The irony
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How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent?
- Thread starter Willhelm_Scream
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olds1959special
Senior Member
while I like my apple juice unfiltered, after some experimenting I found I preferred the OS mode on this DAC.The irony
staticV3
Grand Contributor
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Never heard of the Crystal edition, Google comes up empty as well.
Do you have any details?
antcollinet
Grand Contributor
Fiio claim only 72dB Sinad. (THD+N = 0.025%) and it is all distortion since SNR is better than 115dB
It's actually unlikely you can hear distortion at -72dB - most cannot on music, so it is quite likely what you are hearing are the result of perceptive biases.
However - even if you are hearing a real difference - it is only distortion. The opposite of HiFi (objectively by their own specs, mid Fi at best), and nothing magic.
olds1959special
Senior Member
Just a subjective impression, this dac seems to have a smaller soundstage and I'm wondering if this is related to the low SINAD. There is something less open about it compared to my other DAC, but it seems to do well with simpler arrangements (less complex sounding recordings.)
I'm really enjoying this DAC right now in my bookshelf system, with the silver IC's. It kind of blows away my Apogee Duet 2 for music playback, it's a lot more fun to listen to.
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it runs a Crystal Semi CS43198 like any normal unit
the R2R is... whatever R2R is supposed to be
oleg87
Addicted to Fun and Learning
CS43198 is a Cirrus Logic product.
antcollinet
Grand Contributor
Just..... indeed.
And we'll just move the few posts in this thread here.
Have you gone through the hassle of setting up some basic controls for your comparisons?
If not, you might want to give it a try.
Miguelón
Major Contributor
Which controls?
I know well the formal protocol, but for example putting one 8030 and another G Three (measure the same in spinorama made by Genelec), adjusting gain and verifying levels with a mic, they sound way different in tonality, if it was subtle I would have some doubts but not at all… Not any need for blind test
The only electronic compound that differs is the attenuator in the 8030C (should I regulated to +4 dB position approx). I even consulted Genelec and they answered that in fact is the only difference by XLR connections.
Also my Focusrite Scarlett has an attenuator, I can easily get up 10 dBu and compensate with the -10 dB of the G Three (verifying the composition with the mic) and it sound quite different.
But this should be quite easy to you to understand, all gain stage has its own SNR and THD. Is not an opinion, is a fact.
What I’m not trying to do is to solve the question of the post, but to clarify some sound tonality differences when a variable voltage component is introduced on DAC comparisons.
POST EDIT: What I’m saying is whereas all well done DACs are audible transparent, is not the case for preamps. and attenuators.
I think it's an error to assume that just because the perceived difference is large, you don't need to blind test.
Also not convinced that noise or distortion would be at audible levels unless the gain staging issue was extreme. But I leave whether that is correct to the experts.
Also not convinced that noise or distortion would be at audible levels unless the gain staging issue was extreme. But I leave whether that is correct to the experts.
Not talking about testing speakers, you were talking about DACs.
Miguelón
Major Contributor
In my example I used to illustrate my experience, as the attenuator was on the 8030C amp, but equally mentioned the attenuator (resistive in this case, I opened the Focusrite) of my audio interface, and have another third example I didn’t mentioned which is the Ifi Zen Signature DAC V2 (which in reality is a DAC with a volume knob, better made than the one of Focusrite judging by more stability on sound varying voltage).
But I don’t need more examples, all sorts of attenuation (passive resistive are the most noticeable) change tone. Even reamping ones, that are quite expensive cannot match perfectly the impedance curve of a speaker.
So as a conclusion, in my particular doubt between DAC transparency and my perceptions with my own DAC-preamps, I have solved the contradiction: I was comparing one DAC + attenuator with another DAC + another attenuator and which were also working at different levels of gain to be compared at same signal output.
The DAC were equal, the harmonics after attenuation were the difference. Finished enigma for me…
P.S: the Ifi Zen has a fixed line output switch that bypass the attenuation circuits, then offering another different tonality but unfortunately I couldn’t compensate by master volume of the amp, its voltage was to high (around 7 V pp)
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solderdude
Grand Contributor
Convincing yourself is easy ... convincing other ASR members is the difficult part
antcollinet
Grand Contributor
Why do you think perceptive biases can't create unsubtle differences in sound?
In fact, in a world of modern electronics where differences (if they really exist at all) are going to be incredibly subtle to the point of being impossible to hear - the fact you are hearing unsubtle differences just convinces more that they are simply the results of perceptive bias etc.
Miguelón
Major Contributor
Convincing yourself is easy ... convincing other ASR members is the difficult part
You’re totally right
But is enough for me, there are a tone of articles explaining how an attenuator works in electronics (not only audio, you can find them on almost every electronic field).
But this is not concluding the main point, most of DACs send a fixed output (usually 2 Vrms to active speakers, 1 Vrms to headphones, 4 Vrms to XLR balanced inputs) so in this case I guess is impossible to find a difference between them.
My beginning in which I call “independent components audio” (before I bought homogenous equipments that were matched by a single brand) was with DACs with analogue master volume apart form digital ones, which sounded quite different to me. This was my confusion initially
Miguelón
Major Contributor
Not in this case, the issue of attenuation is perfectly known and audible, apart from the fact that is not subtle if the component is simply a resistor… high frequencies are more attenuated than lower ones, they suck tone and feel flat. Reactive ones have same issues
Analogue attenuators are suggested by many brands as Genelec do to improve SINAD and dynamic range matching properly the DAC output with the amp input.
What they don’t mentioned is the process is not transparent, here in ASR you can read an article called “The Signal Path” or “Understanding the signal Path” where a member shows a mathematical model introducing a noise and harmonics in a three blocks system (DAC, preamp, amp) and tracking the SNR, THD and SINAD functions when varying gains on each block.
The fact that if this is audible or not relay ultimately on the proper SNR and THD of the attenuation stage, but nor Ifi nor Focusrite give information of this component.
This late is a guess, but I think is not cheap to make good attenuators, and this is the reason because low price DACs only measure SINAD at full voltage, and more priced DACs simply don’t incorporate any analogue knob on the device.
Post edit: sorry, the latest parsgraph is inconsistent: more on the side that well made DACs usually don’t have analogue attenuators. All DACs usually measure SINAD at the highest voltage, I wrote it too fast
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antcollinet
Grand Contributor
Sure - you can screw it up if you get the gain staging badly wrong. But with modern electronics, you really have to work hard to make it audible - and that is noise, not distortion. This belief you have that attenuation automatically results in audible defects - is what is causing you to hear audible defects.
Just IMO.
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