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

[BR52]

You are right see here:

AKM top chip Hump?​

spezially after#7

 

[confucius_zero]

Yawn, stick to the religion of proving all 120+sinad dacs are equal then I'm merely trying to finding out what other metric can they be competing for in order differentiate a 100$ and 1000$ device of equal measure.

 

[BDWoody]

Just moved another handful in to keep this endless discussion out of the review threads.

 

[atmasphere]

Citation needed!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superposition_principle

 

[fpitas]

Although I think we'll finally find out why some guy on YouTube thinks one DAC sounds better than another, all the textbooks will need to be rewritten.

 

[BDWoody]

, no hints as to why similar sinad-scoring implementations with different parts clearly sound different to the large majority of centered and subjectivists..

That's more about psychoacoustics than electronics, and ignoring or trying to minimize that is going to lead nowhere new.

 

[delta76]

I was foolish enough to jump into this thread. all questions were answered in the first page. How the hell did you guys make this a 232 pages thread?

 

[atmasphere]

How the hell did you guys make this a 232 pages thread?

That's our job and we do it well.

 

[fpitas]

I was foolish enough to jump into this thread. all questions were answered in the first page. How the hell did you guys make this a 232 pages thread?

I'm posting this a lot lately.

 

[voodooless]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superposition_principle

That doesn’t say anything about dynamics or spaciousness…

 

[Mr. Widget]

So basically you are promoting Roon and Purifi?

Are you concerned with Roon's sonic qualities or promoting a particular platform?

 

[Koeitje]

Yawn, stick to the religion of proving all 120+sinad dacs are equal then I'm merely trying to finding out what other metric can they be competing for in order differentiate a 100$ and 1000$ device of equal measure.

I feel like I'm going in circles: we already have those other metrics right there in the review already. Look at dynamic range, multi-tone, jitter, filters etc. If any of those are inside the audible range then you have your proof.

But what you really are missing is that the sales price of a product is not determined by just its objective performance. There are many aspects in a product that can make you pay a premium. I'm not going to list them, because its pretty self explanatory.

 

[BDWoody]

I was foolish enough to jump into this thread. all questions were answered in the first page. How the hell did you guys make this a 232 pages thread?

It's like flypaper that keeps extending...for all eternity.

 

[FlyingFreak]

I read the last few pages… why?

Anyway as I’m here:

I’m still confused as to how people thinking they hear differences in well build equipment (dac here) explain it to themselves. Most of the discussion seems to be stuck around what can a reviewer measure or listen to. What about what a company building those products do? Isn’t that much more interesting?

Someone capable of building a dac is an engineer correct?
If they want to make a product that they can sell, people in production need to make sure it is the same thing as the one the designer created right?
How does QC works if not through measurements (and therefore things that can be measured?)

Putting aside the weird thing prices do to our brains, how could we explain to ourselves what the difference might be (in terms of sound only, we know some offer nicer looking box, more or less connectivity options, better warranty and qc, etc) between two well measured dac?

If it’s not measurable, is it chance? You imagine engineers experimenting with circuits all day without taking any measured, only plugging it in speakers from time to time to hear what’s what? And the one that turns out to be the best sounding get a fancier box and a higher price? Or do they use magical knowledge they control and know about but no one in the acoustic research world knows about cause they are … uninterested in their job? Incompetent?

Thanks!

 

[fpitas]

I read the last few pages… why?

Anyway as I’m here:

I’m still confused as to how people thinking they hear differences in well build equipment (dac here) explain it to themselves. Most of the discussion seems to be stuck around what can a reviewer measure or listen to. What about what a company building those products do? Isn’t that much more interesting?

Someone capable of building a dac is an engineer correct?
If they want to make a product that they can sell, people in production need to make sure it is the same thing as the one the designer created right?
How does QC works if not through measurements (and therefore things that can be measured?)

Putting aside the weird thing prices do to our brains, how could we explain to ourselves what the difference might be (in terms of sound only, we know some offer nicer looking box, more or less connectivity options, better warranty and qc, etc) between two well measured dac?

If it’s not measurable, is it chance? You imagine engineers experimenting with circuits all day without taking any measured, only plugging it in speakers from time to time to hear what’s what? And the one that turns out to be the best sounding get a fancier box and a higher price? Or do they use magical knowledge they control and know about but no one in the acoustic research world knows about cause they are … uninterested in their job? Incompetent?

Thanks!

I've found that non-technical people have only very vague conceptions about how anything is designed and manufactured.

 

[Thorsten Loesch]

Are you concerned with Roon's sonic qualities or promoting a particular platform?

I am not concerned with anything and promote nothing.

But Roon is either 15 USD per month or 830 USD for "lifetime". That is a lot of expense for a software that has no specific feature no available from free software. Or software costing 1/10th.

Thor

 

[Mr. Widget]

I am not concerned with anything and promote nothing.

But Roon is either 15 USD per month or 830 USD for "lifetime". That is a lot of expense for a software that has no specific feature no available from free software. Or software costing 1/10th.

Thor

I got in early so it didn't cost that much. Even if it did, it brings me more pleasure than any real or imagined improvement I could get from an amp or DAC upgrade.

 

[atmasphere]

That doesn’t say anything about dynamics or spaciousness…

Of course. You have to know what creates spaciousness to understand how it works. Nelson Pass has written on this topic but I'm assuming his works are not considered 'citations'. I suspect this is something designers know and haven't bothered to get some sort of independent testing done. To us its just engineering.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Of course. You have to know what creates spaciousness to understand how it works. Nelson Pass has written on this topic but I'm assuming his works are not considered 'citations'. I suspect this is something designers know and haven't bothered to get some sort of independent testing done. To us its just engineering.

So as a designer what aspect do you pay attention to in order to create spaciousness in your amps?

Pass has said negative phase 2nd harmonic distortion enhances space at low levels. Is that what you have in mind.

The deisgner of LAMM amps(Vladimir Lamm) has a similar idea. That 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion should rise more or less linearly with power and be the same across the audible band at a given power level in order to get space and dynamics and a non-sterile sound.

That means such space and dynamics is an addition or coloration and not accurate. If preferred that is fine as long as it is not confused with higher fidelity. It also fits with series amplifier experiments where I found triode amps added a dynamic 3D spacious sound which if fed to low distortion SS amps was reproduced without issue.

 

[Thorsten Loesch]

I got in early so it didn't cost that much. Even if it did, it brings me more pleasure than any real or imagined improvement I could get from an amp or DAC upgrade.

As Industry Insider I had free use (also services like Tidal). I tried to like Roon. I don't use it now.

Thor