Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[HarmonicTHD]

Seems like some folks believe that the top 25 or so DACs on ASR's SINAD list, the ones starting at the top and down through the "excellent" category are all going to sound the same playing music driving an amp driving speakers in a high resolution system. They all test great using this measurement and others, yet feature different DAC chips, USB receivers, some balanced some single ended circuits, some with robust linear power supplies for digital and analog stages versus outboard switcher power dongles, unique circuit implementations of the both digital and analog stages...hard for me to believe.

Like if I took the OKTO Stereo and the SMSL DO 100 and listened to them in my system playing a range of music - jazz, blues, rock, classical...I wouldn't be able to hear a difference between them? The $250 DAC and all the economies made to produce it versus a $1500 product...its all just the casework and the source country labor cost differential?

The price of something is hardly related to its costs. Nor is quality related to the price. Undergrad economics.

 

[57gold]

I get the implications. Have listened to a lot of DACs over the years, from a buddy's high dollar dCS stack to much more mundane rig with a Mytek DAC versus a Wadia in same system. They all sounded different when playing music. For this to be true, the no clothes thing, then we are at "the end of times" with respect to progress in digital audio.

Kind of reminds me of what folks said when audio CDs were introduced in the 1980s to the market, "perfect sound, forever" was the promise. Having lived as a music lover and musician for the last 40 years, "perfect" has gotten way, way more perfect over that time period in terms of digital recordings sounding closer to the performances they captured.

Also find it very hard to believe that circuit designs, power supplies, USB receiver choices...have no impact on a DAC's ability to generate/output a high quality analog music signal for amplification or drive the inputs of an amp.

 

[57gold]

Not sure what proof an ASR camper would believe from me. I'm not a scientist nor an acoustic engineer. No facilities at hand nor a desire to fund a controlled, statistically significant double blind test of anything.

About half the folks I know wouldn't listen hard enough in a test nor have the experience to know what live instruments should sound like, which would be a problem testing sonic performance of audio gear.

Just like when some buddies of mine can't tell the difference between a glass of Rioja, versus a CDP versus a Brunello...all good red wine as far as they are concerned. If they drank it at my house, that would be true, but night and day tasting experiences to some. With a random group of subject/listeners 50%+ would say, "all sounds good to me." Same folks who are satisfied with their iPhone + BT Earbuds.

Never said I had proof. Just hard to believe that significant engineering and implementation differences make no difference in music reproduction. YMMV.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Not sure what proof an ASR camper would believe from me. I'm not a scientist nor an acoustic engineer. No facilities at hand nor a desire to fund a controlled, statistically significant double blind test of anything.

About half the folks I know wouldn't listen hard enough in a test nor have the experience to know what live instruments should sound like, which would be a problem testing sonic performance of audio gear.

Just like when some buddies of mine can't tell the difference between a glass of Rioja, versus a CDP versus a Brunello...all good red wine as far as they are concerned. If they drank it at my house, that would be true, but night and day tasting experiences to some. With a random group of subject/listeners 50%+ would say, "all sounds good to me." Same folks who are satisfied with their iPhone + BT Earbuds.

Never said I had proof. Just hard to believe that significant engineering and implementation differences make no difference in music reproduction. YMMV.

Mmhhh.

What would you think of this?

Audibility thresholds of amp and DAC measurements

Introduction A recurring theme on ASR is whether or not the various measured qualities of the devices are audible. In this post, I'll present some clear and visual thresholds for when those imperfections can be considered a potentially audible concern. I will not explain the basics of amp/DAC...

www.audiosciencereview.com

or this (easy to follow also for non scientists)

Interpreting THD Measurements - Think dB not Percent!

Distortion measurements (THD, THD+N and IMD) are traditionally expressed in terms of percent. But what do 1%, 0.1%, 0.01% or 0.001% mean in terms of loudness or audibility? If you are like most people you just know that 0.001% is the best of the three numbers listed above. If you are a...

benchmarkmedia.com

 

[Garrincha]

Not sure what proof an ASR camper would believe from me. I'm not a scientist nor an acoustic engineer. No facilities at hand nor a desire to fund a controlled, statistically significant double blind test of anything.

And because of this, your statement is what it is, your personal opinion, based on nothing of much value. Not to be taken seriously, sorry.
You may want to read this first: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...iles-posting-at-asr-for-the-first-time.17598/

 

[MacCali]

Hello and welcome to ASR.

To be quite frank... there isn't one, everything possible is measurable and quantifiable apart from ones own perception (which varies wildly due to being human).

The likely reason you may prefer the less performing item is it may have a distortion profile that you find pleasing, which is fine. However you can't alter that... IMO it's better to have a transparent system, then alter from there as required to taste, rather than having a certain "sound" baked into a product.

I hope you find the resources here interesting and informative.


JSmith

I think that video posted by Amir on Floyd tools research kind of points at that we all have equal hearing. Clearly shown in the blind test study amongst a wide variety of audio listeners.

It seems that listening/hearing is among the same across almost all of us for the most part and measurements do play a role.

However synergy is another factor, and I guess this maybe linked to distortion. In the musical vs analytical spectrum.

@surrie I totally agree with you as well. I heard them at Axpona. They were running in bridged mono which I believe does raise distortion. However it’s so clean it’s too clean even under those conditions.

I think as stated the dac is 100% a device that needs solid measurements. Everything else basically is less important.

I see in my personal system, everything was warm. Dac[akm] and amp[high class A bias] speakers are fairly neutral. The system was definitely a bit too warm.

Once I added an analytical preamp the system really balanced out to the right level of warmth and detail.

It’s a very tough journey cause any piece of equipment in conjunction can complete or defeat your system.

I just got super lucky by chance to have a system reach my happy point with fairly low trial and error.

I don’t feel like either warm or analytical is bad, both are enjoyable. But people do have preferences. At Axpona they the Alex V’s running on a million dollar system and I see the consensus was it sounded like shit and the Wilson Sasha’s wiped the floor with them, a far cheaper and inferior speaker.

 

[57gold]

And I guess your opinion is similarly worth a bag of crap, worthless dribble...because you add nothing, only detract.

Are you a musician? Have experience playing live music for decades, have a library of a few thousand digital recordings spanning multiple genres of music, played that music on some of the most highly regarded audio equipment over that period?

Or are you an internet know it all troll?

I'm guessing the latter.

 

[Garrincha]

And I guess your opinion is similarly worth a bag of crap, worthless dribble...because you add nothing, only detract.

Are you a musician? Have experience playing live music for decades, have a library of a few thousand digital recordings spanning multiple genres of music, played that music on some of the most highly regarded audio equipment over that period?

Or are you an internet know it all troll?

I'm guessing the latter.

Let's see who is becoming the troll here, Mr. Dac Sound.

 

[Robbo99999]

I think that video posted by Amir on Floyd tools research kind of points at that we all have equal hearing. Clearly shown in the blind test study amongst a wide variety of audio listeners.

It seems that listening/hearing is among the same across almost all of us for the most part and measurements do play a role.

However synergy is another factor, and I guess this maybe linked to distortion. In the musical vs analytical spectrum.

@surrie I totally agree with you as well. I heard them at Axpona. They were running in bridged mono which I believe does raise distortion. However it’s so clean it’s too clean even under those conditions.

I think as stated the dac is 100% a device that needs solid measurements. Everything else basically is less important.

I see in my personal system, everything was warm. Dac[akm] and amp[high class A bias] speakers are fairly neutral. The system was definitely a bit too warm.

Once I added an analytical preamp the system really balanced out to the right level of warmth and detail.

It’s a very tough journey cause any piece of equipment in conjunction can complete or defeat your system.

I just got super lucky by chance to have a system reach my happy point with fairly low trial and error.

I don’t feel like either warm or analytical is bad, both are enjoyable. But people do have preferences. At Axpona they the Alex V’s running on a million dollar system and I see the consensus was it sounded like shit and the Wilson Sasha’s wiped the floor with them, a far cheaper and inferior speaker.

"Synergy" of components is a blind myth that audiophools follow unfortunately and is mostly driven by expectation bias and uncontrolled listening. Just buy gear in your audio chain that measures well that has been measured on this site.....so for DAC & amp it's a clear cut case of using examples that have good measurements and the power output, connectivity and features that you require, whereas with speakers it becomes a little bit more of a grey area, but still even speakers are well understood at this point in terms of what makes a good vs bad speaker in relation to most peoples listening enjoyment. So DAC's & amps are completely uncontroversial and don't really require any thinking on your part to choose a good one, the speaker choice (& headphone choice) along with any EQ you will use along with room treatments and correct speaker positioning will be the elements to really focus on, which are the areas where you will get most real benefit.

 

[Lupin]

Seems like some folks believe that the top 25 or so DACs on ASR's SINAD list, the ones starting at the top and down through the "excellent" category are all going to sound the same playing music driving an amp driving speakers in a high resolution system. They all test great using this measurement and others, yet feature different DAC chips, USB receivers, some balanced some single ended circuits, some with robust linear power supplies for digital and analog stages versus outboard switcher power dongles, unique circuit implementations of the both digital and analog stages...hard for me to believe.

That is why Amir doesn't measure the DAC chip but the output. What comes out of the output is the combined sum of DAC chip, PSU, output stage and general implementation of everything.. if some unique boutique circuit implementation actually does something it should be audible/measurable at the only place where it matters, at the output, wouldn't it?

Like if I took the OKTO Stereo and the SMSL DO 100 and listened to them in my system playing a range of music - jazz, blues, rock, classical...I wouldn't be able to hear a difference between them?

Do a proper controlled volume matched double blindtest, aka an situation where expectation bias and purchase confirmation is taken out of the equation, no you will not hear a difference.

The $250 DAC and all the economies made to produce it versus a $1500 product...its all just the casework and the source country labor cost differential?

Partially..
Brands like Topping can make those prices because they put in orders for bigger quantities in one go and save money by reusing the same chassis for multiple models as tooling is very expensive. I believe that is also the reason they went for balanced TRS outputs instead of the much more bulky XLR outputs so they save valuable space and therefor are able to (re)use the same chassis. Other parts like displays are also reused on multiple models. That is their businessmodel/philosophy and it works.

But sadly it is mostly the deep rooted, almost religious like, believe of the subjective audiophile that more expensive automatically means better.

Why would those brands that heavily bank on audiophile snake oil sell their DAC for $1000 (already making a killing profit at that price) when they can sell it for $4500 as those audiophiles are more then happy to buy it as they blindly believe it means it is automatically better then that other $1000 DAC they saw somewhere else.

How many subjective videos I've seen that include something along the line of "This DAC sounds significantly better with much better soundstage, microdetails and much more resolving than the other DAC which was of course expected beforehand as this DAC is $2500 and I'm comparing it to an $400 DAC"

 

[Lupin]

About half the folks I know wouldn't listen hard enough in a test

Listen hard enough... aka priming your brain to expect/wanting to hear a difference.
And then surprise surprise, expectation bias, your hear a difference.

 

[DanielT]

And I guess your opinion is similarly worth a bag of crap, worthless dribble...because you add nothing, only detract.

Are you a musician? Have experience playing live music for decades, have a library of a few thousand digital recordings spanning multiple genres of music, played that music on some of the most highly regarded audio equipment over that period?

Or are you an internet know it all troll?

I'm guessing the latter.

Here you can read more. I do not really know how it all ended (have not read the whole thread). It is obvious that blind testing with stuff that differs so little in distortion and other parameters, it really has to be level-matched properly. The point is, partly that it requires a lot to do correct blind tests on DACs, partly that the subject is sensitive. In any case sensitive in this case because a lot was at stake:

Blind test: we have a volunteer!!!

In the MQA thread I pointed out the OP had post a video where he made all kinds of observations about the sound of Schiit Magnius and how it was not a good product. Here it is if you want to (or can) watch it: The reviewer responded that he is ready to do such a test so I thought I create a...

audiosciencereview.com

How well do you pass this test:

Blind Testing a 0.5 dB Level Difference

Discover the smallest difference in level (dB) you can reliably hear.

www.audiocheck.net

 

[57gold]

Listen hard enough... aka priming your brain to expect/wanting to hear a difference.
And then surprise surprise, expectation bias, your hear a difference.

Nope. Plenty of folks dig their iPhone/earbuds, "good enough for them" just like folks drink a lot of Budweiser, acceptable to many, but pretty miserable if compared to one of the Munich beers. Never had a fresh Munich beer, hard to have a reference and easy to accept mediocrity.

Additionally, if one does not know what a live, well-played saxophone or drum kit sounds like or have never heard a high level choir or string quartet perform, one will not have a basis for judging how accurate an DAC is at reproducing those sounds, which make up a musical performance. If a listener's musical listening experience is limited to boomboxes, car audio with booming subwoofers, inexpensive earbuds, Bose TV audio...they will have significantly different perspectives (biases) than someone who attends or performs live music or has an ASR approved audio system (an Okto into a Purifi driving Revels) that they listen to regularly.

Seems like the ASR faithful believe we are at end times for DACs; only differences are features like headphone amps, streaming support, attractiveness of case and legibility of display...but the recently reviewed $239 SMSL or similar units (plus or minus some additional UI/conveniences) are the only logical choice for a DAC. By extension, in a perfect world Ayre, Mytek, dCS, Benchmark, RME, Nagra, Schiit, W4S, Auralic, Denafrips, Chord...should all drop production of DACs retailing for more than @$500 because all that can be done to accurately reproduce music from digital files and be done with these sub $500 units or a $239 SMSL plus a streamer box (Raspberry Pi) and a headphone amp.

Would be nice, all efforts and resources could be freed up for great speakers and amps to drive them.

 

[elvisizer]

About half the folks I know wouldn't listen hard enough in a test nor have the experience to know what live instruments should sound like

i see this so often, assuming all music is made by people playing instruments live is very very odd.

 

[Vacceo]

Nope. Plenty of folks dig their iPhone/earbuds, "good enough for them" just like folks drink a lot of Budweiser, acceptable to many, but pretty miserable if compared to one of the Munich beers. Never had a fresh Munich beer, hard to have a reference and easy to accept mediocrity.

Additionally, if one does not know what a live, well-played saxophone or drum kit sounds like or have never heard a high level choir or string quartet perform, one will not have a basis for judging how accurate an DAC is at reproducing those sounds, which make up a musical performance. If a listener's musical listening experience is limited to boomboxes, car audio with booming subwoofers, inexpensive earbuds, Bose TV audio...they will have significantly different perspectives (biases) than someone who attends or performs live music or has an ASR approved audio system (an Okto into a Purifi driving Revels) that they listen to regularly.

Seems like the ASR faithful believe we are at end times for DACs; only differences are features like headphone amps, streaming support, attractiveness of case and legibility of display...but the recently reviewed $239 SMSL or similar units (plus or minus some additional UI/conveniences) are the only logical choice for a DAC. By extension, in a perfect world Ayre, Mytek, dCS, Benchmark, RME, Nagra, Schiit, W4S, Auralic, Denafrips, Chord...should all drop production of DACs retailing for more than @$500 because all that can be done to accurately reproduce music from digital files and be done with these sub $500 units or a $239 SMSL plus a streamer box (Raspberry Pi) and a headphone amp.

Would be nice, all efforts and resources could be freed up for great speakers and amps to drive them.

What does "well played" mean? Was Art Blakey a better drummer than Flo Mounier? Is Pat Metheny a better guitar player than Muhammed Suiçmez? How can you provide an objective explanation for that?

Accurate depending to live? I guess Kraftwerk are terrible artists, The Prodigy are, quite probably, terrible too.

Great amps? Already done, for decades actually. Speakers are where the spice is.

The point of a reproduction system is giving you the closest to what you use as source, if the source is a terrible bootleg from the Sex Pistols or the best recorded (and boring) song from Diana Krall, is irrelevant.

 

[57gold]

The point of a reproduction system is giving you the closest to what you use as source, if the source is a terrible bootleg from the Sex Pistols or the best recorded (and boring) song from Diana Krall, is irrelevant.

How can you know if you are close to the source, unless you where in the studio with Diana Krall or in the pub with the Sex Pistols show that was bootlegged. Have no qualm with Kraftwerk, but once again, unless one was in the studio when they performed or programmed their instruments...what is the point of reference for a synth patch into a mixing board?

A better reference to ascertain the ability of a DAC to get "closeness to the source", for folks who don't hang around the studio, will of course be live musical performances, punk or jazz trio, it makes no difference. What matters is the ability of the digital source to reproduce with accuracy music with all the color, dynamics and details of the voices, instruments, electronic or acoustic.

When I used to stop by audio shops (there used to be many 20+ years ago) and check out systems, I noticed various characteristic of lines of gear. The Wilson Audio speakers at the time presented music that was "highly caffeinated" over accentuating the upper mid and highs beyond what real instruments sounded like, exciting but not accurate. Alternatively, Mark Levinson electronics "decaffeinated" music, made it very controlled, taking some of the excitement out of performances; this gave the impression of precision and low distortion...but kind of boring versus the real thing, but rich guys liked it.

With respect to "well played", a fine sax player will get more tonal variety, subtlety and color out of the instrument than a crappy one...IMO a better test of accuracy, YMMV.

Pat M is a fine guitarist, seen him perform many times over the years in small clubs and larger theaters. He's the best Pat Metheny there is. Don't know Muhammed S, but if you like him and have heard him play live...a good reference.

 

[NTK]

A better reference to ascertain the ability of a DAC to get "closeness to the source", for folks who don't hang around the studio, will of course be live musical performances, punk or jazz trio, it makes no difference. What matters is the ability of the digital source to reproduce with accuracy music with all the color, dynamics and details of the voices, instruments, electronic or acoustic.

The input to a DAC is some "digital numbers". What these digital numbers will translate to as a continuous time analog signal is mathematically deterministic (following the sampling theorem). The "closeness to the source" is determined by comparing the measured DAC output to what it is supposed to be.

What do you think a DAC is supposed to, or designed to, do?

 

[57gold]

What do you think a DAC is supposed to, or designed to, do?

Recreate a musical experience.

Audio systems are about music.

We had the numbers generating signals in CD players in the 1980s and it sounded like $#!+, not real music.

The closeness to the source is the sound, not the measurements, unless the unit that produced them makes good, musically accurate sound.

 

[KeithPhantom]

Recreate a musical experience

Not really. Digital-to-Analog converters are used for far more than just the conversion of audio from the digital domain to the analog domain. Audio reproduction/creation just happens to be one of the uses of the technology.

We had the numbers generating signals in CD players in the 1980s and it sounded like $#!+, not real music.

I just happen to say otherwise. For me, the (subjectively) cleanest music was produced when CDs were new (in my opinion). I think producers were striving to use the full potential of the tech. But this still an opinion, not an actual fact.

 

[Robbo99999]

Recreate a musical experience.

Audio systems are about music.

We had the numbers generating signals in CD players in the 1980s and it sounded like $#!+, not real music.

The closeness to the source is the sound, not the measurements, unless the unit that produced them makes good, musically accurate sound.

I think you've lost it there if you think there are some "magical" properties within DACS,...... @NTK nailed it in his last response to you.

If you're hunting for "magical" properties in your audio chain, DACs & amps you will never find it, and can never know if you've found it....that's even if it did exist, which it doesn't.