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Review and Measurements of Nobsound NS-DAC3 Pro DAC & Amp

Krunok

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TUBE amps are in a totally different league, not saying better or worst, but different.
You compare apple-to-apple, so one diesel engine vs. another diesel engine, not diesel vs. gasoline ...
Any amp technology brings music from point A to point B, as any car engine technology brings you from point A to point B.
Each technology offers pros and cons.
Usually, you compare what's comparable ... you do not compare a road bike with a MTB ... Although both bring you from point A to point B.

I disagree. All amps are comparable - they do the same task, they can be measureud the same way, so yes, they can be compared.

Btw, although you are new to this forum it didn't take you long to make car analogy. It really seems to be the thing around here.. :D :D
 

Jimster480

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I disagree. All amps are comparable - they do the same task, they can be measureud the same way, so yes, they can be compared.

Btw, although you are new to this forum it didn't take you long to make car analogy. It really seems to be the thing around here.. :D :D
Probably many of us who like to tinker also have an interest in cars.
I know that I build and race cars as a hobby :)
 

Krunok

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Probably many of us who like to tinker also have an interest in cars.
I know that I build and race cars as a hobby :)

Yes, that seems like a good explanation. :)

I'm also building my Volvo C70. Few more touches and it will be a true grand tourer. :cool:
 

Jimster480

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Yes, that seems like a good explanation. :)

I'm also building my Volvo C70. Few more touches and it will be a true grand tourer. :cool:
Very nice man, I have a Chevy SS Sedan (Holden Commodore VF SSV), a G35 (2004 Gen 1), Civic (97 EK) and they are all modded in different ways :)
Civic is basically a race car, G35 is a comfortable daily driver GT and the SS is the family vehicle with a gap mode as it makes 650+HP.
 

Krunok

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Very nice man, I have a Chevy SS Sedan (Holden Commodore VF SSV), a G35 (2004 Gen 1), Civic (97 EK) and they are all modded in different ways :)
Civic is basically a race car, G35 is a comfortable daily driver GT and the SS is the family vehicle with a gap mode as it makes 650+HP.

Family vehicle with 650+HP? Wow.. from that perspective my C70 with 410HP looks like a slow train. :D
 

Jimster480

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Family vehicle with 650+HP? Wow.. from that perspective my C70 with 410HP looks like a slow train. :D
I also have a QX80, that is the real "family vehicle" but since my "family" also includes grandparents now.... I got sick of always driving the SUV so I convinced my wife I need something faster :)
 

graz_lag

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I disagree. All amps are comparable - they do the same task, they can be measureud the same way, so yes, they can be compared.
Btw, although you are new to this forum it didn't take you long to make car analogy. It really seems to be the thing around here.. :D :D

Exactly as I said : a road bike brings you from point A to point B as a MTB does, however they are not comparable, at least technically-wise.
We do not compare the action of bringing you from point A to point B, but how and well comfortable or uncomfortable you're brought ... and how well you get to the point B.
First class on a jetliner cost much more than coach classes, the reason being you get to the point B in a much better shape. :D

For the car analogy ... we are all men (supposedly ...), our hobbies are always the same : hi-tech gears (hi-fi, hunting, fishing, hiking, photographing ...), cars ... bikes, and - when there is the occasion, nice portions of open le.s ... :cool:
 

graz_lag

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Family vehicle with 650+HP? Wow.. from that perspective my C70 with 410HP looks like a slow train. :D

My 1st car was a Volvo 480 Turbo, with few mods ... then the glorious Lancia Delta Integrale (fully modded, which I am still owning), now if I only "think" to add even only one of the sticker in the picture to my Volvo C30 T5 R-Design ... my wife goes to see her lawyers ...

biasion_siviero.jpeg


2009-volvo-c30-racer-from-vizualtech-design-rear-and-side-1280x960-1024x768.jpg
 

restorer-john

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So, yet another cheap Chinese D/A converter in-a-can with optimistic* specifications and poor performance. THD+N on 1st generation CD players was 4 to 5 times lower in 1983.

*blatantly deceptive

I agree with Amir. Why waste valuable time fully reviewing or listening to rubbish like this. Feature set? Who cares. It falls on the first hurdle.
 

garbulky

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I don't disagree that there are better measuring products out there. But what does -80 db distortion have to do with audibility? That's perfectly fine. This <120 db "gray area" Amir points out for audibility is dubious when it comes to music listening. It's dishonest to say it has to be greater than 120 db to be inaudible - perhaps in very specific extreme cases using test tones but music? Unless somehow we buy equipment to listen to test tones rather than music, it's not good reasoning. In music try, in any sane universe, to say that -120 db harmonic is audible. You'd be lucky if -60 db harmonics were audible.
Don't get me wrong other components do perform better, So it's nice to know. But to be so disgusted that you don't even listen to it? Come on now.
 
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restorer-john

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...audiophile silliness summed up in two sentences...

Look, let's face it, pwjazz's Chinese dac-in-a-box failed at the most basic digital functionality, which is at least CD performance.

Put into perspective, the world's first CD player achieved in published reviews, a THD of 2nd and 3rd harmonics of -109.5dB and -106.3dB (measured 1KHz 0dBFS that's 0.00059%THD (no 4th or 5th were present at levels that could be measured in '83) and a S/N of 113dB (A WTD) 109dB Lin with emphasis and 99dB A without emphasis.

And, bettered all its advertised specifications by a wide margin.
 
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restorer-john

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...But to be so disgusted that you don't even listen to it? Come on now...

An amplifier doesn't make it into my system if it doesn't have a ruler flat response across the audible bandwidth along with a bunch of other parameters I test for.

Why listen to flawed, faulty, or poorly designed gear? It's a waste of time.
 
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amirm

amirm

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It's dishonest to say it has to be greater than 120 db to be inaudible
That is not what I said. I said that it is *provably* inaudible. Everything is honest about that. To be dishonest is to use a number like THD+N which is not based on psychoacoustics and saying "80 dB is good enough." Based on what? You can't prove that.
 

restorer-john

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Impressive! What model was this?

Sony CDP-101 (world's first commercially released player. Japan only release, October 1st 1982, world release March 1983.)

Tested by Louis Challis, ETI, September 1983, along with 5 other 1st generation machines.

Akai CD-D1- 0.0021% (THD 1KHz 0dB figures only for comparison)
Hitachi DA-1000- 0.0014%
Pioneer PD-1 0.0011%
Sanyo DAD-8 0.005%
Yamaha CD-1 0.0028%

Even the -60dB and -80dB THD figures were pretty amazing on the Sony at 0.56% and 5.3%. THD. Consider the Akai also used 14bit D/A converters in a 4x oversampling/digital filter arrangement and it even achieved an A weighted S/N of 106.4dB. They did an amazing job in 1982/3 IMO.

I like to see progress, improvement and state of the art numbers on HiFi gear. Sadly, we appear to have gone backwards considerably of late.

Yes, really good performance can cost a lot of money, but Amir seems to be striving to find SOTA performance for bargain prices. That is a tough ask.
 

pwjazz

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Amir seems to be striving to find SOTA performance for bargain prices

I wonder how much of this just comes down to economies of scale? Once the CD format really hit its stride, CD players were sold in large numbers. I imagine that standalone DACs of the sort we're discussing here are much more boutique items. It's easier to invest heavily in engineering if you can amortize the design cost over a large number of units sold. Even with the earliest CD players being lower volume affairs, I imagine that Sony and Phillips were very committed to seeing the format succeed and would likely have been fine with taking a loss on that early hardware in exchange for building a solid revenue stream from CD sales (much like today's Sony takes a loss on Playstation hardware but makes it up on the games/licensing side).
 
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