Speed Reading DAC Audio Measurements

[amirm]

@amirm Just finished the tutorial and can't wait to showoff my specmanship to ne'er-do-well "audiophile" friends. Keep it up Amir. Thanks again.

I too vote for more on speakers but maybe few tutorials on those like one on spin-o-rama, one on EQ how to, battling room effects and such. I think speakers are a mile wide and mile deep because it's electronics and acoustics. As you said in this tutorial, one can almost tell everything about a DAC with few measurements, not so much with speakers.

Thanks. I absolutely want to do a video on sound reproduction in a room. Have to get my arms around how to present it (have some ideas). So look for that after I finish this series.

 

[Endibol]

Thank you so much everyone. What would you like the next speed run video be about? I am thinking of either headphone amplifiers or speakers.

Speakers please! They are the weakest and therefore the decisive element in the chain nowadays.

 

[sgent]

I regret that I can only click “like” once.

You can click it twice -- once on here and once on YouTube, and YT is probably the more important one as it amplifies the video.

 

[jtnorcal]

Thanks Amir! Very informative! I watched on YouTube.

 

[audiotron]

Very cool. Thank you.

 

[amarsicola]

Thank you so much everyone. What would you like the next speed run video be about? I am thinking of either headphone amplifiers or speakers.

My curiosity is on how performance of components impacts on the performance of the hi-fi system as a whole. I have questions like:
- Sinad of my amplifier is quite worse than sinad of my dac, and sinad of speakers is in another league. What is the mechanism here? The bottleneck component (speakers) hides the deficiencies of other components, or errors multiply each other?
- Most of loudspeakers struggle to give a decent on-axis frequency response, which is the basic of audio reproduction, so why bother about jitter and other sophisticated measurements? Or should we? Which are the measurable defects in the components at the top of the chain (dac, amplifier) that are really audible, assuming you have a good speaker?

 

[IAtaman]

My curiosity is on how performance of components impacts on the performance of the hi-fi system as a whole. I

This exact same topic was being discussed in another thread called "System SINAD" when one of the admins dropped a very useful link which I am copying here in the hopes that it will answer some of your questions.

The Signal Chain: How do noise and distortion propagate through my system?

This article is to explore how noise and distortion change through our system, and how different components can influence the final output. A common question is “If I have DAC A, preamp B, and amp C, where should I set the volume and gain controls for the best performance?” Usually this...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[GaryH]

Except that ignores the weakest (and so most important) link in the audio reproduction chain: the transducer.

 

[amirm]

My curiosity is on how performance of components impacts on the performance of the hi-fi system as a whole. I have questions like:
- Sinad of my amplifier is quite worse than sinad of my dac, and sinad of speakers is in another league. What is the mechanism here? The bottleneck component (speakers) hides the deficiencies of other components, or errors multiply each other?
- Most of loudspeakers struggle to give a decent on-axis frequency response, which is the basic of audio reproduction, so why bother about jitter and other sophisticated measurements? Or should we? Which are the measurable defects in the components at the top of the chain (dac, amplifier) that are really audible, assuming you have a good speaker?

Those would be good topics for other videos outside of this series.

 

[IAtaman]

Except that ignores the weakest (and so most important) link in the audio reproduction chain: the transducer.

Well, one can always argue that the most non linear part of the whole system is the human perception.

 

[Eulipian]

I'm very grateful for this @amirm Very clearly explains so much so efficiently. I, too, would like to learn how to read the speaker graphs.

One thing not mentioned--the Panther System--which is helpful for the electronically illiterati, myself included. And shouldn't there be an accordion playing Panther for the "what the hell is this?!" reviews?

 

[julian_hughes]

Amir, you may have listened to and measured more DACs than anyone alive! My question is this: when was the last time you could find an audible difference between any of them (aside from faulty items), and what were the measured differences which identified or described that audible difference?

 

[amirm]

Amir, you may have listened to and measured more DACs than anyone alive! My question is this: when was the last time you could find an audible difference between any of them (aside from faulty items), and what were the measured differences which identified or described that audible difference?

Last time I remember was the PS Audio PerectWave DirectStream DAC.

I started the testing with my audiophile, audio-show, test tracks. You know, the very well recorded track with lucious detail and "black backgrounds." I immediately noticed lack of detail in PerfectWave DS DAC. It was as if someone just put a barrier between you and the source. Mind you, it was subtle but it was there. I repeated this a few times and while it was not always there with all music, I could spot it on some tracks.

Next I played some of my bass heaving tracks i use for headphone testing. Here, it was easy to notice that bass impact was softented. But also, highs were exaggerated due to higher distortion. Despite loss of high frequency hearing, I found that accentuation unpleasant. WIth tracks that had lisping issues with female vocals for example, the DS DAC made that a lot worse.

 

[julian_hughes]

Last time I remember was the PS Audio PerectWave DirectStream DAC.

Thank you for your response. It's quite amazing, isn't it, that it's over three years since you heard a difference between DACs? These must surely now be classed as mere commodity items. There may be features which differentiate them i.e. types of input and ouput, size, display, remote control etc. but essentially the business of conversion from digital to analogue is the least interesting or differentiating thing about them?

 

[Lednek]

I enjoyed that very much! Thank you @amirm

 

[Pouyoux]

Thanks for this video @amirm , very useful.
Speed is ok for a non-native english speaker but is likely the maximum speed I can get without subtitlles

 

[Firespeed]

Hello all, Amir,

Thanks for this work and this important video.

I vote for a same video content about speakers assessment.

Thank you so much !

 

[SamV]

Thanks for the video Amir. Quite informative.

Quick observation: I noticed that the balanced input for the CD players RMS level test is at 2.5 Vrms. Shouldn't it be 5 Vrms, or am I missing something? Could that explain the low RMS level of the CD player?

Sam

 

[antcollinet]

Thanks for the video Amir. Quite informative.

Quick observation: I noticed that the balanced input for the CD players RMS level test is at 2.5 Vrms. Shouldn't it be 5 Vrms, or am I missing something? Could that explain the low RMS level of the CD player?

View attachment 278672

Sam

I think that is the input range setting for the AP. Like having a 0-10V or 0-100V or 0-300V range on a multimeter. It just needs to be set to the next higher range than the signal you are looking at.

 

[SamV]

I think that is the input range setting for the AP. Like having a 0-10V or 0-100V or 0-300V range on a multimeter. It just needs to be set to the next higher range than the signal you are looking at.

aah! Thanks for the clarification!