Regardless of how good any hearing is, at least it shows that one DAC is literally miles ahead of another
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Topping E30 DAC Review
- Thread starter amirm
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Thanks!
Had no idea it was in PRE mode, just plugged it in and away I went. Now I get my nice numbers.
confucius_zero
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Thx for your impressions
Not shooting you down, appreciating this.After having done a bit more listening to both these playing some Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac and Giogrio Moroder
CCA (Opt) > DAC > NX4DSD (Amp Only)
E30 - 3D and a bit more slam (Foot tapping)
D50 - Wider and analytical
Don't shoot me down as it's not a blind test. I am fairy certain that I would fail to spot the difference in a blind test unless I warm up myself just before the test to have everything super fresh in my memory. Both are equally detailed and super clean with black background
Whilst I type this the track keeps playing in the background on D50 and I couldn't tell that it's D50 and not E30. So I am really trying to split hair. I think if I were to do a speaker audition it becomes a lot more difficult I suppose. Treble is super grain free, mids are supposed to be where they need to be, funny thing is that I struggled to stop the music in the middle during switching, the reproduction is that good.
Just waiting for the Qutest to turn up so that I could compare.
But both these dacs are transparent, how can you hear any differences?
Correct, let me come back to you when I get to do the blind test with the aid of someone
Why? It's transparent!
Joking aside, I do regular blind tests and the differences between various dacs is obvious. Measurements based on static signals don't tell the whole story. You people need to use your ears and make your own minds up!
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Did you use any controls? Match levels? Didn't know what was playing?
It's not *that* hard to test yourself with some controls. The only time I would drag someone else in, is if I expected others to take it seriously, and as a final control on myself.
This basic minimum isn't about 'this forum,' it's about fundamental psycho-acoustics and what goes into how we 'hear.'
Match the levels. Don't peek. Go back and forth and see if that difference is still there. That's not for the forum...its the only way you'll really know what's what. Why the almost reflexive resistance?
Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
Why? It's transparent!
Joking aside, I do regular blind tests and the differences between various dacs is obvious. Measurements based on static signals don't tell the whole story. You people need to use your ears and make your own minds up!
You're saying you do volume-matched blind tests between dacs that measure like this and you can identify differences? Sorry, forgive me for not believing you.
No problem!
I hesitate to say it, but an owner of a dCS Bartók has a $13,000 investment in the proposition that DACs that measure "like this" are audibly different. So, if anyone can distinguish them in a blind test, ...
I'd be curious to know @ChrisUK's protocol for "blind tests"; there's been a bit of disagreement hereabouts about what constitutes a valid one. But let's just say that I share your skepticism.
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Just realised after posting it
Seems that he might have the opportunity to make some money then: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/dcs-bartok-review.9391/post-246513
So that would mean that the five output filters are indistinguishable? If two dacs at transparent level measurments can only sound the same this would certainly be true for the same dac with different filters right? I swear I ear a difference in sound when I swap the filters, you don't? Maybe it's bias, I will try to blind test but it doesn't even feel that subtle.
Broadly speaking, the available filters are distinguished by
- How sharp they are (conversely, how much aliasing they allow to creep into the audio band).
- Linear phase versus minimum phase.
As already noted, the "sharp" filters on the E30 are actually quite slow — just fast enough to keep the aliases above 20kHz (for a sample rate is 44.1kHz). But I doubt that they would be audibly distinguishable from true brickwall filters.
Sure, but many time, we don't even know what filter a dac uses, there seam to be almost a consensus here that all dacs in the top tiers, since their distortion, sinad, etc measure below audible level, would sound exactly the same. If it was the case swapping filter would have a significant impact on these measurments right? Now does it? That's if we accept that filters swaps are audible, again, I may be biased and hear stuff that's not there.
Depends on the measurement. If we're talking about the SINAD for a 1kHz test tone, then no, the choice of filter is completely irrelevant to that.
I agree with you 100%, what I was questioning was the notion that well measuring dacs are "transparent". To me it means undistinguishable sonically. If it can be demonstrated that swapping the filters change how a dac sound, it can be demonstrated that no dacs are truely transparent, and yes, it should show on measurments, if you measure the right thing.
If (for instance) you can distinguish between linear and minimum phase filters on the same DAC, then it would be stupid to define "transparent" to mean "independent of whether the filter is linear or minimum phase."
A more reasonable definition of "transparent" would be that "linear phase on one DAC is audibly indistinguishable from linear phase on another" (and ditto for minimum phase).
The most sensitive test which would probe whether there's an audible difference between sharp and slow filters would be a 19kHz + 20kHz IMD test.
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