Question about DACs and room correction.

[amirm]

I know what this forum is about. It's a bunch of audio nerds that have get horny over graphs and measurements, and believe it's the be all and end all.

No, we are a bunch of people who understand the design of your audio systems. Measurements and graphs are proof points of that knowledge. It is that knowledge that tells us what you heard as good was likely due to many other factors than that specific amplifier brand at that price.

 

[Keith_W]

If it makes you happy, go ahead and buy the amplifier and enjoy it. It's true that you can get equivalent performance for cheaper. But IMO that Advance Paris amp you are looking at isn't the most crazily priced, nor the worst amplifier I have seen. Those amps would be tens of thousands of dollars and not give you any improvement over that Advance Paris amp. There are people on this forum who own amps more expensive than that, like Mark Levinson amps In my view your $5k amp isn't unreasonable and if you want it, go for it.

 

[voodooless]

But IMO that Advance Paris amp you are looking at isn't the most crazily priced, nor the worst amplifier I have seen.

But just note that the brand is notorious for delivering poor quality, poor reliability products. The previous incarnation: Advance Accoustics went down because of it.

 

[marked sound]

The doctor tells you that blood letting is foolish and dangerous, yet you keep doing it anyway…

Equating me trusting my ears to blood letting is a bit melodramatic. However, if that is the opinion you want to hold nothing says you aren't entitled to it. I am not here to tell you how to enjoy your hobby. As long as you are happy, that is all that matters.

 

[marked sound]

If it makes you happy, go ahead and buy the amplifier and enjoy it. It's true that you can get equivalent performance for cheaper. But IMO that Advance Paris amp you are looking at isn't the most crazily priced, nor the worst amplifier I have seen. Those amps would be tens of thousands of dollars and not give you any improvement over that Advance Paris amp. There are people on this forum who own amps more expensive than that, like Mark Levinson amps In my view your $5k amp isn't unreasonable and if you want it, go for it.

Thanks. That is the opinion I hold as well. Even the people that buy 50,00K+ Levinson's are free to do what make's them happy.

 

[marked sound]

But just note that the brand is notorious for delivering poor quality, poor reliability products. The previous incarnation: Advance Accoustics went down because of it.

I am aware of what "Advance Acoustics" used to be and their reputation. I am aware that some French people viewed (and some still might) that Advance Acoustics was a gimmick brand that French audio salesmen tried to pawn off on people that didn't know much about audio. I am also aware that LG used to be "Lucky Goldstar" and put out some of the worst products out there, before they switched to "Life's Good". Brands can change, and Advance Paris is definitely getting a stronger reputation. My brother has had his for quite a while and is happy, and it sounds fantastic. That also gives me some confidence.

 

[marked sound]

No, we are a bunch of people who understand the design of your audio systems. Measurements and graphs are proof points of that knowledge. It is that knowledge that tells us what you heard as good was likely due to many other factors than that specific amplifier brand at that price.

Fair enough. I am willing to concede that there could be a plethora of reasons why something sounds good to my ears. I am also willing to concede there could be various reasons why I thought a particular amp sounded better than amps less expensive, and also better than amps 2 to 6 times the price when played on the same speakers. I could spend my whole life trying to figure out why, but I am a little lazier than some, and I just want to buy a piece of gear that I like and enjoy the music.

There are many people that spend 90 percent of their free time (for years and years) researching and measuring gear and doing upgrades etc, and only do 10 percent of music listening. If that's what gets them excited, I say go for it. I personally mostly enjoy listening to music. However, I am not TOTALLY uninterested in measurements, hence why I am asking about room correction.

The amp I am purchasing does not have a built in room correction and I would like to add a device that does it. My brother was looking at upgrading his integrated amp to one that has built in room correction, however he found out that in order to use the new amps room correction he would be required to use the DAC in the new amp for music processing as well. He likes his external DAC and would rather let that handle music. The amp that I am buying has no room correction, but a built in DAC that I would prefer to use to process music as well. I just was wondering if I would be running into the same issue as my brother, if I tried to add a device that does room correction. The only experience I have in room correction is ones built into an amp. I don't even know where an external room correction device should be placed in the hookup chain.

 

[fatoldgit]

I am not going to try and get you off the AP brand but that specific model in the range has a boat load of analog and digital inputs and stuff like pre-outs, hdmi arc etc

If your system is basically streamer -> internal DAC->internal amp->speakers then you are buying/paying for a lot of "stuff" you may never need/use.. so maybe there is a cheaper (but still quality) model in the AP range that has the needed watts?

In regard to your question, the minidsp flex comes in a digital in/digital out model so you would stick this between the streamer SPDIF out and the AP spdif in.

It comes with or without Dirac. Without Dirac you use the minidsp's own software to do the DSP but some people say Dirac is the way to go.

Maybe you could see if they would sell you without, try it then if needed get the Dirac license later.

 

[voodooless]

trusting my ears

That is the problem. You're not just trusting your ears! If you did that, you'd be conducting a double blind controlled listening test. However, it's clear that you're not interested in that.

I could spend my whole life trying to figure out why, but I am a little lazier than some, and I just want to buy a piece of gear that I like and enjoy the music.

That's the great thing about ASR: All this work has already been done by several lifetimes of research in a multitude of scientific fields. The end result of being lazy is just that you'll keep chasing the next audiophile fad.

There are many people that spend 90 percent of their free time (for years and years) researching and measuring gear and doing upgrades etc, and only do 10 percent of music listening. If that's what gets them excited, I say go for it. I personally mostly enjoy listening to music. However, I am not TOTALLY uninterested in measurements, hence why I am asking about room correction.

Again, you clearly demonstrate that you don't understand what ASR is all about.

However, I am not TOTALLY uninterested in measurements, hence why I am asking about room correction.

That is like an oxymoron... You need measurements to get any value out of room correction.

The amp I am purchasing does not have a built in room correction and I would like to add a device that does it.

The most sensible thing is to buy a product that actually suits your needs instead of building some sub-optimal Frankenstein monster. There are plenty of decent amps with room correction within your budget.

 

[kawauso]

I am purchasing a HiFi receiver with nice built in DAC. However this receiver does not have room correction, so I am interested in purchasing an external room correction device. The way my system will be set up is... streamer hooked up to the receiver to use the receiver's DAC, receiver hooked up to room correction device.

My question is, is there any way to obtain room correction and still use the DAC of the receiver to process streaming audio? Or is it that once that the receiver is plugged into some sort of room correction, the receivers DAC gets bypassed and everything is handled by the room correction device?

Sorry for if I sound like such a noob. Thanks for the help.

That’s a very cool amplifier.
If possible, you could connect it from the X3800H’s pre-out DAC.
If you haven’t purchased it yet, the A12 Classic (without a DAC) might be a better value.

The X3800H has the following features:

Room Correction

• Audyssey MultEQ XT32
• Dirac Live (optional)

Network / Streaming

• AirPlay 2
• Roon Ready
• Spotify Connect
• Qobuz Connect

HEOS Supported Services

• Amazon Music
• AWA
• Deezer
• Qobuz
• SoundCloud
• TuneIn
• TIDAL

 

[kawauso]

The Advance Paris amplifier looks great and seems to offer plenty of power.
I’m not sure which streamer you’re using, but if you switch to an AVR or AVP such as the AVR-X3800H, you won’t need a separate streamer anymore. In that case, you can simply sell it.
Sometimes you need to let go of something in order to gain something new. Even without an expensive streamer, proper room EQ will most likely make the sound feel improved.

 

[gwing]

Fair enough. I am willing to concede that there could be a plethora of reasons why something sounds good to my ears. I am also willing to concede there could be various reasons why I thought a particular amp sounded better than amps less expensive, and also better than amps 2 to 6 times the price when played on the same speakers. I could spend my whole life trying to figure out why, but I am a little lazier than some, and I just want to buy a piece of gear that I like and enjoy the music.

There are many people that spend 90 percent of their free time (for years and years) researching and measuring gear and doing upgrades etc, and only do 10 percent of music listening. If that's what gets them excited, I say go for it. I personally mostly enjoy listening to music. However, I am not TOTALLY uninterested in measurements, hence why I am asking about room correction.

The amp I am purchasing does not have a built in room correction and I would like to add a device that does it. My brother was looking at upgrading his integrated amp to one that has built in room correction, however he found out that in order to use the new amps room correction he would be required to use the DAC in the new amp for music processing as well. He likes his external DAC and would rather let that handle music. The amp that I am buying has no room correction, but a built in DAC that I would prefer to use to process music as well. I just was wondering if I would be running into the same issue as my brother, if I tried to add a device that does room correction. The only experience I have in room correction is ones built into an amp. I don't even know where an external room correction device should be placed in the hookup chain.

Thanks for the well reasoned post. I'll try to explain a bit and help.

The experience of members here is that an 'ideal' amplifier (and it need not be an expensive amplifier) produces an flat output across all frequencies and has a sufficiently low distortion so as to be better than the human ear can resolve and if also run within it's output capability so that it isn't producing extra distortion from clipping then it will actually sound the same as all other ideal amplifiers provided the tests are fair i.e. they are at exactly matched listening volumes and are done as blind tests to avoid the subjective biases we all suffer from.

That said you may well find there is a genuinely different sound from your chosen amplifier to the above 'ideal' amplifiers. The manufacturers state that the amp has a tube pre-amplification stage that *adds warmth to the music*. Adding warmth to the music means altering the response so that it isn't ideal/flat (usually buy boosting the lower/mid sounds a bit and also perhaps by adding a bit of even harmonics to the music. I haven't seen tests for the amplifier to confirm this behavior but it is what the manufacturers claim and may indeed produce an amplifier who's sound you prefer.

If you include digital processing in your audio chain, e.g. for room correction, you could also (and rather more flexibly) alter the tone curve in the digital domain to provide as much extra warmth as you want, or don't want, in the final sound which is where the ideal/flat amplifier shines as you can tailor the sound for your preferences rather than having a fixed coloration in the amplifier itself.

As has been said earlier in the thread the room correction is in the digital domain and therefore has to come before the DAC turns your signal to analog so a good solution would be to use a Wiim device such as the Pro+ or Ultra both as a streaming source and also as a pre-pre amp accepting and room correcting other sources before feeding the corrected digital output to the DAC in your PARIS integrated amp. Alternatively, with this setup, you could simplify things and use a simple power amp instead of the Paris.

 

[Mort]

Thanks. That is the opinion I hold as well. Even the people that buy 50,00K+ Levinson's are free to do what make's them happy.

Of course. That doesn't mean it's rational.

 

[JeremyFife]

Fair enough. I am willing to concede that there could be a plethora of reasons why something sounds good to my ears. I am also willing to concede there could be various reasons why I thought a particular amp sounded better than amps less expensive, and also better than amps 2 to 6 times the price when played on the same speakers. I could spend my whole life trying to figure out why, but I am a little lazier than some, and I just want to buy a piece of gear that I like and enjoy the music.

There are many people that spend 90 percent of their free time (for years and years) researching and measuring gear and doing upgrades etc, and only do 10 percent of music listening. If that's what gets them excited, I say go for it. I personally mostly enjoy listening to music. However, I am not TOTALLY uninterested in measurements, hence why I am asking about room correction.

The amp I am purchasing does not have a built in room correction and I would like to add a device that does it. My brother was looking at upgrading his integrated amp to one that has built in room correction, however he found out that in order to use the new amps room correction he would be required to use the DAC in the new amp for music processing as well. He likes his external DAC and would rather let that handle music. The amp that I am buying has no room correction, but a built in DAC that I would prefer to use to process music as well. I just was wondering if I would be running into the same issue as my brother, if I tried to add a device that does room correction. The only experience I have in room correction is ones built into an amp. I don't even know where an external room correction device should be placed in the hookup chain.

OK, you're going with the Advance Paris amp (which looks awesome btw) and you want to use its internal DAC - your system, your choice - that's all good.
Room Correction can be added upstream of the DAC, no problem.

I may have missed this, but what are your music sources? You will, in an ideal world, want to apply room correction to all of them.
There are plenty of options from the tiny WiiM Mini, if all you need is streaming, to Eversolo models.

What do you need to apply RC to?
Do you plan to add a subwoofer (or a pair, or more?)? This changes your requirement

 

[bungle]

That is like an oxymoron... You need measurements to get any value out of room correction.

We need a room correction that does its stuff semi-randomly and asks after each step, does it now sound better or worse. It could flip back and forth A/B with some real music that the user likes (volume normalized of course), and user has to choose A/B after each step. Or perhaps with comments like "bass is too boomy", "i want to feel punch in my chest", "i want to be able to move more freely", "please apply this now to harman curve" -> "do something about it!". Then you don't need other measurements than your ears/body. Of course perhaps some initial measurement to flatten things down with microphone could be applied too. Not sure what to call it. Microphone one: objective correction, then this second step: subjective correction.

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Of course. That doesn't mean it's rational.

Doesn't mean it's not rational either.

There are many value hierarchies involved in such a purchase, sonic issues are just one. If someone dreamed about that brand all their life, and has the money to fulfill that dream, it might very well be rational. How many lifelong dreams do we have a chance of making real? Not many. Is it rational to get one if you have the chance? Seems so to me.

 

[bungle]

Room correction / DSP takes place in the digital domain, so before DAC.

If you want least component digital path then commonly:
digital path: digital source -> room correction -> dac -> amp -> sound (you may also have crossovers of different kinds (usually inside speaker) or perhaps you do that in digital domain).
analog path: analog source -> adc -> room correction -> dac -> amp -> sound

But the extra ADC/DAC steps don't matter too much. E.g. I have this with my vinyl:
turn table -> adc -> room correction -> dac -> adc -> dac -> amp -> sound

The last "adc -> dac-> amp -> sound" is what my speaker is doing (cannot disable it). I could also connect it like this:
turn table -> adc -> room correction -> dac -> amp -> sound (as the speaker itself can store the room correction parameters too, in this case I am connecting turn table directly to speakers -> this has usually some ergonomics issues, thus I am not using this most direct path)

But I would not be afraid too much of conversion. Even if you try to keep signal path as digital as possible as long as possible before finally turning it to analog, there may be other conversions too, e.g. bitrate conversions.

 

[Mort]

Doesn't mean it's not rational either.

There are many value hierarchies involved in such a purchase, sonic issues are just one. If someone dreamed about that brand all their life, and has the money to fulfill that dream, it might very well be rational. How many lifelong dreams do we have a chance of making real? Not many. Is it rational to get one if you have the chance? Seems so to me.

Too generous. There are objective standards at play.

 

[gwing]

If you want least component digital path then commonly:
digital path: digital source -> room correction -> dac -> amp -> sound (here you may also have crossovers of different kinds or perhaps you do that in digital domain).
analog path: analog source -> adc -> room correction -> dac -> amp -> sound

But the extra ADC/DAC steps don't matter too much. E.g. I have this with my vinyl:
turn table -> adc -> room correction -> dac -> adc -> dac -> amp -> sound

The last "adc -> dac-> amp -> sound" is what my speaker is doing (cannot disable it). I could also connect it like this:
turn table -> adc -> room correction -> dac -> amp -> sound (as the speaker itself can store the room correction parameters too, in this case I am connecting turn table directly to speakers -> this has usually some ergonomics issues, thus I am not using this most direct path)

But I would not be afraid too much of conversion. Even if you try to keep signal path as digital as possible as long as possible before finally turning it to analog, there may be other conversions too, e.g. bitrate conversions.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Why the difference in the post room correction paths ? i.e. why does the turntable path end "dac -> adc -> dac -> amp -> sound"
instead of simply "dac -> amp -> sound" like your digital and analog paths? I would have thought that after they had been (if necessary) converted to digital and reached the room correction step all sources would be treated identically from there on.

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Too generous. There are objective standards at play.

Are there ONLY objective standards at play? If we are talking accuracy, then we can stick to only objective standards. But preferences? Likes? Dislikes?

Let's try a thought experiment. Suppose I design a highly accurate speaker that I can sell for $500 a pair, or $1000 for floor standing version. It is equal to or more accurate than any other speaker you can list, down to 40hz for the stand mounts and 20hz for the floor standers.

The downside is this: it only works if made in the shape of a unicorn rearing up on hind legs, and the color MUST be fluorescent pink and green horizontal stripes. Why? Proprietary secret reasons. But if you paint them, it degrades the sound, objectively, by the measurements.

You buying?