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terminator vs terminator PLUS
- Thread starter skypickle
- Start date
Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
well, if they are working the way a dac should, at the lowest price point. Which is probably still hundreds higher than it needs to be, lol...unless of course you have the wondrous ears of a Steve Guttenberg or a John Darko.
But hey, there's always more depth and musicality to be found in those 60s recordings! And a $4000 dac can't help but reveal all sorts of hidden magic that no system has in the 5 decades since then! lol
But hey, there's always more depth and musicality to be found in those 60s recordings! And a $4000 dac can't help but reveal all sorts of hidden magic that no system has in the 5 decades since then! lol
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Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Sorry, if I'm being a bag of d**ks. I know it's rude to answer questions with question, but here I go:
Compared to what?
Better at what?
Depends on whether or not any of them mangle the signal on on purpose. If non of them do, my bet on an answer would be; all points you can imagine.
Compared to what?
Better at what?
Depends on whether or not any of them mangle the signal on on purpose. If non of them do, my bet on an answer would be; all points you can imagine.
- Thread Starter
- #4
@Killingbeans yes I know my question was vague and subjective. ASR being what it is , I should simply ask if measurements are available. ? ? ?
In the spirit of objective analysis, I wish there was a way we could do blind testing remotely - but how does one simulate hearing? Any attempt to compare music files generated from recordings of music using different DACs would necessarily have to be played back through a user’s system which would introduce more distortion than what exists between DACs. Way off topic but I don’t know of a set of electronic parameters that has been tested and found to correlate with psychoacoustic differences. Perhaps when deep learning is applied to fMRI images as music is played with different DACs we can have a more quantitative interpretation of this issue and answer the question ‘can you hear the difference? Is it memorex or is it live?’ ( for the millennials here, that was an advertising slogan for a brand of magnetic tape - the stuff we used to store music on)
In the spirit of objective analysis, I wish there was a way we could do blind testing remotely - but how does one simulate hearing? Any attempt to compare music files generated from recordings of music using different DACs would necessarily have to be played back through a user’s system which would introduce more distortion than what exists between DACs. Way off topic but I don’t know of a set of electronic parameters that has been tested and found to correlate with psychoacoustic differences. Perhaps when deep learning is applied to fMRI images as music is played with different DACs we can have a more quantitative interpretation of this issue and answer the question ‘can you hear the difference? Is it memorex or is it live?’ ( for the millennials here, that was an advertising slogan for a brand of magnetic tape - the stuff we used to store music on)
Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
I don't know. Seems to me you could volume match a couple dacs, get some nice high quality recordings of their output of a variety of different tracks and then A/B/X those recordings similar to the various lossy vs lossless tests that are out there.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
I think a better question would simply be: What are you looking for in a DAC?
- Thread Starter
- #8
in this forum, any question besides 'are measurements available' is subject to the condemnation of 'subjectivism'. so i'll refrain from asking for audible differences and psychoacoustic comparisons
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
I don't really care that much about the measurements. Unless they are catastrophically bad, they honestly won't tell us a lot.
Personally I see discrete R2R DACs as an over-engineered (or under-engineered?) solution to a non-existent problem. I'd love some evidence showing them having audible benefits over Sigma-Delta, but until that appears, I have no problem looking at them as nothing but a gimmick.
So, the only things making them "better" would be stuff like; Build quality, enclosure aesthetics, ease/Intuitiveness of the user interface, connectivity, features, service/support and so on. I can't imagine that a Terminator-Plus offers those in a way that justifies the price tag.
My take on "Is this over the top?": Yes! But also compared to just about any less expensive well-engineered DAC on the market.
Personally I see discrete R2R DACs as an over-engineered (or under-engineered?) solution to a non-existent problem. I'd love some evidence showing them having audible benefits over Sigma-Delta, but until that appears, I have no problem looking at them as nothing but a gimmick.
So, the only things making them "better" would be stuff like; Build quality, enclosure aesthetics, ease/Intuitiveness of the user interface, connectivity, features, service/support and so on. I can't imagine that a Terminator-Plus offers those in a way that justifies the price tag.
My take on "Is this over the top?": Yes! But also compared to just about any less expensive well-engineered DAC on the market.
I thought R2R DACs are a fundamental electronic circuit. It is taught in Fundamentals of Digital Circuitry.
https://www.amazon.ca/Digital-Fundamentals-11th-Thomas-Floyd/dp/0132737965
Veri
Master Contributor
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2018
- Messages
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- 12,040
If not Topping D30, the D10s surely would.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
They are really great for educational purposes, and if you are prototyping and need a quick and dirty DA conversion, it's nice to know that you can just grab a handful of resistors and get things going. But in audio reproduction they offer zero benefits compared to modern alternatives. Correct me if I'm wrong.
This bad boy breaks the rules.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/denafrips-ares-ii-usb-r2r-dac-review.11166/
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Veri
Master Contributor
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2018
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It's still "just" a good DAC though. only priced at $700+ instead of more affordable chip-based DACs.
DunnO about your quote but I sure remember "KC" the Chinese instructor for my education nodding that it can be done. If he says so then it can be...lolIs not being crappy really a benefit?
Yes, true that.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
DunnO about your quote but I sure remember "KC" the Chinese instructor for my education nodding that it can be done. If he says so then it can be...lol
My point being that building an R2R DAC that's audibly indistinguishable from a SD DAC is perfectly doable. You can even make one with a sky high SINAD matching the bedst SD chips, just to make it look good on paper. But there's no point in talking about audible superiority.
Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Can be done
I don't understand
Are you saying that an R2R DAC can be audibly superior? And in that case, how?
Or are you simply saying that doing thing just because you can, is perfectly fine?
