Isn't this is only half true? A DAC as it concerns it's ability to convert a digital signal to analog should not necessarily make a difference, but what makes all the difference in the way a DAC sounds is it's analog output stage, where your line-level signal is created and fed to an outboard piece of equipment, such as a pre-amplifier or amplifier. Unfortunately, nobody seems to shift focus to this part of the chain even though it is one of if not the most critical aspect of using a source, and is in my opinion the reason DAC's sound different.
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Message to golden-eared audiophiles posting at ASR for the first time...
- Thread starter Sgt. Ear Ache
- Start date
But all the measurements are done at the analog output. I’m sure that’s been mentioned dozens of time.
No current DAC at least on the recommendation list is transparent and does not sound different.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Why would that be needed? DAC measurements are done as "black box", meaning that the total contribution of all parts of the chain are being measured.
If the output is clean, it tells you that none of the stages does anything sufficient to meake it "dirty". It can't possibly do anything that makes it distinguishable, other than what your brain fabricates through the power of suggestion.
Output stages can definitely be designed to have a "character", but it has to be done deliberately. It's not inherent to any sensible design approaches. It can be avoided relatively easily with good engineering.
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Welcome to the site!
You seem to believe that isn't included in the measurements, but it is. No one breaks out the chip, they just measure the analog output of the box.
Have you considered that the reason most hear differences is because they expect to, and they don't understand or consider the complexities of natural human bias?
The single most important thing that ASR does is remove your perceived necessity to use opinion to judge things like this, and replace it with data that inarguably tells you the truth.
And, thankfully, it really is that simple.
It can take folks a long time to realize that simplicity, and the more adamant their fervour for the experience of their listening, the longer it takes.
Welcome to ASR and I hope it helps you as much as it did for me!
It's good to know that measurements are being done this way. And I agree with you about the power of suggestion causing a lot of folks (I should say "most folks") to believe they hear an "improvement," when they could simply be hearing a difference, but that's another topic.
The reason this is something I felt is worth posting about is because I have spent so much time experimenting with equipment as well as component-level changes to said equipment to see what happens. And I want to point out that I recognize there is a legitimate disparity between the so-called "audiophiles" and what I have heard referred to as the "math guys"--the math guys being the ones who only believe in what a device can measure rather than what a person can hear. That said I do my best to not allow myself to make things up in my mind. I try things several ways, going back and forth, before drawing conclusions IF I feel I am having that much trouble discerning a difference let alone an improvement.
Now, one of my favorite posts from a forum user in the past was roughly "digital volt meters and oscilloscopes don't listen to music, people do." But again, I am not attempting to be blind to actual measurements as if they have no bearing on the resultant sound.
I use a Presonus Audiobox USB audio interface as a DAC on my PC for the purpose of critical listening over headphones. I originally invested in a Schiit Stack consisting of a Modi 2 Uber and Magni 3 pre-amplifier / headphone amplifier. I used said hardware with a pair of Sony MDR-V700's, which sounded even better to my ears than any of the Sennheiser HD series cans they had for available for demoing the Schiit Stack at CanJam in San Francisco. The V700's were always getting a bad rap for being bass-heavy, poor on mids and just okay on highs, but nay-sayers rarely mentioned what they were using them on. I found by testing on various pieces of hardware that the V700's were power hungry and the more power I fed them the better they sounded, which is why I ended up on the Magni 3.
At some point a friend gifted me two of the Audiobox's, which he had no use for, and I swapped one behind the Magni 3, and in stock form it sounded better than the Modi 2 Uber. Eventually, I opened up the Audiobox to see what could be played with and found that Presonus is one of the only manufacturers that had a habit of using through-hole electrolytic capacitors in the signal paths of their audio interfaces rather.than surface-mount. Around this time Digi-Key had begun stocking WIMA radial films and I pulled the trigger on four of the 1.0uF versions. I replaced the four caps that were relevant me, two between the main DSP IC and the output OpAmp, and two between the output OpAmp and the output jacks. The difference was not something I had to try to hear--it was night and day difference, and it was a literal world of improvement. Everything was better, including soundstage. I had to listen to my entire music library all over again because I was hearing sounds, voices, instruments I had no idea existed in the songs I regularly listen to, and the background was very black, very quiet.
A person can chalk this result up to whatever makes them comfortable, but this wasn't the first time I had experienced this increase in fidelity by replacing electrolytics in the signal path with films. And this is why I call into question the output stages of DAC's as a potential source of difference. It's not a hypothetical question, it's something I have put the time into testing.
The reason this is something I felt is worth posting about is because I have spent so much time experimenting with equipment as well as component-level changes to said equipment to see what happens. And I want to point out that I recognize there is a legitimate disparity between the so-called "audiophiles" and what I have heard referred to as the "math guys"--the math guys being the ones who only believe in what a device can measure rather than what a person can hear. That said I do my best to not allow myself to make things up in my mind. I try things several ways, going back and forth, before drawing conclusions IF I feel I am having that much trouble discerning a difference let alone an improvement.
Now, one of my favorite posts from a forum user in the past was roughly "digital volt meters and oscilloscopes don't listen to music, people do." But again, I am not attempting to be blind to actual measurements as if they have no bearing on the resultant sound.
I use a Presonus Audiobox USB audio interface as a DAC on my PC for the purpose of critical listening over headphones. I originally invested in a Schiit Stack consisting of a Modi 2 Uber and Magni 3 pre-amplifier / headphone amplifier. I used said hardware with a pair of Sony MDR-V700's, which sounded even better to my ears than any of the Sennheiser HD series cans they had for available for demoing the Schiit Stack at CanJam in San Francisco. The V700's were always getting a bad rap for being bass-heavy, poor on mids and just okay on highs, but nay-sayers rarely mentioned what they were using them on. I found by testing on various pieces of hardware that the V700's were power hungry and the more power I fed them the better they sounded, which is why I ended up on the Magni 3.
At some point a friend gifted me two of the Audiobox's, which he had no use for, and I swapped one behind the Magni 3, and in stock form it sounded better than the Modi 2 Uber. Eventually, I opened up the Audiobox to see what could be played with and found that Presonus is one of the only manufacturers that had a habit of using through-hole electrolytic capacitors in the signal paths of their audio interfaces rather.than surface-mount. Around this time Digi-Key had begun stocking WIMA radial films and I pulled the trigger on four of the 1.0uF versions. I replaced the four caps that were relevant me, two between the main DSP IC and the output OpAmp, and two between the output OpAmp and the output jacks. The difference was not something I had to try to hear--it was night and day difference, and it was a literal world of improvement. Everything was better, including soundstage. I had to listen to my entire music library all over again because I was hearing sounds, voices, instruments I had no idea existed in the songs I regularly listen to, and the background was very black, very quiet.
A person can chalk this result up to whatever makes them comfortable, but this wasn't the first time I had experienced this increase in fidelity by replacing electrolytics in the signal path with films. And this is why I call into question the output stages of DAC's as a potential source of difference. It's not a hypothetical question, it's something I have put the time into testing.
It appears you may have swapped out shunting capacitors and smoothing capacitors too. They shunt distortion and unwanted frequencies to ground in circuit and others smooth the power supply right near the OP amps and voltage regulators. It's just a guess from your description but those shunting caps have absolutely no bearing on sound quality because they are not passing audio signals to the end user.
No, they are not connected to ground. They are literally, a continuation of the signal path trace.
Hmmmz. I believe you although the 1.0uF value is not usually used for DC blocking/audio signal transmission. One would usually see something like ~470uF or 330uF for signal passing caps.
That's the kind of values I expect to see on the output of some OpAmps, such as for small speaker sets. Those are often 220uF to 1,000uF. We are only dealing with line-level, here. In all honesty I could probably remove the capacitors behind the output jacks because most every device will have it's own capacitors on the inputs to perform the same function. I'm almost certain the factory installed electrolytics in the Audiobox were 50V 10uF (I'll have to open the other Audiobox to see what they were. The second Audiobox is a 22VSL, but aside from software abilities it is the same inside), and that's based on past experiences where that seems to be the typical, arbitrary value. The first time I did a film cap mod was on a Soundblaster Live!, and it used 50V 10uF electrolytics in the signal path between the main DSP IC (EMU10K) and the output OpAmps. But it used 50V 10uF EVERYWHERE on the card, including for all power traces leading to all IC's so that was likely, Creative Labs saving money by just buying the same capacitor in larger bulk.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Nearly all of the time there's not even a difference to get things going. The brain does the whole thing on its own.
And no, it's not another topic. It's exactly what this thread is about
In this house we believe that science is real and that DACs are DACs. It's not that we don't trust our ears (though I don't!), it's that we don't trust our brains. There's just too much evidence showing the huge effects of sighted bias on our experience of listening.
For me the biggest tell is the talk of "night and day" differences. The only thing that can make entire sounds, voices, and instruments suddenly appear in a mix is much closer listening.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Changing the values of the caps like that could possibly have resulted in a non-flat frequency response at the output. An inadvertent implementation of filtering in the audible band. That would truly give a "night and day difference". But it would also be the very thing you mentioned earlier: A difference conflated with an improvement.
Changing component values without calculating the impact and/or verifying it with measurements is a crapshoot.
You've digressed quite a bit from the purpose of this thread, but I'll still allow myself to comment that with Genelec you can have the most integrated system possible. A streamer with storage capacity and an AES output will do. That is, one single box, with no need for a DAC or NAS, e.t.c.
Galliardist
Major Contributor
Why is that "more" integrated than, say, a NAD M33 and any pair of passive speakers you care to name?
Having an active setup may well be "better" integrated, but that's a different matter.
Meaningful measurements are always done in situ. Of course, I've also measured each piece of a chain when I had to build it, but that's for engineering purposes.
You are correct. With the Genelec, though, it only takes a streamer, not a box with multitude of functionalities. A $500 streamer vs $6,000 M33 where the amp can’t drive some speakers.
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Galliardist
Major Contributor
Only because the Genelec is now, well, two (or more) boxes with a multitude of functionalities (dependent of course on the model). Let's switch to the M23, with better measurements and more power: we'll be way up in the Genelec range before you hit speakers that one can't drive.
In many ways it's a pointless, or rather a case by case dependent, argument, I suppose. At different price points you trade off one against the other, and to an extent the history of what you have and your room and so on. If I was starting today, I would probably go active, but as I'm pretty much always changing my old passive system I've just kept on that path.
Re: M23
Better measurements than what? Has anyone measured any Genelec amplifier independent of the drivers?
At any rate, I was advising a fellow, who considered an elaborate chain to drive his future Genelec, how to simplify matters. If you have a system you're pleased with, just seek out quality mixes and enjoy your time. The technology isn't that important.
What you did (in the part I snipped) were not 'experiments' in any scientific sense. They were observations with no controls in place to elevate them to the level of experiment.
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