Review and Measurements of Totaldac d1-six DAC

[graz_lag]

Meaning: They select all components only "by ear" no matter the cost (which seems true) ...

How on earth this may be called "engineering"?!

So he's most probably going to freeze his CDs before he plays them when he goes back home in the evening ...

 

[vkvedam]

Thanks Amir! Appalling to say the least.

I feel sorry for the guy who bought it :-(

 

[Nango]

Thanks Amir! Appalling to say the least.

I feel sorry for the guy who bought it :-(

@amirm ships it back urgently so he can return it within grace period for full refund!!!

 

[Snafu]

so far (what i have found reviews) SBAF reviewer has been only one to question Totaldacs sound (not exactly same model).

TORQ / https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...-after-yggdrasil-watering-the-ash.4036/page-7
"
My original, shall we say, “encounter”, with the d1-Dual was interesting and, to be honest, somewhat perplexing. A little troubling even. While clearly different to other DACs I’ve heard, and possessing a musical, organic and even rather analog-feeling presentation, there was something at work that kept pulling me out of my musical immersion.

While that is not a good thing from my perspective, I don’t want it be something that suggests that I haven’t liked the TotalDAC units I’ve heard. In raw terms they sound really good. Excellent in fact. But an inability to maintain immersion is pretty much a deal killer for me (lots of DACs fail to get me immersed in the music at ALL, in this case it’s just that something kept pulling me out of it once I was there).
"

hats off to honest and brave opinion

 

[graz_lag]

Same here. I don't find Totaldac that "popular" with French audiophiles. Most of us (I mean 99%) can't afford this anyway...

Hmmm ...
726,093 euros of sales turnover with 234,641 euros of profit as officially declared by the company for the 2017 fiscal year ... all that's not bad at all !
Look at the sales growth from the company set up in 2013.

 

[LSB]

I didn't post any measurement of noise spectrum by itself. Mine are all with a full amplitude signal which often raises the noise floor (noise modulation).

And as mentioned, FFT noise floors are not real. They are reduced in level by how many points the FFT uses. I can give you any noise floor you like to see based on manipulating the FFT points. I have explained this in the measurement FAQ: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-audio-measurements.2351/

These are all from the exact same device. Analyzers can now use millions of points for FFT, and with it, show (artificially) extremely low noise floors.

Thanks for the great info.

I wonder if it would be worth emulating the weird TotalDAC FFT test with their ridiculous -125dB 1kHz input to get the -160dB noise floor?

If you can show a similar result it would strongly argue against any possibilities of a faulty DAC or your power supply being faulty.

Thanks for doing all the testing.

 

[graz_lag]

@amirm ships it back urgently so he can return it within grace period for full refund!!!

I doubt he can do that as they offer only 14-days evaluation period ...

 

[Willem]

This shows the business case for audiophilia. He only has to sell about one a week to generate a very comfortable income. Maybe two if dealers get a generous cut.

 

[Thomas savage]

Ouch , thanks for this amir and a special thanks to the owner who shipped it over .

Maybe broken DAC's sound more analogue to golden eared folks.

It's all a bit insane , only in high end audio lol.

 

[graz_lag]

This shows the business case for audiophilia. He only has to sell about one a week to generate a very comfortable income. Maybe two if dealers get a generous cut.

Indeed, in fact they sold materials for 726,000 euros in 2017, which equals to 15,000 / week over 50 weeks.

 

[Nango]

I doubt he can do that as they offer only 14-days evaluation period ...

Ok, I then understand he tried and liked how it sounds before he purchased so .........

 

[soundwave76]

So... apparently one Totaldac owner emailed this review to Totaldac and posted their reply to a Finnish hifi forum here. Here's a copy & paste of the reply. Let the discussion continue

- - -

> No I didn't see this article before.
> It is not really surprising, this guy already tried to discredit
> Totaldac before with a USB cable.
>
> He claims "science" but noting says that these type of measurement
> conclusion are a correct image of the sound quality.
> This pseudo-scientific process would make it say that any DAC based on
> a ESS Sabre chip is always much better sounding that any turntable,
> which is wrong.
> This pseudo-scientific process would make it say that any transistor
> DAC with a lot of feedback is always much better sounding that tube or
> hybrid amplifier, which is wrong.
> Hundreds of persons have tested a Totaldac DAC against other high end
> DACs before choosing to purchase it and a vast majority chose to keep
> the Totaldac.
> Many reviewers having tested so many DACs have chosen Totaldac as
> there permanent reference DAC.
> Totaldac rooms in hifi show was so many times found among the best
> sounding in this show.
> This says more than a test made by someone making some arbitrary
> measurements and without the ability to make a real listening tests.
>
> Also Nagra evaluated a Totaldac DAC, by listening tests as well as
> measurement process, and then they decided to try to buy the
> technology a few years ago.
> This is not confidential anymore because the information fell into a
> 6moons article.
>
> Recently, a well-known university has evaluated a Totaldac DAC for
> their research on the hearing and the brain reaction to the human
> voice, and they chose the Totaldac DAC because they found it more
> neutral sounding.
>
> Almost 50 yeas ago some pseudo scientists claimed that CD players and
> transistors amplifiers with a huge amount of feedback measured
> immensely better than a turntable + tube amplifier, so that they
> automatically sounding that much better.
> Today who is stupid enough to believe that the most basic CD player
> for that period and the most basic transistor amp for that period did
> sound better than the best turntable + tube amp for the same period
> because some arbitrary measurements made some pseudo-scientist claimed
> it?
>
> I didn't design the Totaldac DACs to please his measurement process, I
> made it first by music listening tests, because this is what it is
> made for.
> Some other make it only by arbitrary measurements, because they still
> believe that it represents the musicality (maybe because they have no
> proper system to listen) or because their marketing consists in
> showing nice arbitrary measurements.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Vincent

 

[Thomas savage]

Ha ha , doubling down.

 

[Nango]

It's not worth entering in a such discussion, IMHO, but if you do, @amirm pls be so kind and start a new thread so one can avoid it, thanks!!!!

 

[Dialectic]

So... apparently one Totaldac owner emailed this review to Totaldac and posted their reply to a Finnish hifi forum here. Here's a copy & paste of the reply. Let the discussion continue

- - -

> No I didn't see this article before.
> It is not really surprising, this guy already tried to discredit
> Totaldac before with a USB cable.
>
> He claims "science" but noting says that these type of measurement
> conclusion are a correct image of the sound quality.
> This pseudo-scientific process would make it say that any DAC based on
> a ESS Sabre chip is always much better sounding that any turntable,
> which is wrong.
> This pseudo-scientific process would make it say that any transistor
> DAC with a lot of feedback is always much better sounding that tube or
> hybrid amplifier, which is wrong.
> Hundreds of persons have tested a Totaldac DAC against other high end
> DACs before choosing to purchase it and a vast majority chose to keep
> the Totaldac.
> Many reviewers having tested so many DACs have chosen Totaldac as
> there permanent reference DAC.
> Totaldac rooms in hifi show was so many times found among the best
> sounding in this show.
> This says more than a test made by someone making some arbitrary
> measurements and without the ability to make a real listening tests.
>
> Also Nagra evaluated a Totaldac DAC, by listening tests as well as
> measurement process, and then they decided to try to buy the
> technology a few years ago.
> This is not confidential anymore because the information fell into a
> 6moons article.
>
> Recently, a well-known university has evaluated a Totaldac DAC for
> their research on the hearing and the brain reaction to the human
> voice, and they chose the Totaldac DAC because they found it more
> neutral sounding.
>
> Almost 50 yeas ago some pseudo scientists claimed that CD players and
> transistors amplifiers with a huge amount of feedback measured
> immensely better than a turntable + tube amplifier, so that they
> automatically sounding that much better.
> Today who is stupid enough to believe that the most basic CD player
> for that period and the most basic transistor amp for that period did
> sound better than the best turntable + tube amp for the same period
> because some arbitrary measurements made some pseudo-scientist claimed
> it?
>
> I didn't design the Totaldac DACs to please his measurement process, I
> made it first by music listening tests, because this is what it is
> made for.
> Some other make it only by arbitrary measurements, because they still
> believe that it represents the musicality (maybe because they have no
> proper system to listen) or because their marketing consists in
> showing nice arbitrary measurements.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Vincent

A growing number of us audio enthusiasts realize that it is game over for many manufacturers of deficiently engineered equipment.

Thanks to Amir and the owner of this unit for the review.

 

[soundwave76]

^ Could be, but don't underestimate the power of faith & denial. For example quite many Finnish commenters in that thread seem to defend Totaldac and shift the burden to ASR to prove the relevance of measurements when it comes to listening music.

 

[THW]

to this day it utterly amazes me how people think their hearing has immeasurable magical properties that are beyond the abilities of measuring equipment when countless DBTs have shown this to be a load of baloney.

 

[daftcombo]

So... apparently one Totaldac owner emailed this review to Totaldac and posted their reply to a Finnish hifi forum here. Here's a copy & paste of the reply. Let the discussion continue

- - -

> No I didn't see this article before.
> It is not really surprising, this guy already tried to discredit
> Totaldac before with a USB cable.
>
> He claims "science" but noting says that these type of measurement
> conclusion are a correct image of the sound quality.
> This pseudo-scientific process would make it say that any DAC based on
> a ESS Sabre chip is always much better sounding that any turntable,
> which is wrong.
> This pseudo-scientific process would make it say that any transistor
> DAC with a lot of feedback is always much better sounding that tube or
> hybrid amplifier, which is wrong.
> Hundreds of persons have tested a Totaldac DAC against other high end
> DACs before choosing to purchase it and a vast majority chose to keep
> the Totaldac.
> Many reviewers having tested so many DACs have chosen Totaldac as
> there permanent reference DAC.
> Totaldac rooms in hifi show was so many times found among the best
> sounding in this show.
> This says more than a test made by someone making some arbitrary
> measurements and without the ability to make a real listening tests.
>
> Also Nagra evaluated a Totaldac DAC, by listening tests as well as
> measurement process, and then they decided to try to buy the
> technology a few years ago.
> This is not confidential anymore because the information fell into a
> 6moons article.
>
> Recently, a well-known university has evaluated a Totaldac DAC for
> their research on the hearing and the brain reaction to the human
> voice, and they chose the Totaldac DAC because they found it more
> neutral sounding.
>
> Almost 50 yeas ago some pseudo scientists claimed that CD players and
> transistors amplifiers with a huge amount of feedback measured
> immensely better than a turntable + tube amplifier, so that they
> automatically sounding that much better.
> Today who is stupid enough to believe that the most basic CD player
> for that period and the most basic transistor amp for that period did
> sound better than the best turntable + tube amp for the same period
> because some arbitrary measurements made some pseudo-scientist claimed
> it?
>
> I didn't design the Totaldac DACs to please his measurement process, I
> made it first by music listening tests, because this is what it is
> made for.
> Some other make it only by arbitrary measurements, because they still
> believe that it represents the musicality (maybe because they have no
> proper system to listen) or because their marketing consists in
> showing nice arbitrary measurements.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Vincent

"And peudo-scientists who claim that UFO don't exist are unable to explain field crops."
Etc.

 

[THW]

^ Could be, but don't underestimate the power of faith & denial. For example quite many Finnish commenters in that thread seem to defend Totaldac and shift the burden to ASR to prove the relevance of measurements when it comes to listening music.

they can try this video, for starters. skip to 3:15 for start of actual content of the video.

 

[Snafu]

^ Linked finnish HH-forum:

someone measures DAC and doesn't get technically decent result => pseudoscience crap, inaudible, but it sounds good (internet told me so)

and then

243 pages about power chords and how they change (mostly improve) sound...

classic interconnect cables thread with similar idea was deleted after +500 pages...