Which DAC measurements do you like to see next?

[Veri]

Gustard x-26

Looks intense

 

[Veri]

According to audiophile beliefs:

Wolfson = warm
Cirus Logic = medium oriented, mostly neutral
AKM = musical and analog
Sabre = bright and digital sounding.

None of these beliefs have been proved in @amirm measurements. Thanks to ASR to always clears up things, one of them being : Chip does not matter so much at the end!

I have a theory about the AKM thing though. Apparently their super-slow filter has a stepped response, akin to NOS filter response:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/995120350189928449

so that would explain the "music and analog" sound. It's a glitchy kind of waveform in that mode.

About Sabre, I think it's just, they were ahead of their time. Compared to the often botched DAC implementations of ~10 years ago then yes, maybe sabre chips sounded "digital". Nowadays as you say, Cirrus, Sabre, AKM and even FPGA solutions should all be transparent as long as they aren't sending an (intentionally) flawed signal to the amplifier

 

[amirm]

Just curious what happened to the Bluesound node 2i test. Did they just decide to not send you a unit?

They did not but I didn't push them either. Fortunately a local member has loaned me one of their units so that review will come soon.

 

[Graph Feppar]

I like Violectric, they made two stand alone DACs, the V800 and V850 and they also make like 6 types of internal DACs for their amplifiers. I am very curious how good the internal DACs are, having small but powerfull V200 amp with internal USB DAC, thats sweet compact unit.

 

[ReAlien]

Denafrips Ares for sure would be an interesting beast to compare with the competition.

 

[Veri]

Denafrips Ares for sure would be an interesting beast to compare with the competition.

I don't really understand why people want to see or even expect decent performance from such an atrocity

 

[ReAlien]

I don't really understand why people want to see or even expect decent performance from such an atrocity

The thing is that lots of people have been praising its sound. Way too many to ignore just because of pictures, and I do not see any problem with this one, as I am not a technical guy, I care about a sound signature only.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Denafrips Ares for sure would be an interesting beast to compare with the competition.

Hum... It would be a premiere if some R2R design manages to measure "well" in Amir's hands.

 

[bennetng]

The thing is that lots of people have been praising its sound. Way too many to ignore just because of pictures, and I do not see any problem with this one, as I am not a technical guy, I care about a sound signature only.

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/denafrips-ares-technical-measurements.4774/

 

[ReAlien]

Hum... It would be a premiere if some R2R design manages to measure "well" in Amir's hands.

Well, I'd like to see how it compares to other R2R's not to SD DACs. I am well aware of their limitations specifications wise.

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/denafrips-ares-technical-measurements.4774/

Thanks, I've seen it, but there are a lot of pictures and almost no text, I prefer Amir's reports for they are at least more or less understandable by laymen. )

 

[amirm]

Thanks, I've seen it, but there are a lot of pictures and almost no text, I prefer Amir's reports for they are at least more or less understandable by laymen. )

I think with patience I am sure we will run into someone who owns one and wants it tested.

 

[ryanmh1]

Jep I saw the jitter not being ideal, has some modulation going on. On the other hand it is -130dBFS down and arguably not an audible issue.
If the harmonic distortion performance is verified to be so great it might be a good option for the price for sure

Also these other 2005/2006 cards are hard to purchase nowadays! Thanks for your measurements though. Jitter does look better on yours.

That appears to have something to do with the cell phone program that was feeding it, or perhaps some sort of error correction or noise shaping. On their 48kHz test that goes away. There is a long-form review which explains they initially had some sort of issue feeding it with their usual measurement setup, so fed it off a phone. They figured out the issue later, and ran a limited set of measurements feeding it with the analyzer, but those did not include the jitter measurement.

As far as the output, I think the 1W claim was probably a translation error from Russian. This is USB power only. Perhaps the discreet Xamp is capable of that, but probably not in this implementation. Still, for $130 on sale at Newegg, it's hard to complain about something that can perform this well and includes just about every feature you could ever ask for in a stereo audio interface, if you need something more than just a DAC and a headphone amp.

 

[countbasey]

any thoughts about the ayre codex? I have one in my main speaker system. would be nice to see how it compares to others on this forum. Will the stereophile measurements crossover well with what were seeing here?

 

[amirm]

any thoughts about the ayre codex? I have one in my main speaker system. would be nice to see how it compares to others on this forum. Will the stereophile measurements crossover well with what were seeing here?

They are pretty expensive so I can't buy them on my own. Hope will be someone who owns it wants it measured.

As to stereophile, they don't perform the same measurements I do so overlap is not great. But yes, failing any data from me, you can go by theirs.

 

[countbasey]

PM me perhaps on the details to see if it makes sense. I was thinking it might be fun to have it tested. Whats your backlog look like?

 

[Veri]

This thing

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/soul.htm

 

[daftcombo]

Hi,

I'm a newly registered member but have been reading the measurements threads here for some time with much interest.

I would suggest to do a measurement of the Apogee Duet (or Apogee Duet 2), as it's a popular device which only got subjective reviews as far as I know.

I would also like to see measurements of the FX-AUDIO DAC X7, which seems to have a phase shift problem according to a french website.

All the best,

Thomas

 

[m8o]

This thing

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/soul.htm

+1 !

Lol, that thing looks remarkable; but only for anyone not hung-up on the purity of the original mix and a proponent of 'tweeking' to correct failings of the speakers / room / headphones.

Only missed opportunity imo is this:

LF; de-/increase of frequencies below 500 Hz
HF; de-/increase of frequencies above 1.5 kHz

Imo this should be bandpass not shelving filters. But I could live it it! Haha

 

[m8o]

This looks interesting .... wonder if it holds up to the standard set by the ApplePi and Katana:

http://iqaudio.co.uk/hats/47-pi-dac-pro.html
+
http://iqaudio.co.uk/hats/96-pi-proxlr.html

... and, not necessary but nice:
http://iqaudio.co.uk/cases/94-xlr-case.html

 

[amirm]

I would suggest to do a measurement of the Apogee Duet (or Apogee Duet 2), as it's a popular device which only got subjective reviews as far as I know.

Specs look really good as do the features. Alas at nearly $700, it is too rich for my budget. Please contact them and see if they will send one in for review.