Speed Reading DAC Audio Measurements

[antcollinet]

I was not deliberately misunderstanding. Thanks for the clarification.

"DACs with poor measurements." I'd be interested to get your take on the claim made in the following video (starting at about 13:45) that "a small number of high-end DACs are doing something genuinely audibly distinct." In this category, he includes Chord DAVE, dCS Vivaldi/Bartok, and MSB Ref. Elsewhere in the video, he gives a friendly and respectful shout-out to Amir and Audio Science Review.

Sorry - I'm not going to waste my time watching another nonsense video - they are almost infinite on youtube.. Does it show measurement results? Are listening tests properly controlled and double blind? If not the video is meaningless.

And since the Chord Dave has been measured here, and found to be (you've guessed it) pretty much totally transparent/audibly perfect (It has some inaudible weirdness going on with noise floor - but still 110+dB SINAD) - it sort of invalidates his claim in any case.


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EDIT - just done a skim watch. As far as I can tell

1 - Horrible monotone AI generated voice
2 - No measurements
3 - No listening tests at all, controlled blind or otherwise.
4 - Zero evidence presented - just blurb. A talking (robot) head.

Utterly valueless.

 

[MAB]

Bad measurements=poor engineering. Is that always true?

Why don't you go look for yourself? There is a list of reviews. Do the thing you seem to be doing, try to find meaning in SINAD:

The Mhdt has incredibly poor performance when ranked this way. It also has Left and Right channels offset by 4 samples. A >$1500 DAC that has an incredibly silly and very fundamental error in design.
The xDuoo has incredibly high distortion with one channel demonstrating lots of HF noise and distortion artifacts. If you are OK with this, the rest of the performance is OK.
The Fostex has massive HF distortion spikes with USB that go away using TOSLINK. It also has large difference in L/R distortion on Toslink.
The AudioGD review shows a common theme in two of their products. Output stage driven to saturation, and the published data from AudioGD seemingly reporting the DAC subsystem only, without the negative effect of the output stage. And all of that third harmonic distortion, isn't that the band sounding type?!? At least it doesn't have significant differences between L and R channels like many at the bottom of the list.
I will leave the rest of the list to you!

Yes, these are poor engineering. I am sure you can find a few at the bottom of the list that might be able to pass off as intentional good engineering choices... Like 'voiced', or having good-sounding distortion, or rolled off highs that give an old-timey effect. If so, I think it is the vanishing minority.

 

[MatrixS2000]

OK if the assumption is that all amps and dacs sound the same, then I see why there’s no point in listening.

Do you listen to your equipment or the music it’s playing???

If think about what you are being told, there is only one sound that a recording has - if all equipment play it exactly the same - that is a good thing, not a bad thing.

 

[EJH]

And again: What do you suggest ASR should rank the devices by? You can criticize this on and on, but it won't achieve anything positive until there is a better alternative. And since you are so against SINAD, what would be your preferred ranking method?


OK, if they implement some kind of proprietary filter and it's not even actually balanced: Needs to be measured to be sure, could sound different.


Yes, expensive DACs will sound different if they are badly engineered. Just like cheap ones.

My opinion: The main problem with expensive DACs and their often obscure designs is that those manufacturers simply lack the engineering expertise to actually pull this off and design them properly. They end up with non-standard (a.k.a "unique") DACs and use the non-standardness for their marketing, but the objective performance of those devices is often worse than some 200 $ unit just implementing the ESS/AKM/Rohm/etc. reference design...significant design flaws. That's also not surprising at all, because ESS or AKM have been in the business of designing DAC chips for a couple of decades and each new chip builts on their existing expertise plus a couple 10 000 man hours of experienced engineers optimizing it even further. That's just orders of magnitude more engineering time and accumulated knowledge than some random niche manufacturer like CHORD could ever afford.

Again I don't mind the measurements; my only issue is when Amir starts hyping the top 20 or so when these twenty will sound exactly like the 100th, or when he gives his subjective judgment/opinion about whether someone should buy a product and there's no indication in the review that he listened to it. In the latter case, I'm simply suggesting that he let the measurements speak for themselves. Either take the subjective opinion away altogether or give your opinion but make sure you at least listen to it first.

Here is what prompted me to make the suggestion. I recently got an Asgard X dac/amp. When I plugged my He560v1.2 headphones into it and played some Brahms and Rachmaninov symphonies, what I heard was a dark, overly warm, congested mess compared to the same headphones on my THX amp. I heard coloration that, to my ears, did not work with these particular headphones and this type of music. But when I listened to some rock and pop whoa, it sounded fabulous. So a coloration that works with one kind of music does not necessarily work with another.

Then I put a balanced cable on and switched to the 4.4mm "halo" jack. The very same pair of headphones sounded completely different, instead of congested and overly warm they were now hyper-clear. On this jack, the headphones sounded terrific with small ensemble baroque music that uses harpsichord, clavichord, and vocals. But orchestral music did not sound good to me, this time for polar opposite reasons: instead of excessively warm and rich the headphones now sounded too bright and lean with a noticeable narrowing of the sonic image. So what prompted me to come to ASR is confusion: If all amps are supposed to sound the same, here is a case where not only does this new amp sound different from the THX amp but the amp itself sounded wildly different depending on which jack you plugged your headphones into.

Then I plugged in an Hifiman Ananda, a headphone that on my THX amp I can only listen to for about thirty minutes before it starts sounding bright and cold and unengaging. But it pairs well with the Asgard X. The warmth that sounds excessive with the He560 makes the Ananda sound inviting, such that I find it difficult to stop listening to them.

The conclusion I came to, perhaps mistakenly, is that such coloration might make an amp measure badly, but that does not mean that it's a bad amp or that the coloration should be considered a design flaw. That's what started me thinking about Amir's SINAD rankings and how useful they actually are for a prospective buyer. In other words, my subjective experience prompted me to wonder what was objectively going on with this crazy amp.

Considering the insane amount of coloration that the amp is adding to the He560, I'm wondering what Amir's measurements would show. Were the amp to measure badly, would it be fair to the amp to call it a bad amp, considering how much I enjoy listening to music with it? Why should coloration that enhances one's enjoyment of the music be considered a design flaw?

More than anything else, I have questions.

Also - please see policy re youtube vid dropping

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Thanks for making me aware of the policy, but I think I mostly conformed to it?

"We are strongly discouraging random YouTube and similar “Video links” being posted without some detailed type of description as to what you want to highlight, or what you think is important to our community. Another words, what in the video do you want to discuss/dissect/analyze. Also, provide a reasonable TLDR summary and if appropriate the Timestamp in the Video that you wish to highlight."

I stated what I wanted to highlight/discuss/dissect/analyze and provided a timestamp. Perhaps I could have done better with the summary. I grant that the quality of the video isn't the best. It does mention Amir by name and ASR, and I thought it wouldn't be amiss to bring it to the community's attention.

Anyhow, I think I've taken this discussion far enough unless someone else wants to keep it going. Thanks for all your thoughtful responses.

 

[EJH]

Do you listen to your equipment or the music it’s playing???

If think about what you are being told, there is only one sound that a recording has - if all equipment play it exactly the same - that is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Well that's just what I'm wondering about. Not all equipment plays the music exactly the same. Whether that is necessarily a bad thing is what I question, that is, when a certain coloration adds enjoyment. But it seems to me we can't even agree on whether all dacs/amps sound the same or not. The closest answer I get is that mostly yes they all sound the same but in the cases when they don't it must be a design flaw.

 

[amirm]

Again I don't mind the measurements; my only issue is when Amir starts hyping the top 20 or so when these twenty will sound exactly like the 100th, or when he gives his subjective judgment/opinion about whether someone should buy a product and there's no indication in the review that he listened to it. In the latter case, I'm simply suggesting that he let the measurements speak for themselves. Either take the subjective opinion away altogether or give your opinion but make sure you at least listen to it first.

Seems you are confused about my role. The title of the product evaluation is a "Review." Not a Test. A review means assessing a product and arriving at a conclusion. And that is what I do. You don't like my opinion? Then go by measurements which is by far, most of the review. You want to vote otherwise? Do so in the poll. Don't ask me to not say what bothers you. That is not my concern.

 

[amirm]

The conclusion I came to, perhaps mistakenly, is that such coloration might make an amp measure badly, but that does not mean that it's a bad amp or that the coloration should be considered a design flaw. That's what started me thinking about Amir's SINAD rankings and how useful they actually are for a prospective buyer. In other words, my subjective experience prompted me to wonder what was objectively going on with this crazy amp.

Before that, you should have wondered what is wrong with your subjective assessment. And learn to do proper subjective evaluation. It is a classic mistake to take wrongly concluded subjective experience and then look for evidence to back it.

We exist because the type of evaluation you did is worse than worthless. It leads you into a trap of believing in nonsense in audio.

 

[EJH]

Seems you are confused about my role. The title of the product evaluation is a "Review." Not a Test. A review means assessing a product and arriving at a conclusion. And that is what I do. You don't like my opinion? Then go by measurements which is by far, most of the review. You want to vote otherwise? Do so in the poll. Don't ask me to not say what bothers you. That is not my concern.

It's not that I don't like your opinion; it's that I'm wondering how valid an opinion really is or even ranking one item over another when there is no audible reason for preferring one. It's good to the extent that it incentivizes better engineering or when you catch manufacturers promoting sketchy specs, but not if manufacturers just start chasing the ever greater SINAD and that becomes the basis for preferring one piece of audio gear over another.

Before that, you should have wondered what is wrong with your subjective assessment. And learn to do proper subjective evaluation. It is a classic mistake to take wrongly concluded subjective experience and then look for evidence to back it.

We exist because the type of evaluation you did is worse than worthless. It leads you into a trap of believing in nonsense in audio.

Well, of course I wondered what was wrong with my subjective assessment. That's why on another thread I said that I would love to see you review the Asgard X as a follow up to your Midgard review, i.e. precisely because I want to be able to make sense of my subjective assessment compared to reality. For instance, on the Midgard, the halo jack doesn't seem to make much (if any) audible difference. But that totally clashes with what I hear, or think I hear, with the halo x implementation. There is a limit to how much one can doubt one's senses. If you told me I couldn't possibly be hearing such a night and day difference between the halo x and quarter inch jacks, I would indeed be surprised. And if I am hearing a real difference, I would love to know why.

 

[MatrixS2000]

Well that's just what I'm wondering about. Not all equipment plays the music exactly the same. Whether that is necessarily a bad thing is what I question, that is, when a certain coloration adds enjoyment. But it seems to me we can't even agree on whether all dacs/amps sound the same or not. The closest answer I get is that mostly yes they all sound the same but in the cases when they don't it must be a design flaw.

Colouration = deviation from what the recording sounds like. In high-fidelity equipment, colouration = a bad thing. Electronics all start sounding the same once a particular level of performance has been achieved. That is the key differentiator you are missing. That level of performance = the human threshold of hearing. Once that is passed, no human on the planet has a mechanism (ie your hearing) to be able to discern the differences thus, all those pieces of electronics that surpass that performance level will sound the same.

You may like colouration, that is never an issue here, but you should realize that colouration = a lowering of resolution not an increase of resolution. So if you prefer lower performing equipment, no one here will care.

 

[EJH]

Colouration = deviation from what the recording sounds like. In high-fidelity equipment, colouration = a bad thing. Electronics all start sounding the same once a particular level of performance has been achieved. That is the key differentiator you are missing. That level of performance = the human threshold of hearing. Once that is passed, no human on the planet has a mechanism (ie your hearing) to be able to discern the differences thus, all those pieces of electronics that surpass that performance level will sound the same.

You may like colouration, that is never an issue here, but you should realize that colouration = a lowering of resolution not an increase of resolution. So if you prefer lower performing equipment, no one here will care.

You don't have to prefer one over the other when you can own several pieces of equipment. I guess one of the issues I have is with the snobby attitude some people have toward coloration. I mean, I love water. Give me water when I'm thirsty. Give me water several times a day. Nothing takes my thirst away like water. But sometimes I really, really like a tall glass of cold iced tea or lemonade. Why is lemonade bad just because it's not pure water?

 

[MatrixS2000]

You don't have to prefer one over the other when you can own several pieces of equipment. I guess one of the issues I have is the snobby attitude some people have toward coloration. I mean, I love water. Give me water when I'm thirsty. Give me water several times a day. Nothing takes my thirst away like water. But sometimes I really, really like a tall glass of cold iced tea or lemonade. Why is lemonade bad just because it's not pure water?

You miss the point - if you want high-fidelity playback, all you need is one piece of equipment that passes the performance level I mentioned earlier. If you want a lower performing equipment to colour the sound, a device called an equalizer is available to you. The equalizer will colour the sound to whatever liking you want, then you tire of that liking, you can change it to something else without having to buy another box. When you finally realize that colouration is not the answer, you can defeat it.

 

[voodooless]

Give me water several times a day. Nothing takes my thirst away like water. But sometimes I really, really like a tall glass of cold iced tea or lemonade. Why is lemonade bad just because it's not pure water?

But you’re arguing something different: you’re arguing that several glasses of water taste differently. Lemonade is a totally different class of drinks.

Now for water, reality says that indeed not out of the realm of possibility. Differences in DACs are orders of magnitude smaller.

 

[EJH]

You miss the point - if you want high-fidelity playback, all you need is one piece of equipment that passes the performance level I mentioned earlier. If you want a lower performing equipment to colour the sound, a device called an equalizer is available to you. The equalizer will colour the sound to whatever liking you want, then you tire of that liking, you can change it to something else without having to buy another box. When you finally realize that colouration is not the answer, you can defeat it.

That sounds perfectly logical until you realize something about consumers, or at least about some consumers, and what they want to do for themselves and what they want done for them. Why do people have a stable of headphones, each sounding different, when they can simply buy one really good pair that they can equalize to their heart's content? Most people just want to enjoy music and not drive themselves crazy fiddling with something until they find a sound they like, assuming they even know what they want and how to achieve it. And then they have to resist the temptation to keep on fiddling and fiddling with something to the extent that it becomes more of a nervous thing regarding the sound and no longer about just sitting back and enjoying the music. Some of us want audio people to make those decisions for us. Then all we have to do is listen. Regarding amps, it's more than just coloration; it's the whole package. Some amps work better with certain headphones. This amp makes my headphones sound like a Ferrari, but this one under powers them. It's the look of the product as well. I love the way the Asgard X looks. I even like that it's a class A amp that runs warm. I will pat it sometimes just to feel its warmth because the A/C runs too cold all the time in my house and at the office. I like the fact that the two headphone jacks sound totally different to me. To me, it's like magic, transforming one pair of headphones into two. I like the fact that it was made in the USA. It's built like a tank. And on and on. Again it's the whole package.

 

[MatrixS2000]

That sounds perfectly logical until you realize something about consumers, or at least about some consumers, and what they want to do for themselves and what they want done for them. Why do people have a stable of headphones, each sounding different, when they can simply buy one really good pair that they can equalize to their heart's content? Most people just want to enjoy music and not drive themselves crazy fiddling with something until they find a sound they like, assuming they even know what they want and how to achieve it. And then they have to resist the temptation to keep on fiddling and fiddling with something to the extent that it becomes more of a nervous thing regarding the sound and no longer about just sitting back and enjoying the music. Some of us want audio people to make those decisions for us. Then all we have to do is listen. Regarding amps, it's more than just coloration; it's the whole package. Some amps work better with certain headphones. This amp makes my headphones sound like a Ferrari, but this one under powers them. It's the look of the product as well. I love the way the Asgard X looks. I even like that it's a class A amp that runs warm. I will pat it sometimes just to feel its warmth because the A/C runs too cold all the time in my house and at the office. I like the fact that the two headphone jacks sound totally different to me. To me, it's like magic, transforming one pair of headphones into two. I like the fact that it was made in the USA. It's built like a tank. And on and on. Again it's the whole package.

It’s called presets.

 

[antcollinet]

and not drive themselves crazy fiddling with something until they find a sound they like, assuming they even know what they want and how to achieve it

But they are happy to spend thousands of £$EUR, and hours and hours buying headphone after headphone - somehow hoping they'll find the sound they like by random blind chance?

Well, of course I wondered what was wrong with my subjective assessment. That's why on another thread I said that I would love to see you review the Asgard X as a follow up to your Midgard review, i.e. precisely because I want to be able to make sense of my subjective assessment compared to reality.

You are making the mistake of thinking your subjective assessment has any basis in reality. Before you start looking for reasons for why you hear what you do with your subjective assessment - you first need to verify that what you think you hear is really there in the sound waves reaching your ears, and not created in the wetware between them. And there is only one way to do that. Subjective uncontrolled listening isn't that way.

Otherwise you are just chasing your tail trying to assign measured differences to something that in all likelihood doesn't exist.

 

[MatrixS2000]

But they are happy to spend thousands of £$EUR, and hours and hours buying headphone after headphone - somehow hoping they'll find the sound they like by random blind chance?

Not only that, but how are they supposed to remember which piece of electronics had which sound??? Put a piece of tape on it with a description of the colouring it provides??? Install a box into their system only to find out they selected the wrong one, so have to pull it out, figure out why the taped on description mislead them and now hunt for the next box to install...

But hey, fiddling with an EQ, that is too much work….

 

[amirm]

It's not that I don't like your opinion; it's that I'm wondering how valid an opinion really is or even ranking one item over another when there is no audible reason for preferring one. It's good to the extent that it incentivizes better engineering or when you catch manufacturers promoting sketchy specs, but not if manufacturers just start chasing the ever greater SINAD and that becomes the basis for preferring one piece of audio gear over another.

I make a full assessment of a product. SINAD is just the starting measurement. I just reviewed an Onkyo AVR where I withheld my recommendation due to power limiting which was discovered way later. I am about to do the same for another review coming in an hour.

Remember, a company that strives for best SINAD is also dedicated to building the cleanest implementation they possibly can as to minimize both distortion and noise. This is the ultimate definition of high fidelity. So it doesn't make sense to say they are doing something that is wrong.

 

[RandomEar]

Again I don't mind the measurements; my only issue is when Amir starts hyping the top 20 or so when these twenty will sound exactly like the 100th, or when he gives his subjective judgment/opinion about whether someone should buy a product and there's no indication in the review that he listened to it. In the latter case, I'm simply suggesting that he let the measurements speak for themselves. Either take the subjective opinion away altogether or give your opinion but make sure you at least listen to it first.

Here is what prompted me to make the suggestion. I recently got an Asgard X dac/amp. When I plugged my He560v1.2 headphones into it and played some Brahms and Rachmaninov symphonies, what I heard was a dark, overly warm, congested mess compared to the same headphones on my THX amp. I heard coloration that, to my ears, did not work with these particular headphones and this type of music. But when I listened to some rock and pop whoa, it sounded fabulous. So a coloration that works with one kind of music does not necessarily work with another.

Then I put a balanced cable on and switched to the 4.4mm "halo" jack. The very same pair of headphones sounded completely different, instead of congested and overly warm they were now hyper-clear. On this jack, the headphones sounded terrific with small ensemble baroque music that uses harpsichord, clavichord, and vocals. But orchestral music did not sound good to me, this time for polar opposite reasons: instead of excessively warm and rich the headphones now sounded too bright and lean with a noticeable narrowing of the sonic image. So what prompted me to come to ASR is confusion: If all amps are supposed to sound the same, here is a case where not only does this new amp sound different from the THX amp but the amp itself sounded wildly different depending on which jack you plugged your headphones into.

Then I plugged in an Hifiman Ananda, a headphone that on my THX amp I can only listen to for about thirty minutes before it starts sounding bright and cold and unengaging. But it pairs well with the Asgard X. The warmth that sounds excessive with the He560 makes the Ananda sound inviting, such that I find it difficult to stop listening to them.

The conclusion I came to, perhaps mistakenly, is that such coloration might make an amp measure badly, but that does not mean that it's a bad amp or that the coloration should be considered a design flaw. That's what started me thinking about Amir's SINAD rankings and how useful they actually are for a prospective buyer. In other words, my subjective experience prompted me to wonder what was objectively going on with this crazy amp.

Considering the insane amount of coloration that the amp is adding to the He560, I'm wondering what Amir's measurements would show. Were the amp to measure badly, would it be fair to the amp to call it a bad amp, considering how much I enjoy listening to music with it? Why should coloration that enhances one's enjoyment of the music be considered a design flaw?

I'll keep it short. Couple of points:

• On ASR members typically don't claim that "all amps / DACs / etc. sound the same". Something along the lines of "all competent XYZ which measure transparent can't be distinguished in a controlled blind test"
• Deliberate design choices by manufacturers to make their amp sound different (and alter the signal reproduction in a way that is commonly seen as "not HiFi" around here) do exist and can easily be measured
• The fact that you think you heard such deliberate differences with your amp, where no ASR review seems to exist, does not mean listening tests would have any value if the measurements did exist
• You claim to hear differences, but from the way you describe your testing I have to conclude that it wasn't well controlled as understood around ASR (level-matched, quick switching, blind or double blind)
• Therefore, the differences you describe are not proven to exist at all, so they don't serve as a good example for the value of listening tests. It's actually the opposite: We would not need to have this discussion about hypothetical audible differences if we had the measurements and the listening tests just create more confusion because they are subjective and often deliver incorrect results

 

[EJH]

And there is only one way to do that. Subjective uncontrolled listening isn't that way.

I was wondering how I could A/B it. Even if I have someone plug them in behind my back, the jacks require different headphone cables, which will probably be a giveaway. And then even if I did A/B it and proved I could hear a difference, no one here would believe me. Not that I feel the need to A/B it, as the difference seems like night and day to me.

I make a full assessment of a product. SINAD is just the starting measurement. I just reviewed an Onkyo AVR where I withheld my recommendation due to power limiting which was discovered way later. I am about to do the same for another review coming in an hour.

Remember, a company that strives for best SINAD is also dedicated to building the cleanest implementation they possibly can as to minimize both distortion and noise. This is the ultimate definition of high fidelity. So it doesn't make sense to say they are doing something that is wrong.

I very much enjoy reading your reviews and watching your videos. I nitpicked this one issue and now feel like I'm battling for my life in here

I'll keep it short. Couple of points:

• On ASR members typically don't claim that "all amps / DACs / etc. sound the same". Something along the lines of "all competent XYZ which measure transparent can't be distinguished in a controlled blind test"
• Deliberate design choices by manufacturers to make their amp sound different (and alter the signal reproduction in a way that is commonly seen as "not HiFi" around here) do exist and can easily be measured
• The fact that you think you heard such deliberate differences with your amp, where no ASR review seems to exist, does not mean listening tests would have any value if the measurements did exist
• You claim to hear differences, but from the way you describe your testing I have to conclude that it wasn't well controlled as understood around ASR (level-matched, quick switching, blind or double blind)
• Therefore, the differences you describe are not proven to exist at all, so they don't serve as a good example for the value of listening tests. It's actually the opposite: We would not need to have this discussion about hypothetical audible differences if we had the measurements and the listening tests just create more confusion because they are subjective and often deliver incorrect results

They are all valid points. I know it's just one random person saying that he hears a huge difference without any blind testing. There's no reason why you should take my word for it. I'm just curious about how the amp works and how it's doing what it's doing (if anything).

 

[antcollinet]

There's no reason why you should take my word for it.

No-one is doubting what you hear, just the reasons for what you hear. Perceptive bias can create those night and day impressions you are describing. Or there is an outlier chance they are real.

But sighted listening is no basis for questioning the veracity of measurements, nor for suggesting more are needed.