Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?

[Miguelón]

We hear that sentiment a lot ( I don’t think we need the xenophobia) it is always from those who unfortunately do not know how things actually work or understand what their measurements mean.
Stick around and learn something.
Keith

Can balanced output be distinguished between an unbalanced one?

Is the only point where I still believe I can find some very subtle differences between my WiiM Ultra (RCA) and my Ifi Zen Dad Signature V2 (XLR).

I’m not sure, since my personal belief is that RCA should sound worse, so maybe purely psychological.

On my perception side, even if I try to match volumes as close as possibly, I find some extra clarity on the XLR side.
Either on the same DAC (Ifi Zen has both outputs), but this is more difficult since I have to change the preamp knob and cables, so not sure about the volume.

(I forgot to mention that, obviously, filters aren’t equal: maybe another differentiating factor?)


Post editing: probably were the filter, changing the WiiM by default to minimum phase slow roll off trebles seem smoother and I can concentrate better on rest of frequencies, the same impression I had with the Ifi Zen DAC. I don’t know which is the filter of this later, but now I’m less capable to notice any difference

 

[Purité Audio]

Perhaps poor implementation most likely psychological.
Keith

 

[Miguelón]

a real woman of science would never have written what was written by @womanofscience666 .... I guess it is the 666 that is talking.

He/she reminds me of Knut(and some number I can’t remember), the Troll who argued obsessively in favor of Ifi DACs, but this time more on the anti-Topping side…

 

[Miguelón]

Perhaps poor implementation most likely psychological.
Keith

I don’t understand you well, are you saying I’m psychologically bad implemented ?

Sorry, I’m not English native, even if your sentence was so short I cannot understand in which way goes…

 

[Blumlein 88]

I don’t understand you well, are you saying I’m psychologically bad implemented ?

Sorry, I’m not English native, even if your sentence was so short I cannot understand in which way goes…

No he is saying perhaps there is a difference due to poor design between an XLR and RCA based unit. So you might hear it, but it has nothing to do with any inherent sound difference between balanced and unbalanced.

But his opinion is the most likely reason you heard a difference is psychological as in bias from knowing one was balanced and one was not. Most likely there was not enough difference in the signal for you to hear a difference beyond the unintended bias.

 

[Tilata]

All DAC's sound the same.

You should read this thread

Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?

I know there are people out there that think cables affect sound, which is much worse, but there really is no response to something like that, but just to smile and nod. But what about people who talk about DACS as if they were headphone drivers or speakers, and talk about the SOUNDSTAGE...

www.audiosciencereview.com

And then try a blind test next time.

It reminds me the Coke-Pepsi blind testing, which one is better, right? There are people out there drinking RC Cola and Vive cola or even Green cola. And they like it.
The purpose of music is to make you feel something your have either have not experienced i.e. new and exciting, or re-live something which you liked or experienced before. Music is not necessarily a single sensory experience. Some of us see pictures or colours or imagine a scene or picture. All this originates from the activation of the limbic system. Some of us like feeling the tactile resonance of speakers. So placebo effect and whatever else our brain adds to music has a massive impact on what and how we experience it. This makes it a human experience. So maybe customers of certain hi-fi brands are misled by adverts, reviews, semi-scientific interviews, but some of them/us are just happy to listen to good music the way they like it. The minute we stop listening with our ears and brain but focussing on just numbers, graphs, peaks, jotter noise and SINAD, we stop being a human.

 

[Blumlein 88]

It reminds me the Coke-Pepsi blind testing, which one is better, right? There are people out there drinking RC Cola and Vive cola or even Green cola. And they like it.
The purpose of music is to make you feel something your have either have not experienced i.e. new and exciting, or re-live something which you liked or experienced before. Music is not necessarily a single sensory experience. Some of us see pictures or colours or imagine a scene or picture. All this originates from the activation of the limbic system. Some of us like feeling the tactile resonance of speakers. So placebo effect and whatever else our brain adds to music has a massive impact on what and how we experience it. This makes it a human experience. So maybe customers of certain hi-fi brands are misled by adverts, reviews, semi-scientific interviews, but some of them/us are just happy to listen to good music the way they like it. The minute we stop listening with our ears and brain but focussing on just numbers, graphs, peaks, jotter noise and SINAD, we stop being a human.

You are building your straw man here by creating a false dichotomy.
The minute we stop listening with our ears and brain but focussing (sic) on just numbers, graphs, peaks, jotter(sic) noise and SINAD, we stop being a human.

The above sentence makes no sense in many ways. Are mathematicians not human? Are electrical engineers who design circuits not human? Can these people not listen to good music the way they like and be happy? Can you listen to good music reproduction without them? Can humans not listen to music without placebo and other effects? Can they not listen to music without those effects and enjoy it and be happy? Are we not using our brain when we do look at other information? Can you not see colors with music unless you know the source? etc etc etc.

 

[oleg87]

I listen to music with my ears. I evaluate electronic performance with test equipment.

 

[VientoB]

It reminds me the Coke-Pepsi blind testing, which one is better, right? There are people out there drinking RC Cola and Vive cola or even Green cola. And they like it.
The purpose of music is to make you feel something your have either have not experienced i.e. new and exciting, or re-live something which you liked or experienced before. Music is not necessarily a single sensory experience. Some of us see pictures or colours or imagine a scene or picture. All this originates from the activation of the limbic system. Some of us like feeling the tactile resonance of speakers. So placebo effect and whatever else our brain adds to music has a massive impact on what and how we experience it. This makes it a human experience. So maybe customers of certain hi-fi brands are misled by adverts, reviews, semi-scientific interviews, but some of them/us are just happy to listen to good music the way they like it. The minute we stop listening with our ears and brain but focussing on just numbers, graphs, peaks, jotter noise and SINAD, we stop being a human.

People who believe all DACs sound the same just listen with their ears. They're not listening to graphs or numbers. They're listening to the music that the DAC produces. They're not listening to the equipment and thinking, "I wonder how it would sound with a Chord Dave and M-Scaler". It's actually quite liberating.

 

[olieb]

The minute we stop listening with our ears and brain but focussing on just numbers, graphs, peaks, jotter noise and SINAD, we stop being a human.

Well, there might be a time for listening and there might be a time for focusing on numbers, graphs,.... Both is absolutely human, especially numbers are a rather human invention.

So maybe customers of certain hi-fi brands are misled by adverts, reviews, semi-scientific interviews, but some of them/us are just happy to listen to good music the way they like it.

Yes, and it is your personal fun if you enjoy a music tune more when reproduced by gear from "audiophile hi-fi brands" with the promise of the "special extra", actually you would probably be part of the mainstream, most people seem to think that way.
All your fun, the money and the promise will not change the facts about the sound (physical reality) though.

 

[Roland68]

Both is absolutely human, especially numbers are a rather human invention.

Do you actually listen to yourself?

Everything, really everything around us, apart from the original nature, is an invention of us humans.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Is it true that pre and post echo cannot be measured on an analyser?

DACs do not "pre echo" or "post echo". Are you referring to ringing which occurs at 22kHz for 44.1kHz audio, 48kHz for 96kHz audio, etc.?

If you're one to care about such things, I would think you are listening at at least 96kHz to start with...

 

[Mart68]

It reminds me the Coke-Pepsi blind testing, which one is better, right? There are people out there drinking RC Cola and Vive cola or even Green cola. And they like it.

yeah, but there's a limit.

Rola Cola:

 

[Mnyb]

DACs do not "pre echo" or "post echo". Are you referring to ringing which occurs at 22kHz for 44.1kHz audio, 48kHz for 96kHz audio, etc.?

If you're one to care about such things, I would think you are listening at at least 96kHz to start with...

Its often used in misleading marketing. The step pulse used to characterise the filter.

It is as you say . The filters don’t do do that with music aka “legaly” sampled signals .

The test signal is not bandwidth limited its a very steep pulse within one sample it provokes these behaviours to the max . Engineers can evaluate these and tell us a lot about the filters if its well implemented or not etc.

 

[Vinman]

I would love for you to do a blind listening test with this DAC and maybe a good Topping or Schiit DAC, and maybe another blind listening test with a "very mediocre" DAC like on of the Audio-GD products.

It is my contention - after some half-baked blind A/B tests of my own- that people can't readily hear the differences between DACs. I did some A/B listening tests myself and also with a professional musician using a Topping D50s DAC and the very same Audio-gd R2R11 DAC that I sent to Amir to test ( https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-measurements-of-audio-gd-r2r11-dac-amp.5779/ ) and we could not tell the difference at a level greater than chance using Red book CDs with Quad ESL-57 speakers or Sennheiser HD-800 'phones. The Audio-gd R2R11 has pretty abysmal measurements so you'd think the difference would be plainly audible. Using music, it seemed it was not.

We did not try pure tones, which may have shown audible differences - but DACs are used to listen to music, not tones, so we used music.

My blind testing between the on-board DACs in my preamp, NodeX, and a Weiss DAC 204 yielded 100% correct identification of the Weiss. The two built in DACs yielded about a 70% correct ID - but the differences became easier to ID when I learned that the three chips involved (ESS 9018, AKM 4499, ESS 9028) showed the widest sound differences with big classical pieces. tried this with four people and then had someone test me. You can state that DACs don’t make a difference, but for those who have heard differences, we know better. The winner in my system was the costly Weiss using the oldest chip design (the 9018).

 

[solderdude]

care to describe the comparison and the controls that were used as well as the statistics.

 

[Blumlein 88]

care to describe the comparison and the controls that were used as well as the statistics.

Well of course not.

 

[solderdude]

The 3.75V output voltage on RCA (default) and double that on XL,R of course, probably didn't help at all picking the Weiss as the 'best sounding one'.
Nah ... it must have been the 9018 DAC chip that did it as 5 people could tell the Weiss apart.

 

[Geert]

Could also be a 'broken by design' case, if it resembles Weiss-dac205-dac-review.

"Your guess is as good as mine as to why we have such high levels of intermodulation distortion."

"The worst jitter I have ever measured in a performant DAC."

But still "a winner".

 

[abm0]

Very late to the party, but I think I've recently found my answer to this question: a lot of DACs and DAC-amps that are reviewed and discussed online based on measurements do really have a "sound signature" and it really does reflect in the measurements, so they do not actually measure as transparent, but #1. people don't pay attention to the FR measurement (or ask for it when it's missing, or zoom in on the 32-tone test to see if the spikes differ from eachother even by 1 pixel, which may be enough at the scale the 32-tone test is usually presented) and/or #2. people don't know just how tiny of a spectral tilt can actually be heard by humans (see audibility thresholds topic: the limit is 0.1 dB per octave).