The thing that gets me and still makes me second guess myself is when they talk about the sound stage being wider,bigger, more transientetc. I know it's just converting the signal and should really only have one answer but it still makes me self doubt haha.
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R2R vs Delta Sigma DACs - same results?
- Thread starter ohmywatt
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Jimster480
Major Contributor
In my testing, a lot of this comes from Tube amplifiers and older products that had mismatched impedance, especially output impedance from different amplifiers. That definitely affects things like soundstage. Also, when it comes to planar magnetic headphones, if your amplifier does not provide enough current, then the headphones often lack any kind of base. And they start to become shrill or sharp sounding.
Usually, if you want to hear transients or micro details, you really need to focus on the music and you need a good resolving pair of headphones or speakers, at least in a lot of songs. And once you really focus on the music, then you have to apply that same exact focus across different gear to see if there is really any difference. What you will find is that the difference is often very minimal if it exists at all, which sometimes its existence only comes from the different filter type or filter settings on a specific DAC or of course if your amp has tone controls and it's adjusted.
The biggest difference though that I have noticed between different DACs, specifically, is output voltage. And it's something that a lot of people do not talk about. Many different DACs have more output voltage, or just different output voltages, rather than adhering to a standard of 2V for RCA and 4V for XLR. There are many DACs that are pushing more voltage than this. And as such, that will affect volume, and with more volume, you will hear more details. Especially if you have left your amp at the same volume as before.
I feel like people who try out a new piece of gear without ever listening to the old gear and make these wild claims are just making them from their own excitement rather than reality. And this is especially the case when people might open up a new piece of gear and then really take the time to seriously listen to the music with the new gear, while they haven't done that in a long time with the old gear. And as such, they've forgotten.
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Roland68
Master Contributor
It's good that this isn't an issue primarily influenced by the speakers, speaker placement, room acoustics, and listening position.
We've been conducting blind tests like this for over 25 years, and I've never heard such differences between perfectly functioning DACs. Even guests who brought their own DACs and complained about such significant differences in soundstage were unable to distinguish the devices in this aspect during the blind test.
Why don't you try it yourself?
Or even better, talk to a sound engineer about how much more targeted manipulation of the digital signal would be necessary to achieve such audible changes in soundstage.
How could a DAC even do that?
Most people who spread such myths don't understand that neither analog nor digital data has any room for interpretation during conversion or playback. Any unintended deviation is clearly a fault/defect in the device.
Don't get me wrong, I think they are all the basically all the same. Either it converts the signal or it doesn't. Also I believe the soundstage comes from the recording, though I could be wrong. I'm just saying it's easy to get sucked in by their nonsense, they are so confident of it.It's good that this isn't an issue primarily influenced by the speakers, speaker placement, room acoustics, and listening position.
We've been conducting blind tests like this for over 25 years, and I've never heard such differences between perfectly functioning DACs. Even guests who brought their own DACs and complained about such significant differences in soundstage were unable to distinguish the devices in this aspect during the blind test.
Why don't you try it yourself?
Or even better, talk to a sound engineer about how much more targeted manipulation of the digital signal would be necessary to achieve such audible changes in soundstage.
How could a DAC even do that?
Most people who spread such myths don't understand that neither analog nor digital data has any room for interpretation during conversion or playback. Any unintended deviation is clearly a fault/defect in the device.
Jimster480
Major Contributor
Personally I think it would be much much harder to hear these differences using speakers. Personally I have tried it and I don't hear differences, but I also don't have any crappy gear now or any way to connect to multiple DAC's at the same time in my room with speakers.It's good that this isn't an issue primarily influenced by the speakers, speaker placement, room acoustics, and listening position.
We've been conducting blind tests like this for over 25 years, and I've never heard such differences between perfectly functioning DACs. Even guests who brought their own DACs and complained about such significant differences in soundstage were unable to distinguish the devices in this aspect during the blind test.
Why don't you try it yourself?
Or even better, talk to a sound engineer about how much more targeted manipulation of the digital signal would be necessary to achieve such audible changes in soundstage.
How could a DAC even do that?
Most people who spread such myths don't understand that neither analog nor digital data has any room for interpretation during conversion or playback. Any unintended deviation is clearly a fault/defect in the device.
Most of the differences in DAC's exist below the 100 SINAD range (I couldn't personally hear any differences on devices that were over 105 SINAD no matter how hard I tried on tracks I knew, in places I knew where artifacts or errors usually occur). This was only with super resolving headphones / IEMs, likely I wouldn't be able to hear this with speakers.
Differences with everything can easily exist though based on what I mentioned above, with output voltages or tone controls, sometimes filters (although I think filters, unless there was some super aggressive one would be nearly impossible to hear with speakers, regardless of testing).
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Roland68
Master Contributor
In the 90s and early 2000s, I was a frequent guest at dealer and manufacturer demonstrations of CD players, DACs, and amplifiers.
I always felt a bit out of place at these events. While most attendees could hear the differences, I usually couldn't.
At some point, I asked if the demonstrations could be done without knowing which device was being used, so the attendees could decide for themselves. Suddenly, everyone else couldn't hear the differences either.
After doing this several times, I wasn't just an unwelcome guest at such events; for a while, I was actively disinvited or even excluded.
So, this is anything but a new issue.
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I apply a simple rubric. As soon as I see or hear "soundstage" being invoked, I parse all of the following prose to represent blah, blah, blah...
I use a R2R DAC in NOS as well. Is it correct? No! Is a DS DAC more precise/correct? Yes! But I still like the sound it reproduces. Its not better but just different. Its a sound that I cant achieve with filters on a DS by changing the tone curve for some reason. Maybe there is other stuff going on but I dont care. And neither should you. Its not like it was some exotic expensive R2R anyway. Just listen to music the way you like. The house curve is also not correct, but a lot of people are still using it.
JSmith
Master Contributor
More broken... incomplete reconstruction of the original signal.
It's quite interesting, those that were seeking purity of signal by buying expensive DAC's, amps and cables, getting rid of treble and bass controls... now seem to be seeking broken DAC's and distorted amps. How odd...
JSmith
Are you implying that im a bot because I have my own tastes and let people enjoy music the way they like? Unbelievable!
No, I never said you are a bot. I said you used AI to write your posts
It's interesting how the same happens in the music world - people seek old gear specifically for sound. Except they're perfectly aware the famous grainy, punchy sound of an old Akai MPC 60 for example comes from rudimentary 16bit processing and hopelessly bad converters. The distortion of such gear is desirable for exactly that reason - a certain character straight out of the box without further fiddling.
Same as with guitar amps and whatnot, you want all that distortion and a certain type of it. The difference to audiophiles lies in the awareness of why you like certain things.
JSmith
Master Contributor
Sure, but that's a sampler and drum machine, where ones wants controlled distortion. Not in a DAC!
JSmith
No no, theoretically you want pristine sound and transparency especially in a sampler. It's an instrument alright, but "supposed" to record and play back as good as technically possible.Sure, but that's a sampler and drum machine, where ones wants controlled distortion. Not in a DAC!
JSmith
It's just that in practice, if you have that (as in newer models), you then have to fiddle and process again for a specific character. The shortcut is certain models. Switch on, et voilà, oldschool Hiphop and House sound. Easy peasy!
MatrixS2000
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It is the sound of the artifacts it is creating.
Dunno - astrophotographers always want a dark background.Funny how you never see this level of subjectivity in say astrophotography
And then they improve the gear and zoom in on the noise and find it's actually more stars and galaxies. "I'm seeing things I never saw before!"Dunno - astrophotographers always want a dark background.
Jimster480
Major Contributor
I'm not sure why people use AI to help write their posts other than maybe doing translations?
The thing is that many browsers and such are integrating Ai into every single box.... so maybe its just people pressing a single button to "rewrite with AI".
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