Many of you might know well about the famous DA-AD loopback tests from Gearslutz by didier.brest. The goal is to test how much a music file will change by going through one DA-AD loop using a particular audio interface. People contribute their recordings using their own device, then didier.brest will do the diff analysis and post the results representing the differences between two wav files. pkane here also did analysis using weighted metrics to reproduce many results. AP, REW, RMAA, Multitone Analyzer all used some ADDA loopback to obtain their results but I find the whole music file differences/null tests sometimes tell a different story. For example the 20 year old MOTU 2408 can outperform some AD/DA pairs with far better measurement scores in this test, shown in both Gearslutz and pkane's results (I appreciate if someone explain to me why. Thanks!)
I find these results fascinating as they used actual music files instead of single or multiple tones, can be applied to real studio scenarios (that audio files will actually go through ADDA multiple times to use analog hardwares), and are reproducible using relatively cheap measuring devices and simpler software. The results also make more sense to persuade audiophiles to stop their fantasy in a transparent device. But it seems not many reviewers are using such benchmarks in their measurements.
AD/DAs don't have to be measured in pairs like didier.brest did in the gearspace thread (as most people there are audio engineers, they care more about the whole package performance of AD/DA within one device). But I'd really love to see the results of each DAC output the same wav file and go through the same reference level ADC like AP or more affordable E1DA cosmos ADC, then compare the differences in this controlled test. This can very interesting to see IMO.
First new thread post here, love this place!
I find these results fascinating as they used actual music files instead of single or multiple tones, can be applied to real studio scenarios (that audio files will actually go through ADDA multiple times to use analog hardwares), and are reproducible using relatively cheap measuring devices and simpler software. The results also make more sense to persuade audiophiles to stop their fantasy in a transparent device. But it seems not many reviewers are using such benchmarks in their measurements.
AD/DAs don't have to be measured in pairs like didier.brest did in the gearspace thread (as most people there are audio engineers, they care more about the whole package performance of AD/DA within one device). But I'd really love to see the results of each DAC output the same wav file and go through the same reference level ADC like AP or more affordable E1DA cosmos ADC, then compare the differences in this controlled test. This can very interesting to see IMO.
First new thread post here, love this place!
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