.) If you have this defect the mono (or dual-mono) track will give you silence. The left-only & right-only tracks will play through both sides.


* This can also be done digitally but it doesn't happen accidently.

Actually, no problem with the bass. It's actually seems tighter than the Modi+ but it's hard to be certain with everything else going in in the upper mids.

 

[bloodshoteyed]

having a few weird issues with this thing myself (with it being fed coax from a minidsp flex digital), can't really tell much atm tho, atl least until i'm able to reproduce them in a controlled manner

 

[Deleted member 72099]

Looking at the review of the Modi+ it looks OK. Its anti-image filter is wrong, but otherwise it should be fine.