In a nutshell...

[Rickysa]

To misquote the Grinch: “I’ve puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore. Have I missed something I haven't thought of before?”

If I have this correct…

To get the best sound in my living room….I need a sonically-invisible amp, a (solidly built) selector switch as a pre-amp, a modern DAC from the blue segment of the ratings chart (to use with my old cd player as a transport -- or a lossless-playing streamer), and most importantly, speakers having good anechoic on-axis measurements [a flat frequency response curve (+/- 1.5 dB)], that produce the sound signature that I prefer (neutral/warm/bright) (w/DSP?) taking the room itself into consideration as a major determining factor of the reproduced sound being played which is the highest-quality original recording available?

 

[IngMishael]

To misquote the Grinch: “I’ve puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore. Have I missed something I haven't thought of before?”

If I have this correct…

To get the best sound in my living room….I need a sonically-invisible amp, a (solidly built) selector switch as a pre-amp, a modern DAC from the blue segment of the ratings chart (to use with my old cd player as a transport -- or a lossless-playing streamer), and most importantly, speakers having good anechoic on-axis measurements [a flat frequency response curve (+/- 1.5 dB)], that produce the sound signature that I prefer (neutral/warm/bright) (w/DSP?) taking the room itself into consideration as a major determining factor of the reproduced sound being played which is the highest-quality original recording available?

Sounds about right

 

[Purité Audio]

Audibly transparent electronics and a good set of speakers, then possibly some very basic room EQ simply to remove any room gain ( boomy bass).
Keith

 

[Rickysa]

Audibly transparent electronics and a good set of speakers, then possibly some very basic room EQ simply to remove and room gain ( boomy bass).

You make that sound so simple, and it took me six months to come up with that impossible-to-parse-likely-run-on sentence.

 

[JeffS7444]

On-axis speaker response matters, of course, but so does off-axis response, because most people move around a bit as they listen. Room correction is super-useful, but it doesn't address off-axis response, or other matters such as speaker distortion or phase cancelation between individual drivers.

 

[Purité Audio]

Ragged off-axis colours the sound you hear sitting on-axis.
Keith

 

[MarkS]

a modern DAC from the blue segment of the ratings chart

Any segment of the chart is fine, they are all sonically indistinguishable (on music played at your usual listening loudness).

 

[amirm]

You make that sound so simple, and it took me six months to come up with that impossible-to-parse-likely-run-on sentence.

My fault as I have been meaning to create a video on this for years now!

 

[amirm]

Any segment of the chart is fine, they are all sonically indistinguishable (on music played at your usual listening loudness).

You have proof of that and will back that with lower cost for lower tier products? In other words, what is he getting from following your advice?

 

[somebodyelse]

and most importantly, speakers having good anechoic on-axis measurements [a flat frequency response curve (+/- 1.5 dB)]

I'd say smooth directivity is more important than flat on-axis response. You can correct the on-axis response with EQ, but you can't correct poor directivity.

 

[MarkS]

C'mon, @amirm, if you believe DACs on different ends of your color-coded chart are audibly different (on music at normal listening loudness), then do a proper blind ABX test and prove that they are audibly different.

That they are not audibly different (on music at normal listening loudness) should be the default assumption, since the measured differences are so small.

I have no problem with buying better measuring devices, but I believe your chart gives people the impression that there are audible differences, which certainly has not been demonstrated, and is, I believe, very unlikely to be true, except for maybe the handful of very poorly measuring ones at the far end of the red.

 

[Digital_Thor]

I'd say smooth directivity is more important than flat on-axis response. You can correct the on-axis response with EQ, but you can't correct poor directivity.

There's already several who has both out of the box, so EQ is mostly important in the bass.

 

[amirm]

C'mon, @amirm, if you believe DACs on different ends of your color-coded chart are audibly different (on music at normal listening loudness), then do a proper blind ABX test and prove that they are audibly different.

So you don't have any proof of the universal claim you made. And further, can't indicate how the OP would save money by picking from lower tier products.

And no, I am not here to disprove your claim. You need to take the worst performing DACs and conduct your own transparency tests before saying hundreds of DACs are indistinguishable from each other.

But answering anyway, I have passed such "impossible" tests. Here is one that Ethan Winer had post where he took the output of his DAC, ran it through its ADC and made multiple generations of it. He was confident no one would be able to pass it. Yet, here are my results:

-------
Here is an example test you can take to show us you do have good hearing acuity. https://ethanwiner.com/loop-back.htm

It is a piece of music that has gone through a DAC, then ADC, then back to DAC and so on. And on really bad DAC/ADC as audiophile standard go: a $25 Soundblaster X-Fi.

This is me finding the difference double blind with just one pass through DAC/ADC:
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/07/18 06:40:07

File A: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Ethan Soundblaster\sb20x_original.wav
File B: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Ethan Soundblaster\sb20x_pass1.wav

06:40:07 : Test started.
06:41:03 : 01/01 50.0%
06:41:16 : 02/02 25.0%
06:41:24 : 03/03 12.5%
06:41:33 : 04/04 6.3%
06:41:53 : 05/05 3.1%
06:42:02 : 06/06 1.6%
06:42:22 : 07/07 0.8%
06:42:34 : 08/08 0.4%
06:42:43 : 09/09 0.2%
06:42:56 : 10/10 0.1%
06:43:08 : 11/11 0.0%
06:43:16 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 11/11 (0.0%)

And of course with 20 loops:

foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/07/18 05:38:16

File A: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Ethan Soundblaster\sb20x_original.wav
File B: C:\Users\Amir\Music\Ethan Soundblaster\sb20x_pass20.wav

05:38:16 : Test started.
05:39:05 : 00/01 100.0%
05:39:27 : 00/02 100.0%
05:39:44 : 01/03 87.5%
05:40:01 : 02/04 68.8%
05:40:18 : 02/05 81.3%
05:40:30 : 03/06 65.6%
05:40:58 : 04/07 50.0%
05:41:09 : 05/08 36.3%
05:41:19 : 06/09 25.4%
05:41:28 : 07/10 17.2%
05:41:38 : 08/11 11.3%
05:41:53 : 09/12 7.3%
05:42:02 : 10/13 4.6%
05:42:18 : 11/14 2.9%
05:42:29 : 12/15 1.8%
05:42:42 : 13/16 1.1%
05:42:53 : 14/17 0.6%
05:43:03 : 15/18 0.4%
05:43:16 : 16/19 0.2%
05:43:27 : 17/20 0.1%
05:43:40 : 18/21 0.1%
05:43:53 : 19/22 0.0%
05:43:58 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 19/22 (0.0%)

As you see, 0% of guessing.

---------

So stop with hand waiving arguments. Countless DACs will have audible noise floors depending on how much you amplify their output, i.e. max SPL. There are peer reviewed research papers indicating what you need for full transparency. I have written articles on it and done videos as well. Distortion will be harder but not in the case of products with strong non-linearities.

It is this kind of argument that keeps people from landing on the simple conclusion that OP found. That you do well to buy the products in blue categories. That sharply increases your chances of transparency with zero cost to you as there are countless options there. Anything else lands you in a gray zone that you can't dig your way out of.

 

[MarkS]

Here is an example test you can take to show us you do have good hearing acuity. https://ethanwiner.com/loop-back.htm

It is a piece of music that has gone through a DAC, then ADC, then back to DAC and so on. And on really bad DAC/ADC as audiophile standard go: a $25 Soundblaster X-Fi.

This is me finding the difference double blind with just one pass through DAC/ADC:

Quoting from that site about those files:

Note that it's very difficult to calibrate a sound card for precisely unity gain, so all of the files linked on this page vary in volume very slightly. However, most differ by less than half a dB within each group.

Bolding added.

0.5 dB volume difference is audible:

0.1 dB (with music) was inaudible to me. 0.2dB was just barely audible (often) and 0.5dB was always audible.

Audibility of changes in volume

I discussed with someone wether a peak of 2db, Q of 2 at 800hz for example would be audible when discussing frequency response. I argued that a lot of things happen in music in this area, but he told me that his education said that changes below 3db would not be audible and I would not pass a...

www.audiosciencereview.com

And as I'm sure you know, small volume differences can be perceived as quality differences.

So: do you have any successful tests that were volume-matched to within 0.1dB?

The reason I post about this is because we have many people here who want to do things like ditch their perfectly fine (audibly) Denon AVR because its DAC measures less than great. These people believe that by spending more money, they will be getting better sound that they will be able to notice in day-to-day listening. This is almost always not true, and I think that should be acknowledged here at Audio Science Review.

 

[amirm]

0.5 dB volume difference is audible:

That is NOT what I detected. I don't know of anyone else who ran that test and passed it.

So: do you have any successful tests that were volume-matched to within 0.1dB?

Countless ones where people like you claimed no audible differences can exist.

How many tests have you run that you have failed of this kind?

 

[amirm]

The reason I post about this is because we have many people here who want to do things like ditch their perfectly fine (audibly) Denon AVR because its DAC measures less than great.

Many? How do you know that? The Denon owners that I know are perfectly happy with them. Occasionally someone asks if they should use an external DAC and I tell them it is not worth the complexity.

 

[Holmz]

You have proof of that and will back that with lower cost for lower tier products? In other words, what is he getting from following your advice?

Totally agree that one should strive to choose the better ones.
IME features are probably a probably a good place to begin to weed out the list.
And then cost and performance.

However one can infer ^that^ it is more generally “true” that electronics are more equal to each other than speakers are to each other.
Almost any section of the colour bands are well below speaker distortions, compression, etc.
So to make use of a better side of the ratings, assumes that the rest of the equipment chain is somewhat “up to snuff”.

I am assuming that you used headphones for the ABX testing??
And I agree that getting a bad performing one that is expensive is not showing a great deal of wisdom.

C'mon, @amirm, if you believe DACs on different ends of your color-coded chart are audibly different (on music at normal listening loudness), then do a proper blind ABX test and prove that they are audibly different.

That they are not audibly different (on music at normal listening loudness) should be the default assumption, since the measured differences are so small.

I have no problem with buying better measuring devices, but I believe your chart gives people the impression that there are audible differences, which certainly has not been demonstrated, and is, I believe, very unlikely to be true, except for maybe the handful of very poorly measuring ones at the far end of the red.

Generally the person making the claim should provide the proof. (You).

To misquote the Grinch: “I’ve puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore. Have I missed something I haven't thought of before?”

If I have this correct…

To get the best sound in my living room….I need a sonically-invisible amp, a (solidly built) selector switch as a pre-amp, a modern DAC from the blue segment of the ratings chart (to use with my old cd player as a transport -- or a lossless-playing streamer), and most importantly, speakers having good anechoic on-axis measurements [a flat frequency response curve (+/- 1.5 dB)], that produce the sound signature that I prefer (neutral/warm/bright) (w/DSP?) taking the room itself into consideration as a major determining factor of the reproduced sound being played which is the highest-quality original recording available?

All things be equal then ^that^ it true.
But there is a loose correlation between distortions are preference.
And there are many types of distortions.
The most obvious are tube amps, which are not sonically invisible, but a lot of people really like the sound.

Personally I’d start with the speakers. Any transducer has a big job to do, and that is generally a bigger and harder job than amplification.

One also can get great sound with a turntable and tube amps when using decent speakers.
So the lossless digital and a great DAC is not an absolute requirement… but the speakers are.

 

[amirm]

These people believe that by spending more money, they will be getting better sound that they will be able to notice in day-to-day listening.

Putting aside that anyone who is here just for a while realizes the opposite, you are just as guilty of the reverse generalization.

As I said, nothing about your post helps the OP. There are huge number of superbly performing DACs. There is no reason to go into lower tiers. I suggest saving your statement for master thread we have created, not when someone tries to get a simple idea of how to build a great performing system.

 

[Daverz]

To misquote the Grinch: “I’ve puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore. Have I missed something I haven't thought of before?”

If I have this correct…

To get the best sound in my living room….I need a sonically-invisible amp, a (solidly built) selector switch as a pre-amp, a modern DAC from the blue segment of the ratings chart (to use with my old cd player as a transport -- or a lossless-playing streamer), and most importantly, speakers having good anechoic on-axis measurements [a flat frequency response curve (+/- 1.5 dB)], that produce the sound signature that I prefer (neutral/warm/bright) (w/DSP?) taking the room itself into consideration as a major determining factor of the reproduced sound being played which is the highest-quality original recording available?

What's the plan for the selector switch? It's not obvious to me that you need one.

 

[amirm]

Almost any section of the colour bands are well below speaker distortions, compression, etc.

But speakers are noiseless so have dynamic range higher than any piece of electronics. This is why you hear tweeter hiss when you put your ear to it.

Just this week we have someone being surprised that they are hearing hiss from their Genelecs. That hiss came from the dac+amplifier and was in no way masked by the speaker.

In addition, the non-linearities are different. I can easily hear tube amp distortion over speaker's own. Speakers way below their limit are quite linear. I have measured SINAD of 80 dB from what I recall which is the limit of what I can measure for speakers. A tube amp can easily create audible distortion. So can solid state ones for that matter. From one of the first published ABX tests: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ts-did-show-amplifiers-to-sound-different.23/

So it is clear, I created ASR to differentiate us from other "objective" sites that make the claims that @MarkS did. We can't over exaggerate facts and expect people to believe us. Guesses and broad assumptions have no place here.