New Nagra DAC announced at CES - list price $65,000

[McFly]

"37 individual power supplies"

My whole system only has one power supply.

Tampa Electric Company now owned by Canadian Emera, though they may occasionally load-share with other utilities.

Mine too - the mains cable coming into my house

 

[Surge]

https://www.whathifi.com/news/nagra-hd-dac-x-aims-for-digital-perfection

As we approach the limits of audibility in $100 DACs, what does this offer besides snake oil?

I joined this forum just to reply to you! Sadly, my friend, you are completely mistaken if you think you can measure audio gear on a test bench. You can, but it will get you nowhere near the truth of how components really sound. You are fooling yourself if you think a $100 DAC is as good as a $1k DAC or a $20k DAC.

I used to think like you, until I actually heard what a high end system is capable of. I can tell you that a $100 DAC that measures ‘off the charts’ on the bench cannot hold a candle to a properly engineered $10k DAC. Not even close.

Do yourself a favour and go out and listen to various components, and forget about S/N, distortion %, and other worthless stats. This hobby has nothing to do with those stats.

Or continue to live in ignorance, since it is supposed to be “bliss” after all!

 

[Blumlein 88]

I joined this forum just to reply to you! Sadly, my friend, you are completely mistaken if you think you can measure audio gear on a test bench. You can, but it will get you nowhere near the truth of how components really sound. You are fooling yourself if you think a $100 DAC is as good as a $1k DAC or a $20k DAC.

I used to think like you, until I actually heard what a high end system is capable of. I can tell you that a $100 DAC that measures ‘off the charts’ on the bench cannot hold a candle to a properly engineered $10k DAC. Not even close.

Do yourself a favour and go out and listen to various components, and forget about S/N, distortion %, and other worthless stats. This hobby has nothing to do with those stats.

Or continue to live in ignorance, since it is supposed to be “bliss” after all!

Me hopes this post is in humor. Otherwise it is so sad.

Or maybe not so sad. As I see you are a new member, Welcome to the forum. There is so much you can learn here.

 

[SIY]

I used to think like you, until I actually heard what a high end system is capable of.

I used to think like you, until I actually spent some time and effort to do comparisons ears-only, no peeking.

Welcome and please stick around. Approaching things by actually trusting your ears can be a revelation.

 

[amirm]

I used to think like you, until I actually heard what a high end system is capable of. I can tell you that a $100 DAC that measures ‘off the charts’ on the bench cannot hold a candle to a properly engineered $10k DAC. Not even close.

OH, it can and it does. I have the system you are talking about (nearly $100,000). And I can tell without hesitation that I would be more than happy with said $100 DAC. I have heard hundreds of high-end systems and nothing about them would make your idea correct. You are letting your eyes judge the sound, not your ears.

What high-end systems can provide is massive dynamic range. In that regard, you want a well measuring DAC so that you know the low-level detail is not stomped upon as is the case with some boutique expensive DACs.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I joined this forum just to reply to you! Sadly, my friend, you are completely mistaken if you think you can measure audio gear on a test bench. You can, but it will get you nowhere near the truth of how components really sound. You are fooling yourself if you think a $100 DAC is as good as a $1k DAC or a $20k DAC.

I used to think like you, until I actually heard what a high end system is capable of. I can tell you that a $100 DAC that measures ‘off the charts’ on the bench cannot hold a candle to a properly engineered $10k DAC. Not even close.

Do yourself a favour and go out and listen to various components, and forget about S/N, distortion %, and other worthless stats. This hobby has nothing to do with those stats.

Or continue to live in ignorance, since it is supposed to be “bliss” after all!

Hi. Welcome to the forum. In my 50+ years of using music recording and replay equipment I have had periods of believing that one can judge from measurements, then a couple of decades of sceptiscism where I was sure I could hear differences which didn't show up in measurements but after I retired 10 years ago and had more time I did much more in depth comparisons, starting with looking for a DAC that could decode higher than the 16/48 limit of my Goldmund Mimesis 20.
I wasn't trying anything really cheap, and have been a good customer over the years, so I had home loans of a range of kit, the least expensive was £1300, the most expensive was £14,000.
I did careful comparisons, level matched and also just carefully listening to low level detail. I spent weeks doing this. In the end I though I could detect a tiny amount more detail in one of them, but not repeatably. I came to the conclusion that if there was a difference it was vanishingly small and inconsequential and probably imagined.
I have a good quality system and I don't have such cloth ears that I don't hear differences in other components.
Here are the components where I hear differences. In my recordings I learned early on that whilst there is an audible difference between microphones their position relative to the performers makes a big difference too.
Speakers make a big difference in frequency balance, dynamic range and distortion. Speaker position in the room has a big effect on how much each room mode is excited, amongst other effects.
Properly engineered CD players/DACs and preamps are all transparent IME - choose for facilities, reliability and styling.
Power amplifiers can sound different. Some simply aren't powerful enough. Some can't drive complex loads. Some have a high output impedance which alters the frequency response of speakers (in a way varying from speaker to speaker, of course).
Record players all sound different in various ways, there are a multitude of parameters influencing their output. All 4 of mine sound different to each other.
Properly engineered cables with appropriate electrical properties are all the same.

Stick around. There are dozens of hifi sites on the internet and IME this is the only one that makes sense. You may save some money. I haven't since what I have bought was more due to facilities (a rotary volume control on the remote) and styling that economy but it is certainly possible to do so once the mote is cast from the eyes (ears).

BTW there is a difference in sound between the different reconstruction filters one can choose on my dCS player, but one would expect that from the change in frequency response that goes with it.

 

[Shadrach]

OH, it can and it does. I have the system you are talking about (nearly $100,000). And I can tell without hesitation that I would be more than happy with said $100 DAC. I have heard hundreds of high-end systems and nothing about them would make your idea correct. You are letting your eyes judge the sound, not your ears.

What high-end systems can provide is massive dynamic range. In that regard, you want a well measuring DAC so that you know the low-level detail is not stomped upon as is the case with some boutique expensive DACs.

I've got to ask now and I think others that view this forum may well be want to pose the same question.
Given the measurements done by yourself showing that very modestly priced electronic equipment can perform equally as well as the high end audiophile equipment and that under ABX conditions nobody has managed to successfully distinguish amps, Dacs and cables (I think music severs may well fall into this category as well) How did you manage to blow £100.000.00 on a stereo system?
It's even more pertinent given the forums ethos is objectivity and this is your forum.
I've seen a few systems on ASR that cost incredible amounts of money, Which, given the opportunity, I believe I could match for performance at less than one tenth of the cost.
With regard to the dynamic range, the dynamic range on recordings is limited, you can't reproduce more than is on the medium.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I've got to ask now and I think others that view this forum may well be want to pose the same question.
Given the measurements done by yourself showing that very modestly priced electronic equipment can perform equally as well as the high end audiophile equipment and that under ABX conditions nobody has managed to successfully distinguish amps, Dacs and cables (I think music severs may well fall into this category as well) How did you manage to blow £100.000.00 on a stereo system?
It's even more pertinent given the forums ethos is objectivity and this is your forum.
I've seen a few systems on ASR that cost incredible amounts of money, Which, given the opportunity, I believe I could match for performance at less than one tenth of the cost.
With regard to the dynamic range, the dynamic range on recordings is limited, you can't reproduce more than is on the medium.

PMFJI.
My system is an expensive one mainly for historical reasons. I started off in the late 1960s building stuff myself then later when I had much more money and less time ended up buying pricy electronics that matched the speakers I spent 2 years researching, and the speakers were expensive too, made by hand in small quantities.
IME the things which cost serious money are wide bandwidth, that last octave to octave and a half in the bass are -very- expensive, dynamic range, particularly for classical music lovers, and maximum loudness, particularly if you have a large room.
I have heard systems which sound very convincing with a string quartet which fail completely to reproduce orchestral music at anything like the loudness, dynamic range or full frequency range.
The last pop concert I went to was around 95dB where I was sitting which I found on the limit of being irritatingly loud. Classical orchestral concerts I have been to at have peaks over 105dB so would require 10x the power to not clip, despite it not sounding irrtatingly loud since it is not one continuous loud experience with little dynamic range.
Certainly I know nowadays I don't need to spend as much on a DAC as I have but that is an almost negligible part of my system - in fact now completely so since I use a Devialet amp with built in DAC, not least because of the rotary volume control on the remote.
They don't make the speakers I have any more, but basically, if you want the maximum loudness and deep bass of an orchestral concert, something like the Kii with BXT is needed. I see no reason to change myself though since what I have gives me great pleasure and I rarely stream music so it doesn't suit me really.
Of the wide range speakers I have heard which are convincing the least expensive here in England are the KEF Blade so anybody using streamed music may as well get the Kii/BXT as long as they like the features and are confident about reliability.

If I was starting from scratch again I would end up spending far less than I have historically.

 

[PierreV]

Given the measurements done by yourself showing that very modestly priced electronic equipment can perform equally as well as the high end audiophile equipment

At this point, we are mostly talking about DACs. Nowadays audibly transparent and well measuring DACs are mostly straightforward current chipset implementations. It wasn't always the case and there are still potentially bad deals. I now have 6 or 7 CCAs. I extensively listened to the first one and could definitely tell its built-in DAC was inferior to the other ones I had. CCA optical is fine though and I use them as endpoints feeding other DACs.

Cables, interconnects, when they are sufficient (and sufficient has a very low bar I think), no differences.

Amps, I beg to differ somewhat in practice. I am sure "good" amps sound very much alike, but loudspeaker pairing is still an issue. The Focals I have are very picky and, in case of a poor match, are easily recognizable in a blind test, provided the content played hits on the problem ofc. I also ran a five amps shoutout on the KEF LS 50 for fun and there are not only significant differences but also measurable differences with a microphone and deltawave (some examples I posted previously).

How did you manage to blow £100.000.00 on a stereo system?

At the risk of sounding a bit politically incorrect here, because it is a hobby and you can? The goal of a hobby doesn't necessarily have to be optimization for a single purpose although it can of course be.

If I was to build a multi-component system based on some kind of consensus here, I am would probably go for a transparent DAC with XLR, two Hypex monoblocks driving a pair of Revels F208. That would be well below $10000. Problem solved, for most cases. If you are into organ music and want that 16Hz feeling, you might want to add a big sub or two. If you have a large room, maybe upgrade the speakers... But it should be near optimal in terms of what has been measured here and elsewhere (Revels).

It's even more pertinent given the forums ethos is objectivity and this is your forum.

On can objectively decide to behave non-rationally in terms of ROI for hobbies. And there is also, as @Frank Dernie stated, the history aspect. We tend to accumulate things over the years and those tend to be obsoleted fairly quickly these days, especially on the digital side of things.

With regard to the dynamic range, the dynamic range on recordings is limited, you can't reproduce more than is on the medium.

True, as soon as you get a decent system, you immediately realize the recording matters tremendously. You can't get more than there is, but you can often get much less.

Bottom line, one can agree 99% with you and still want to spend more because they enjoy the whole process.

 

[amirm]

I've got to ask now and I think others that view this forum may well be want to pose the same question.
Given the measurements done by yourself showing that very modestly priced electronic equipment can perform equally as well as the high end audiophile equipment and that under ABX conditions nobody has managed to successfully distinguish amps, Dacs and cables (I think music severs may well fall into this category as well) How did you manage to blow £100.000.00 on a stereo system?
It's even more pertinent given the forums ethos is objectivity and this is your forum.
I've seen a few systems on ASR that cost incredible amounts of money, Which, given the opportunity, I believe I could match for performance at less than one tenth of the cost.
With regard to the dynamic range, the dynamic range on recordings is limited, you can't reproduce more than is on the medium.

Addressing the last bit first, so? Live music can have SPLs near 120 dB. You can't get that with inadequate amplification and speakers.

For the rest, it is a long story. I will touch on a few points:

1. Having an expensive system immediately short-cuts the claims of subjectivists that your system is not expensive enough to "hear" (really imagine) what they are hearing. Too often our objectivists champions have a $300 stereo and so are beat up using this argument. I like to not be subject to that.

2. I can't run ABX or proper multi-way AB tests on speakers. Harman can and has. As such, I purchased the best speaker from them that has passed such blind tests, the Revel Salon 2. These cost $23,000. Their lower cost speakers get very close to its performance but still can't match it.

3. Amplifiers are Mark Levinson No 53. These are $25,000 each. I have listened to Revel Salon 2s with less powerful amplifiers and they just don't quite get there with lower powered amplifiers in large spaces. The 53s are efficient which means they extract juice from the wall socket well. Can't say the same for many other classic high-end amplifiers. I also love their looks. They make me happy looking at them.

4. The DAC is a Mark Levinson No36S which cost thousands of dollars back in 1999. Today, I would not hesitate to replace it with a $300 DAC balanced DAC.

5. My company (Madrona Digital) is a dealer for Harman so the prices above is not remotely what I paid. Indeed this gear is purchased at accomodation pricing which is even lower than dealer cost. Still, we are talking tens of thousands of dollars so the system still cost me a lot.

6. I became an audiophile when I was 10 years old or something in 1970s. My first system was an all-in-one Aiwa cassette and AM/FM system. It was horrible in performance. From then on, I had a dream of having the best system I can. That day arrived when I could finally afford to get such a system and I went for it. It was a dream that took decades to come true. Quite a splurge. It is better fidelity than I deserve honestly. It is so good that I never come back from an audio show, after listening to hundreds of systems regardless of price, and wish I had one of those systems instead of mine.

In other words, this is a personal choice. Some of it is based absolutely on audio science. Others is about feeling of finally getting there and being happy forever.

 

[Shadrach]

Addressing the last bit first, so? Live music can have SPLs near 120 dB. You can't get that with inadequate amplification and speakers.

For the rest, it is a long story. I will touch on a few points:

1. Having an expensive system immediately short-cuts the claims of subjectivists that your system is not expensive enough to "hear" (really imagine) what they are hearing. Too often our objectivists champions have a $300 stereo and so are beat up using this argument. I like to not be subject to that.

2. I can't run ABX or proper multi-way AB tests on speakers. Harman can and has. As such, I purchased the best speaker from them that has passed such blind tests, the Revel Salon 2. These cost $23,000. Their lower cost speakers get very close to its performance but still can't match it.

3. Amplifiers are Mark Levinson No 53. These are $25,000 each. I have listened to Revel Salon 2s with less powerful amplifiers and they just don't quite get there with lower powered amplifiers in large spaces. The 53s are efficient which means they extract juice from the wall socket well. Can't say the same for many other classic high-end amplifiers. I also love their looks. They make me happy looking at them.

4. The DAC is a Mark Levinson No36S which cost thousands of dollars back in 1999. Today, I would not hesitate to replace it with a $300 DAC balanced DAC.

5. My company (Madrona Digital) is a dealer for Harman so the prices above is not remotely what I paid. Indeed this gear is purchased at accomodation pricing which is even lower than dealer cost. Still, we are talking tens of thousands of dollars so the system still cost me a lot.

6. I became an audiophile when I was 10 years old or something in 1970s. My first system was an all-in-one Aiwa cassette and AM/FM system. It was horrible in performance. From then on, I had a dream of having the best system I can. That day arrived when I could finally afford to get such a system and I went for it. It was a dream that took decades to come true. Quite a splurge. It is better fidelity than I deserve honestly. It is so good that I never come back from an audio show, after listening to hundreds of systems regardless of price, and wish I had one of those systems instead of mine.

In other words, this is a personal choice. Some of it is based absolutely on audio science. Others is about feeling of finally getting there and being happy forever.

Thanks for the comprehensive answer.
I noted you used point one with good effect earlier.
I like loud on occasions but my room won't take it.
I don't go to audio shows any more; I used to and came away generally happy with the sound I have.
Slightly off topic but having heard some open baffle speakers now I find I'm very interested in the Linkwitz 521. I doubt I'll ever build a pair but it's the direction I would like to go after many years of sealed forward firing boxes.

 

[Shadrach]

At this point, we are mostly talking about DACs. Nowadays audibly transparent and well measuring DACs are mostly straightforward current chipset implementations. It wasn't always the case and there are still potentially bad deals. I now have 6 or 7 CCAs. I extensively listened to the first one and could definitely tell its built-in DAC was inferior to the other ones I had. CCA optical is fine though and I use them as endpoints feeding other DACs.

Cables, interconnects, when they are sufficient (and sufficient has a very low bar I think), no differences.

Amps, I beg to differ somewhat in practice. I am sure "good" amps sound very much alike, but loudspeaker pairing is still an issue. The Focals I have are very picky and, in case of a poor match, are easily recognizable in a blind test, provided the content played hits on the problem ofc. I also ran a five amps shoutout on the KEF LS 50 for fun and there are not only significant differences but also measurable differences with a microphone and deltawave (some examples I posted previously).



At the risk of sounding a bit politically incorrect here, because it is a hobby and you can? The goal of a hobby doesn't necessarily have to be optimization for a single purpose although it can of course be.

If I was to build a multi-component system based on some kind of consensus here, I am would probably go for a transparent DAC with XLR, two Hypex monoblocks driving a pair of Revels F208. That would be well below $10000. Problem solved, for most cases. If you are into organ music and want that 16Hz feeling, you might want to add a big sub or two. If you have a large room, maybe upgrade the speakers... But it should be near optimal in terms of what has been measured here and elsewhere (Revels).



On can objectively decide to behave non-rationally in terms of ROI for hobbies. And there is also, as @Frank Dernie stated, the history aspect. We tend to accumulate things over the years and those tend to be obsoleted fairly quickly these days, especially on the digital side of things.



True, as soon as you get a decent system, you immediately realize the recording matters tremendously. You can't get more than there is, but you can often get much less.

Bottom line, one can agree 99% with you and still want to spend more because they enjoy the whole process.

There's a £20,000 prize for you waiting with Clark challenge.
Sure, people like to buy stuff, I've bought stuff myself over the years. I don't accumulate any more...well not much.
I probably wouldn't buy a set of ready made speakers any more. I'm rather fond of the ones I made. I've yet to find any 16Hz content on any medium and not much that reaches 20Hz but yes, I agree, decent bass tends to cost.

 

[RayDunzl]

How did you manage to blow £100.000.00 on a stereo system?

Sometimes you just have to go out and buy what you want.

Especially, if you can...

 

[PierreV]

There's a £20,000 prize for you waiting with Clark challenge.

Seriously: the amps tested were (just for fun) Marantz HD AMP1, Yamaha RX 396 RDS, NAD 310, Dared MP5, AMC CVT 3030 and FX-Audio D802 and there are some striking differences (most of them showing clearly on analysis recordings with UMIK fed into DeltaWave) Edit: added shot of part of the test stack

But one could argue that these aren't "good" amplifiers in one way or another.

OTOH, once I paired the Focal with the Hypex and the Giya with the Linn, the clear differences I heard between Linn+Focal vs Linn+Giya collapsed.

I've yet to find any 16Hz content on any medium and not much that reaches 20Hz but yes, I agree, decent bass tends to cost.

Plenty of bass test tracks, synth stuff, and some organ pieces go very very low. Just finished a set of measurements with 3 different subs. But, yes, it is more "testing" as a hobby than listening to music and enjoying it

.

 

[RayDunzl]

16.5Hz here...

In the first tune on

Top - in-room with UMIK-1 with the signal to the speakers filtered by AcourateDRC, convolved in a miniDSP OpenDRC-DI
Middle - left CD channel
Bottom - right CD channel
(the CD levels are not calibrated, look a little high. What's important are the relative levels. The in-room levels noted should be realistic)

I try to match the in-room frequency response (peaks) to that contained on the medium being played. This as a cross-check for the test tone measurements.

Why peaks? That's what hits you in de side de haid harder than the little stuff you can let slide.

A little DRC helps.

The in-room is the sum of the left and right, so there isn't a perfect match. And I do still have a couple of problem areas. A dip at 48Hz - asymmetrical room and/or room node, and 215Hz dip - dipole interaction with the wall behind the speaker.

But it's close, and sounds fine.

 

[tktran303]

The price of this DAC is clearly aimed at the Billionaire market. Not the millionaire market.

And if you look at the cities which have the most billionaires in the world, many are in China (Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong). A few are in the west USA (SF, NY), UK (London)

And we are talking about a new generation of people in their 20s and 30s, heir apparent to fish farms, fertiliser companies, who have been brought up with the finest things from their loving parents. That includes everything exotic and imported when their industrious parents where bringing them up.

With the buying power of this "rising middle class" they don't want a local product! The more exotic, the more exclusive the better.

And the manufacturers knows that the markets for the most ostentatious products are now in China, India etc.

Even the Chinese companies know that. These companies know that they have the human capital to continue to engineering, but they can't replicate brand power- which with it, brings rich heritage and a level of trust and pride of ownership. Have you noticed the sale of famous Western brands to Chinese companies?

here is a few:
International Audio Group (Luxman, Quad, Wharfedale etc)
Motorola
Volvo
MG
GE Appliances
Weetabix
Club Med
Hoover US
Waldorf Astoria
Pirelli

 

[SIY]

You have me beat by a couple of Hz.

 

[RayDunzl]

You have me beat

Uh oh, now there's some 7 and 9 Hz popping up:



Just after that some 14Hz that didn't show in the room, though.

 

[SIY]

I know when to quit when I'm behind.

 

[Shadrach]

16.5Hz here...

In the first tune on

View attachment 25854

Top - in-room with UMIK-1 with the signal to the speakers filtered by AcourateDRC, convolved in a miniDSP OpenDRC-DI
Middle - left CD channel
Bottom - right CD channel
(the CD levels are not calibrated, look a little high. What's important are the relative levels. The in-room levels noted should be realistic)

View attachment 25855

I try to match the in-room frequency response (peaks) to that contained on the medium being played. This as a cross-check for the test tone measurements.

Why peaks? That's what hits you in de side de haid harder than the little stuff you can let slide.

A little DRC helps.

The in-room is the sum of the left and right, so there isn't a perfect match. And I do still have a couple of problem areas. A dip at 48Hz - asymmetrical room and/or room node, and 215Hz dip - dipole interaction with the wall behind the speaker.

But it's close, and sounds fine.

That's very good. I had a much steeper roll off last time I measured, but I don't use subs. That peak at around 18Hz must be a bit of a shocker.
That would be the sub I take it?
I must see if I can dig out what the roll off from my Volts was down to 20Hz. It's a bit of a cheat because I've got an ABR in the back; better than a port to my ears.
Would I pay £100,000.00 for that kind of response if I had it spare (?) Nope, I rather think not. Especially given my appalling taste in pop music.