Review and Measurements of Totaldac d1-six DAC

[luisma]

Music lovers appreciate music based on perception even though this perception could be distorted from the original content. I recently joined this site and love the cold blunt measurements Amir provides as it demistifies the snake oil industry. @FredYves stated his preferences and I appreciate his comments and opinion tremendously. What I don't understand and don't appreciate is the pitchfork mob attitude of most users on this site, Amir @amirm certainly is not the type so I don't understand why instead of discussing smartly these results and bring more people to join the site and educate them (or educate ourselves) with the comments and the attitude basically harm the image of this site. Like with everything else we humans suffer of many imperfections including the hearing therefore perfect signals, speakers, recordings etc we might interpret these as faulty and viceversa distorted recordings, noise, non flat responses we can perceive it as pleasant.

Back on topic the totaldac measurements, filters etc show some flaws I agree but let we users of this site to state our opinions freely without your stupid bulling and non sense comments

 

[amirm]

Can we get a 1kHz square wave response as well? Just curious, as most R2R NOS DACs often does well on this metric.

Here you go:

And zoomed:

Looks very irregular to me.

 

[estuardo4]

All this said, yes, chances are most of you reading this forum will be fine with a SINAD of 80 dB or better.

Yep, I'm most of us. What I listen and with and where I use to listen really brings me joy every time I sit and hear my system.

I remember that hi-fi reviewers have always wrote when reviewing cheap (below $3,000 USD for them I guess): "You can achieve 90% of the enjoyment with this equipment than with a 10X costing reference equipment". Now, thanks to Amir, we can rephrase the previous line with: "You can achieve 100% audio reproduction using this equipment that costs 10X less than reference equipment"

No other site on the internet can let you sit confidently on your home knowing that you are listening to a transparent system that costed you a lot less than what the hi-fi sellers wanted you to spend.

Before ASR I always wished for the best and most costly reference systems. Now I know that at my home I'm not getting 90% of what the reference equipment can give you. I know that I'm getting 100% of that 80 dB. And I didn't have to mortgage my home.

 

[luisma]

Yep, I'm most of us. What I listen and with and where I use to listen really brings me joy every time I sit and hear my system.

I remember that hi-fi reviewers have always wrote when reviewing cheap (below $3,000 USD for them I guess): "You can achieve 90% of the enjoyment with this equipment than with a 10X costing reference equipment". Now, thanks to Amir, we can rephrase the previous line with: "You can achieve 100% audio reproduction using this equipment that costs 10X less than reference equipment"

No other site on the internet can let you sit confidently on your home knowing that you are listening to a transparent system that costed you a lot less than what the hi-fi sellers wanted you to spend.

Before ASR I always wished for the best and most costly reference systems. Now I know that at my home I'm not getting 90% of what the reference equipment can give you. I know that I'm getting 100% of that 80 dB. And I didn't have to mortgage my home.

I kind of agree, but I never wished for the best as I could not afford it , however I found deals for example dacs costing $300 that performed similar to dacs costing $4000 but I always judged with my ears, like I said before there is a chance I could be biased towards something that may sound good when in reality won't to someone else.

 

[kn0ppers]

I must say, I love the transformer in the external box, that is just as ugly as the main box. You have to appreciate the consistency.

Oh and the Display? Gave me a flashback to my childhood memories from gear that was outdated during the 90s already, so I got to take it apart.

 

[bunkbail]

Here you go:
View attachment 30191

And zoomed:

View attachment 30192

Looks very irregular to me.

Thanks for the test. Yeah, looks pretty ugly to me.

 

[THW]

Before ASR I always wished for the best and most costly reference systems. Now I know that at my home I'm not getting 90% of what the reference equipment can give you. I know that I'm getting 100% of that 80 dB. And I didn't have to mortgage my home.

I was the same way actually, when I started out I looked in envy at all those really expensive source equipment and how they all seem to get glowing reviews and guarantees of aural nirvana.

If it wasn’t for this site I wouldn’t even know what Topping is, I also wouldn’t even know that as a poor student I could have my cut of the cake and not lose out on anything by paying much less.

In general this site has helped me to make much better informed and more rational purchase decisions.

 

[PaulD]

I thought the best thing in this review was Amir fooling himself with sighted listening to the FIR filter differences. It is my experience that people simply do not understand how biased they are and capable of self deception until this sort of thing happens to you. The only valid listening test is a double blind test, anything else is bogus.

There are so many examples of this that it is unassailable. I clearly remember many years ago late one night mixing a song in a studio that I wanted to change the HF EQ on a track just a tad - I listened and tweaked until it was *just* right, only to look across the board 30 mins later to realise the EQ had been bypassed the whole time... I've played these sorts of tricks on people in studios and home for many years. Most people are simply amazed at how the brain plays tricks on them. The best comment I received was a friend who was a vinyl fan, I played the same track on CD and vinyl, he confidently predicted the vinyl was better. I then told him I had the outputs mixed and he preferred the CD, and he said, "But now I don't know what I'm supposed to believe!" He's still a vinyl fan (he has a heap etc), but acknowledges that digital sounds better. I see units like the Totaldac as fashion statements or fetish or status objects - the performance may be mediocre (not that I may be able to tell in a blind test), but everyone knows you've enough spare cash to pony up for this sort of kit...

 

[JohnYang1997]

I thought the best thing in this review was Amir fooling himself with sighted listening to the FIR filter differences. It is my experience that people simply do not understand how biased they are and capable of self deception until this sort of thing happens to you. The only valid listening test is a double blind test, anything else is bogus.

There are so many examples of this that it is unassailable. I clearly remember many years ago late one night mixing a song in a studio that I wanted to change the HF EQ on a track just a tad - I listened and tweaked until it was *just* right, only to look across the board 30 mins later to realise the EQ had been bypassed the whole time... I've played these sorts of tricks on people in studios and home for many years. Most people are simply amazed at how the brain plays tricks on them. The best comment I received was a friend who was a vinyl fan, I played the same track on CD and vinyl, he confidently predicted the vinyl was better. I then told him I had the outputs mixed and he preferred the CD, and he said, "But now I don't know what I'm supposed to believe!" He's still a vinyl fan (he has a heap etc), but acknowledges that digital sounds better. I see units like the Totaldac as fashion statements or fetish or status objects - the performance may be mediocre (not that I may be able to tell in a blind test), but everyone knows you've enough spare cash to pony up for this sort of kit...

No not double blind test. Adding the double here only makes the chance of differentiation much less. Simple blind test that doesn't allow you to have a bias is good enough.

 

[totaldac]

I took a shot but was not easy to interpret their graph. No sample rate or other conditions are given. Furthermore, the graph given by them has a vertical scale that is in digital values (dBFS). The usual test is to see that as analog output of the DAC, not digital samples. Anyway, here is the best I can do:
View attachment 30138

I guess at the input value being -122 dBFS. We see that signal peaking through like theirs. My measurements however show a) lots of mains harmonics and b) harmonic distortions. The key is that all the ills of the DAC disappear when you give it such a small signal. Without a good analyzer like mine, it is easy to show all of what is left that is unwanted, buried in the noise.

I am Vincent, owner of Totaldac. Thank you for trying to prove that Totaldac graph is correct, and I am sorry that you failed in this task.
Set your generator to 96KHz and optimise better your ground/earth. In the DAC menu you can connect or disconnect the ground from the loop.
Try also RCA output.

About the vertical axis, I sent a -120dBFs signal, so the signal that you see on my graph is -120dBFs (-120dB compared to the maximum voltage to the DAC), just understand the vertical axis accordingly, it is just dBs.

I have 3 audio anaylsers. The measurement given on the web site was made by a custom analyser.
I have also a HP 8903A and an AudioPrecesion SYS-2722.

You say "Without a good analyzer like mine...". Yes congrats, but the way of using it is also important.

 

[JohnYang1997]

What happened to his post?

 

[graz_lag]

You mean the one from @totaldac ?
I see it in my notifications by email and not listed here ...

 

[JohnYang1997]

You mean the one from @totaldac ?
I see it in my notifications by email and not listed here ...

It did show up for 1 or 2 minutes.

 

[Patatorz]

This one ...

 

[graz_lag]

Yeah, it is the one I got by email.

 

[THW]

maybe he deleted it when he saw that Amir like all his other tests was using a 0 dB signal instead of a -120 dB signal to hide distortion products?

that is if I’m reading their THD+N graph correctly. correct me if I’m wrong though.

 

[luisma]

Yeah it was posted this morning half hour ago but somehow deleted

 

[Patatorz]

maybe he deleted it when he saw that Amir like all his other tests was using a 0 dB signal instead of a -120 dB signal to hide distortion products?

that is if I’m reading their THD+N graph correctly. correct me if I’m wrong though.

On a French forum, MR Brient is saying that somebody has deleted his post after 1 or 2 minutes...finally it seems the message is back.

 

[Thomas savage]

Vincent's post got flagged for approval, just cleared it and my thanks to him for popping by.

 

[luisma]

Vincent's post got flagged for approval, just cleared it and my thanks to him for popping by.

So even without this site approving the post is still sent to the thread subscribers? I assume you are the thread moderator? I see now the Moderator flag so discard the second part