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Review and Measurements of Wyred4Sound DAC-2v2 SE DAC

vitalii427

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I will not associate them with terms as *downside*. Negative feedback is one crucial design technique and in most situations it is a must have.
OP as a standardized part, is a super useful component which is used everywhere and it gives you effective and consistent result.

As you can see from the FFT chart I showed above, with no negative feedback, the distortions, the harmonics would jump high.
The key is human ears are not measurement instruments, some ears may actually love those harmonics. The music just sound more alive.
Another argument is negative feedback may generate phase shift which human ears do not like. So people start to design those high speed amps to reduce the phase shift. In general, NFB or not, is up the designers to choose, as far as the machines are stable and can sell, they can do whatever they want to.

OP works by high open loop gain and feedback loop. You can get very good performance out of it. And companies keep bringing out higher performance parts every year. Some claim they can identify OP sound yet personally I feel it is a mix of everything. Nothing conclusive.

My take is a DAC should at least have a set of decent performance numbers. After that, it's up to the consumer to decide. There are way too many marketing games in this business.
So I hear assumptions and guesses only. Nothing conclusive. Can we somehow check your claims in scientific way?

From your own words it turns out that to make transparent DAC I better use OPs and NFB.

So why on earth somebody need DAC with “sound”, then amp/preamp with “sound” when you can add harmonics, which unlikely but possibly make music more alive and not so sterile, during recording/mixing/mastering/playback?

I assume that the right answer is: such devices are easier to sell in this crazy world :)
 

pkane

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Machines like AP use ADC to convert signal to digital data before going to FFT. The conversion errors have a big impact on the accuracy for low level frequency components hence the FFT gain people are talking about.

Can you please explain how FFT gain is the result of ADC errors?
 

Killingbeans

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So why on earth somebody need DAC with “sound”, then amp/preamp with “sound” when you can add harmonics, which unlikely but possibly make music more alive and not so sterile, during recording/mixing/mastering/playback?

Very good point :)

And even if you can't enjoy the recordings as they are without giving them some "color" via your gear, then why spend so much money on it?

There's this strange disciplin in music called 'circuit bending' where you mess with the electronics in toy instruments and old video game consoles to get weird sounds. Why not just do the same thing with a cheap DAC and call it a day?
 

vitalii427

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And even if you can't enjoy the recordings as they are without giving them some "color" via your gear, then why spend so much money on it?
Exactly!

This “color” in cheap devices they call it distortion, but in expensive devices it is “sound signature” ;)
 

VintageFlanker

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@amirm Pls try more voodoo (or not?) gear like this: https://www.akikoaudio.com/en/akiko-audio/akiko-audio-audio-accessories as they dispatch free of taxes (priced-in) to the U.S.
Oh my...
Which improvements can you expect?
- Analogue sound: immediately audible; not subtle!

- Music is experienced as more natural and cleaner.

- Remarkable improvements of the voice rendering; fuller sounds and less troublesome ‘S’ sounds

Analog sound?! Great news...
Not sure @amirm want to give 325€ to some crooks.
 

maxxevv

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Why would 2 Dutch guys model their company under some pseudo Japanese facade for its product identity ? :rolleyes:
 

Frank Dernie

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The DAC measurements here have shown over the years that whilst some cheap products perform much better than some expensive ones, ie price is no indicator of design competence all except the very worst are much better than any speaker (or headphone, though these don’t interest me much) and it seems to me that almost everything else in a Hi-Fi chain is more worth measuring than DACs...
Power amps are much more interesting :)
 

Nango

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Why would 2 Dutch guys model their company under some pseudo Japanese facade for its product identity ? :rolleyes:

I mean as soon as @amirm tests the first one they might be forced to close. And furthermore we contribute with our donations so he may be able to purchase 1 or 2 such Voodoo objects that none of us would ever buy ...
 
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NTomokawa

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OP
amirm

amirm

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@amirm Pls try more voodoo (or not?) gear like this: https://www.akikoaudio.com/en/akiko-audio/akiko-audio-audio-accessories as they dispatch free of taxes (priced-in) to the U.S.
They actually have their own measurements. Here is an example:

1549054756287.png


I mean really. You can run that test twice in a row and get that kind of tiny variation. Even if it is true, it is less than 1 dB in a distortion graph that is already down 120 dB.
 

digititus

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Would love to see some of this guys products measured - Empirical Audio. Seems he does at least have access to an AP unit for testing.
When we start a product design, we do not set a price-point. We do everything necessary to get the best performance from the device and then we tally up the costs and set the price
 

finneybear

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Class A and class AB amps have little phase shift. About 6 degrees at 20 kHz or less. It is not a problem, hence very few specify it!

In diyaudio.com, some designers defens NFB < 30 dB if you want sound more realistic and 3-D. If you add SET topology (H2 predominance) then you can have a tube sound without the great distortions. H2 level? designer choice. Of course, with H3 10 dB lower than H2. Better without other harmonics < 90 dB.

Amp bandwith better < 350 kHz to avoid RF/EMI interferences.

With greater NFB the numbers are better but the sound is more sterile, they say.

Very busy today hence can only make things short.

Yes, things like this have been disputed over and over. Then there are arguments about local NFB vs global NFB, etc.

High speed amp is also easy to oscillate.

For me, NFB is a must have for most cases.
 

finneybear

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a big dealer of Wyred4Sound got super anguish-ish on the other forums, saying that this thread is lying, WTF!

all I can say is that: go away, you're selling 1999 products. Even 1999 products could do better specs in real life.

LOL. So now you see the nasty side of the audio business!

I would say Amir is a master of measurements. The quality of tests he did is very consistent across the board. Not an easy task!
For this particular DAC, Amir's test result reflects my observation on its design.

Finally people can see the truth behind those machines and people in business hate it! LOL
 

finneybear

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So I hear assumptions and guesses only. Nothing conclusive. Can we somehow check your claims in scientific way?

From your own words it turns out that to make transparent DAC I better use OPs and NFB.

So why on earth somebody need DAC with “sound”, then amp/preamp with “sound” when you can add harmonics, which unlikely but possibly make music more alive and not so sterile, during recording/mixing/mastering/playback?

I assume that the right answer is: such devices are easier to sell in this crazy world :)

Nothing conclusive because you need to examine each case carefully one by one. For instance, if I heard the OP sound very clinical, I might call this an OP sound. Yet after I changed a capacitor in the feedback loop, the sound might become mellow and analog like. So OP sound or not?

As for the sound coloration, in most cases, what coloration a DAC can do is often different from what an amp can do. I like to compare this to cooking. You can add flavor with black pepper, you can add flavor with rosemary. However, you can not use rosemary to duplicate black pepper's taste.
 

finneybear

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Can you please explain how FFT gain is the result of ADC errors?

Nope. I was saying the performance limit of ADC leads to the characteristic/scope of quantization errors. The bandwidth, linearity, and SNR of front end amp comes to the play, too.
 

finneybear

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Very good point :)

And even if you can't enjoy the recordings as they are without giving them some "color" via your gear, then why spend so much money on it?

There's this strange disciplin in music called 'circuit bending' where you mess with the electronics in toy instruments and old video game consoles to get weird sounds. Why not just do the same thing with a cheap DAC and call it a day?

Yeppers. I often parallel this to the restaurant business. I can claim one cheap restaurant can come out food as delicious, as flavor-able as what a Michelin 3-star restaurant can do, or even the cheap restaurant can preserve the ingredients natural flavor better. However, those Micelin 3 star fans will argue the top restaurant has more sophistication in flavor, and it's all about the whole package, etc.

To me, it's all up to consumers to decide. Arguments like this will never stop.
 

caguilar91

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They actually have their own measurements. Here is an example:

View attachment 21200

I mean really. You can run that test twice in a row and get that kind of tiny variation. Even if it is true, it is less than 1 dB in a distortion graph that is already down 120 dB.
We should try stacking or filling the entire thing with those stickers haha. And especially Schiit gear! :D
 

vitalii427

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Nothing conclusive because you need to examine each case carefully one by one. For instance, if I heard the OP sound very clinical, I might call this an OP sound. Yet after I changed a capacitor in the feedback loop, the sound might become mellow and analog like. So OP sound or not?

As for the sound coloration, in most cases, what coloration a DAC can do is often different from what an amp can do. I like to compare this to cooking. You can add flavor with black pepper, you can add flavor with rosemary. However, you can not use rosemary to duplicate black pepper's taste.
I’ve asked for some scientific proofs of your words, but unfortunately I see nothing.

Ok, I like Michelin restaurant metaphor.

Is see it this way. The music maker is the chef and the audiophile equipment manufacturers are the expensive sauce and spice traders. And I do not mind if someone at home adds sauce and spices to food cooked by his wife. However, a dish prepared by a 3-star chef pouring your favorite barbecue sauce is not for me, sorry.
 
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