Musetec Audio (LKS Audio) MH-DA005 Review (DAC)

[amirm]

Good luck with that, hopefully they'll do the right thing.

The only thing they could do to make this worse is not accepting this return. Then we can add bad customer service to the issues of the hardware.

 

[BDWoody]

Galen Gareis must have called in the troops over on the PS Audio forum. I heard he’s been trolling Amir over there after his review of the Iconoclast cable…

Galen can put and end to the issue with a simple demonstration.

 

[Todd k]

dear amir I'm doing the devil's advocate because I'm passionate about the subject. my request to use ASIO is dictated by the possibility that the AES connection is faulty

and then I repeat that with the driver of the manufacturer ASIO it does not give problems, with ROON it works very well

Well that would be dandy for me if the unit is defective, but I find it hard to argue with Amir and out of caution for me and my dac I believe he acted out of caution for the member who sent it in. Thank you Amir.

 

[Luca_]

It produced identical results to Windows PC driving it over USB/ASIO emulation. How on earth could it be broken in identical way?

this statement of yours I read only now

 

[SubsonicLurker]

The only thing they could do to make this worse is not accepting this return. Then we can add bad customer service to the issues of the hardware.

I suspect that Luca will find a way to pin that on you, too.

 

[Josq]

@DBB

So, since musical enjoyment is primary, the significant question to examine scientifically is: why do measurements of audio equipment sometimes differ sharply from what is subjectively heard by the listener?

This is a scientific question, though not one confined to physics and electronic date exclusively. As far as I know at this time we do not know the answer. It is not easy to explore, but it seems to me we should look to the fields of psychology and neuropsychology. For now, again, it seems we don’t know. Clearly enjoyment of music is a mental phenomenon.

What’s going on here appears to be neither science nor a review, but a measurement report.

I (partially) agree. I think the "measurement reports" of Amir cannot very accurately predict what impact a certain component will have on my music enjoyment. But, in absence of sufficient time and means to perform evaluations myself, the work of Amir does save me quite some money. They provide healthy evidence against the prejudice that expensive is better.

In this case, the measurements even appear to show that manufacturer specs are misleading. Therefore (and in view of the many psychoacoustical unknowns that you admit) I would be reluctant to trust any positive subjective evaluation of this DAC.

 

[kairos]

Fine, accepted. I wish your testing methods and understanding of what the purpose of a DAC is were equally capable, no offense. Your money will be much better spent if you’d acquiesce to the principle of not applying analog terms to digital audio devices.

Pure DACs should not have a “sound”—impure DACs do, in the form of distortion and noise, and that is what this DAC offers. You can get one that produces neither at a fraction of this price.

Yes that is why I bought the Topping D90SE as a "control" DAC to evaluate all my other DACS. I agree with the general principle that DACS should measure well especially with respect to noise floor approaching 22-24 bits now, but measurements DON"T explain differences in tone, soundstage and dynamics, only unfortunately our ears. I don't mean to be purposely obtuse or flat earther I just seek to land on the best DAC for my tastes in my system for the money. I really wish that I don't have to spend more money than I already have to achieve the sound qualities I want my system to have, genuinely hoping the Topping ends up staying in my system so I can sell the rest!

BTW I agree that the new TAS review of the Topping is going to send waves through the traditional audiophile community though it may take some time, will be interesting to see what comes of it moving forward.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Fine, accepted. I wish your testing methods and understanding of what the purpose of a DAC is were equally capable, no offense. Your money will be much better spent if you’d acquiesce to the principle of not applying analog terms to digital audio devices.

Pure DACs should not have a “sound”—impure DACs do, in the form of distortion and noise, and that is what this DAC offers. You can get one that produces neither at a fraction of this price.

Agreed, but although this DAC isn't transparent even to CD resolution, would this be audible in most real situations with real world source material?

 

[srkbear]

Yes that is why I bought the Topping D90SE as a "control" DAC to evaluate all my other DACS. I agree with the general principle that DACS should measure well especially with respect to noise floor approaching 22-24 bits now, but measurements DON"T explain differences in tone, soundstage and dynamics, only unfortunately our ears. I don't mean to be purposely obtuse or flat earther I just seek to land on the best DAC for my tastes in my system for the money. I really wish that I don't have to spend more money than I already have to achieve the sound qualities I want my system to have, genuinely hoping the Topping ends up staying in my system so I can sell the rest!

BTW I agree that the new TAS review of the Topping is going to send waves through the traditional audiophile community though it may take some time, will be interesting to see what comes of it moving forward.

You don’t seem to understand—DACs don’t HAVE a tone, soundstage or dynamics! Those endpoints are the responsibility of your amplifier, or more importantly, your headphones or speakers. This is a device that converts a stream of ones and zeros into an analog facsimile of the original master. If it’s applying any coloration to the sound, it’s not doing its job!

 

[ExUnoPlura]

This site is oriented at assessing fidelity, specially of electronics. A DAC is expected to convert as perfectly as possible the digital signal into an analogue one, and the parameters that measure this performance are well known. There is very little room for arguing here. If your goal is not fidelity, and is subjective preference, this is a very different topic, but then the thing to compare are the measurements against the personal preference. In any case, listening to a DAC doesn't make any sense, as the measured parameters tells everything about what the DAC does.This is an important point.

I'll also add that there are many discussions of science here, from the scientific investigation of human hearing, to how to scientifically evaluate subjective impressions, and to the science of transducer interactions with air and surfaces. These topics have been covered extensively, if not exhaustively, and go beyond merely measuring equipment.

 

[srkbear]

Agreed, but although this DAC isn't transparent even to CD resolution, would this be audible in most real situations with real world source material?

Explain your question a little more please. Do you mean that the practical differences would be inaudible?

 

[Koeitje]

Well, in the case of Okto, my listening impressions correlated with measurements. Was I also biased here?

Points at my signature.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Explain your question a little more please. Do you mean that the practical differences would be inaudible?

I'm not sure; that's why I ask. IOW, though this DAC is poor value, is it "good enough" subjectively?

 

[SegaCD]

I feel like I'm stepping into a thread full of landmines, but I'd like to throw my two cents in...

And again, why should a brand new unit at such high cost ship with anything other than the latest firmware?

As someone who works for a consumer/pro electronics manufacturer, I can tell you that products of any price usually don't ship with the latest firmware for logistics and tracking reasons. FW updates can involve a whole change request process including labeling updates, documentation updates, manufacturer coordination of the change over, manufacturing process updates, etc. If a major bug is discovered in the FW, the devices may have to be recalled by the distribution center and hand updated/reverted to a corrected FW. It is a costly endeavor that has little benefit.

For most companies, it's easier to release products with a base FW and update upon network connection or have the consumer manually provide the update if they care (which they'll probably have the ability to do out-of-the-box anyway if the stock sits for a while). Most consumers/businesses rarely or never update their devices because they don't care/benefit. Updates to the base/factory FW would only happen for major changes (such as security updates or major functionality) that the manufacturer of the products may want to verify during ICT/ATE or advertise on the product box, for example.

My point is that the measurement findings are secondary to the subjective sound quality. The minions here deprecated this dac solely on measurements. Measurements are the tail, sound quality is the dog.

1. Audio is subjective.
2. Devices that cannot measure well cannot hit performance/audibility metrics that devices that measure well can. They cannot emulate a better-measuring product.
3. Devices that do measure well can hit performance/audibility metrics that devices that measure worse than it can. They can emulate a worse-measuring product.

If you want a product that sounds a particular way, you buy the best performing products you can because you/the original sound engineer has the headroom to shape the sound in a way that you/he/she finds pleasing. With an objectively performance-limited product, you are stuck with an inflexible, specific sound. Maybe that's OK if you heard the device beforehand and like it, but nobody here (Amir or otherwise) would/should in good consciousness recommend a specific sound to you from a forum/magazine/YouTube video/TV show. Audio is subjective like every other sense we have which is why flexibility is a requirement. If you want subjective recommendations, go buy/rent all this equipment on your own. If you don't have an unbiased showroom shaped like your room & can't afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on random equipment, then measurements are the best you have. If you want measurements that apply to everyone, then you're looking for measurements that prove inaudibility to everyone.

To reword into tangible examples:

• You can add pleasing distortions to a low-distortion amplifier; you cannot remove unpleasing distortions from a high-distortion amplifier.
• You can add a noise floor to a system that is low-noise; you cannot remove the noise floor from a system that is high-noise.
• You can add crosstalk to a system that has extreme channel separation; you cannot reduce crosstalk on a system that his little channel separation.
• You can modify the frequency response of a device without many repercussions on a good measuring device; you may incur repercussions for modifying the frequency response of a device which measures in the realm of audibility.
• You can reduce the width of a speaker with a wide beamwidth; you cannot expand the width of a speaker with a shallow beamwidth.

I don't understand why this is so difficult to understand. Measurements benefit you, as a consumer, in every way as it ensures that that the devices you own exceed what you require.

Many of the same people who come here with these sort of "every device has a sound" comments are the same people who are nay-sayers of EQs other sound manipulation devices. Why? Because old analog EQs added audible issues to the device chain. A lot of this "audiofoolery" just comes from defunct information that has become unwritten rules spread over time.

 

[GDK]

I'm not sure; that's why I ask. IOW, though this DAC is poor value, is it "good enough" subjectively?

I think this is one of the "issues" that stem from these reviews. Although it measures relatively poorly, it probably sounds fine due to limitations in either the rest of our systems or in our hearing. That causes people who own these units to get all hot and bothered and sign up to post here because their own experience doesn't match the results of the test. It sounds fine to them and don't understand why people are calling it an overpriced POS - hence the constant "have you even listened to it?" comments.

 

[AdamG]

Thread Notice: This is an Official Product Review Thread. Please keep your conversation firmly rooted in the Product Reviewed and/or the actual Bench Test Results/data. Several off topic posts have been deleted. Further off topic posts will also be deleted and may result in account sanctions. Please and thank you for your understanding.

 

[antcollinet]

[pedant]
singular phenomenon
plural phenomena
[/pedant]

Yes, I know. I'm assuming that in the mythical break in of electronics, the assumption is more than one component is involved. It would be really odd if of the hundreds of components, only one were breaking in.

I'd also expect that in the dizzy heads of audiophiles there is more than one phenomenon per component.

 

[sarumbear]

the possibility that the AES connection is faulty

Yey! Faulty unit response has arrived. It took longer this time, 177 messages.

 

[Billy Budapest]

I understand. Since the concept is totally rejected here with absolute certainty, I assume, break-in/burn-in is a laughable notion.

I'm not likely to make any progress here. I will say this. The issue is not what you know but what you don't know. It is epistemological. Science progresses by considering data that conflicts or challenges what is currently believed to be true. Dogma is not science.

“I’m not likely to make any progress here?” I think you are the one being dogmatic. Rather than hanging on to a belief that burn-in is real, why not open your mind and question your beliefs and look at the science? We are all here to learn, not to preach. Audio is science, not religion.

 

[SubsonicLurker]

Yes, what a pain. By pain you obviously mean the bother of having to stare at the remote and wonder if you could get away with doing a comprehensive review without it. It can't be the chore of installing the batteries because you didn't do that. Change the dpll setting? Fuck that. See how it works at 1.5v out instead of 2v? Fuck that. Change the filter selection to see if the high frequency distortion improves? Fuck that.
I don't understand why you are so lazy. Actually I do, nobody here on this forum cares that you don't bother and allow you to keep getting away with it.
The entertainment value of the forum response to the reviews is still there and to that I say, Well done.

Yes, he's lazy, that's why on any given week, he manages to post 4-5 product reviews despite also having a business to run during the day.

Based on the vitriol, I'm guessing that you must be a MH-DA005 owner, or Amir drank the last of your milk and left the empty carton in the fridge.