Why I am unable to hear any difference between these DACs?

[RobS]

Again. You get the exact same kind of reasoning from the people who produce and sell the most silly snake-oil products out there. And their customers experience effects exactly as vividly as you do. The only difference being that they try to correlate the experiences to phenomena that are just as silly as the products themselves.

What gives you this unshakable confidence in correlating the disconnect between measurements and the things you hear with the things you do?

Because at a certain point, the DAC measurements don't matter and what's left is critical listening. Everything ultimately has to be mediated through our own ears.

As in: "If you don't mind fooling yourself and/or have tin ears, that's cool. You can't all be as awesome as me."?

It wasn't a slight for anyone who experiences that way. Certainly it would be far easier (and cheaper) for me if I couldn't hear differences. I find dissatisfaction with a lot of DACs the more time I spend with them to understand how they sound and the flaws that become too difficult to ignore (And get in the way of enjoying music).

 

[Chromatischism]

I find dissatisfaction with a lot of DACs the more time I spend with them to understand how they sound and the flaws that become too difficult to ignore (And get in the way of enjoying music).

Please clarify: is this with headphones/earphones or loudspeakers in a room?

 

[Bear123]

This might not be popular to say but I believe he is conducting himself well enough and is on-topic, so I don't think he is out of line. We shouldn't be in the business of squelching those we disagree with unless there is some history of misinformation or misconduct. Hopefully we don't get to that point.

With that said, enough blind comparisons have been done that show people can't tell a difference between cheap and expensive DACs (that are well-designed), so I would question claims of "day and night" differences.

I think the disconnect here is that some people are willing to consider what the reasons are that differences are heard where none should exist, and that these perceived differences may no longer hold true under accurate test conditions. Others believe that if they perceive a difference, their perceptions and hearing are supremely infallible and therefore are the final arbiter that there was indeed a difference. The rest of us are human.

 

[RayDunzl]

There's a reason why tons of Topping DACs flood the used market

17 items of various age (at time of post) on eBay doesn't seem like a flood to me.

I figure that might be 20 pounds, far short of tons on that venue.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw="topping"&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=topping&LH_ItemCondition=3000&rt=nc

Don't feel bad.

I had to bust @amirm on his estimate of having used "a ton of electricity".

 

[SIY]

It wasn't a slight for anyone who experiences that way. Certainly it would be far easier (and cheaper) for me if I couldn't hear differences. I find dissatisfaction with a lot of DACs the more time I spend with them to understand how they sound and the flaws that become too difficult to ignore (And get in the way of enjoying music).

When you can demonstrate this with basic controls (ears-only, no peeking, matched levels), you'll find a receptive audience. Without that, these claims have no value.

 

[wjc]

Unless the AVR DAC exhibits a significant channel imbalance, I fail to see how there would be any difference in imaging, which is a product of speaker neutrality, radiation pattern consistency over the frequency spectrum, speaker setup/room acoustics, and program material.

Can you tell us how the DAC would improve imaging?

True, but the DAC that you choose will determine whether it meets your musical taste. I have listened to many DACs over the years from Burr Brown, Wolfson, ESS Sabre, AKM, and R-2R DACs. IMHO, ESS Sabre DACs are clinical, it left me feeling fatigued after half an hour of listening, while the AKM DACs have this velvety sound.

To prove DACs are not all the same, I did a DAC shootout with my friend who brought over his Arcam (Wolfson DAC), and we both listened to vinyl, CD's, Flac, and DSD music on my system. After half a day of listening, we both came to a verdict that lower-res music tended to sound the same on either DACs with the AKM sounding a tad brighter. However, when listening to high-res DSD256 music, the AKM DAC sounded more spacious, the timbre of the instruments were nicely defined, the piano actually sounded like a real piano! Female vocals were also velvety smooth. Changing filters did very little or nothing that we could hear at the top end. The power conditioner (NDS) had made a significant difference as well, it opened up the soundstage bringing the musicians closer to you.

Measurements only tell half the story. With the right DAC, it will add realism to your music.

 

[JustJones]

The power conditioner (NDS) had made a significant difference as well, it opened up the soundstage bringing the musicians closer to you.

How did you determine it was the power conditioner? Was any of this listening done using any type of controls for bias?

 

[GGroch]

With that said, enough blind comparisons have been done that show people can't tell a difference between cheap and expensive DACs (that are well-designed), so I would question claims of "day and night" differences.

I don't question those claims at all. Confirmation bias is proven science. It cannot be turned off, its how we perceive sound. I expect the more you know about a product (ie, the technical difference between a delta-sigma DAC and a ladder DAC), the more likely you will perceive an audible difference, and that difference could seem huge. That difference will exist until you do a blind test.

As you point out, there have been numerous tests that prove you cannot hear differences between well designed DACs in blind tests. But confirmation bias is equally as proven.

 

[Killingbeans]

what's left is critical listening.

There's one more thing left. Proper blind testing. It's boring and tedious, but it gives a clear picture in the end.

 

[Sukie]

This might not be popular to say but I believe he is conducting himself well enough and is on-topic, so I don't think he is out of line. We shouldn't be in the business of squelching those we disagree with unless there is some history of misinformation or misconduct. Hopefully we don't get to that point.

With that said, enough blind comparisons have been done that show people can't tell a difference between cheap and expensive DACs (that are well-designed), so I would question claims of "day and night" differences.

I'm no squelching anybody. I'm simply stating that the responses to the issue of DACs, confirmation bias, cognitive bias, placebo etc. have been dealt with on many other threads.

 

[Sukie]

Many others, including myself, have experienced differences in how DACs sound, all things being equal. None of the existing measurements offer any insight into how that is.

And yes, the discourse on this board engenders such beliefs that "all DACs sound the same", using a limited set of measurements to reinforce such beliefs, and so on. From what I have seen here so far, the interpretations of the measurements barely reach the level of pop science, let alone science in a serious, rigorous manner.

If you read back at some of the threads on here you will see that many of us do not repeat the mantra that "all DACs sound the same". Some DACs have been engineered to colour or distort and this shows up in measurements.

Where two DACs measure the same, in term of audibility, and still sound different to a listener, then carefully double blind testing is required to rule out cognitive bias and other factors. This is not "pop science" but a tried and tested way of establishing results in many fields. No such results have been presented.

When you hear something, you hear with your brain. The brain processes the information. At any one time the brain is processing a huge amount of information, some of which affects what and how we hear.

I have no idea if you are genuinely interested in this or if you're just here to promote your view.

 

[Sukie]

To prove DACs are not all the same, I did a DAC shootout with my friend who brought over his Arcam (Wolfson DAC), and we both listened to vinyl, CD's, Flac, and DSD music on my system. After half a day of listening, we both came to a verdict that lower-res music tended to sound the same on either DACs with the AKM sounding a tad brighter. However, when listening to high-res DSD256 music, the AKM DAC sounded more spacious, the timbre of the instruments were nicely defined, the piano actually sounded like a real piano! Female vocals were also velvety smooth. Changing filters did very little or nothing that we could hear at the top end. The power conditioner (NDS) had made a significant difference as well, it opened up the soundstage bringing the musicians closer to you.

Without controlled double blind testing, there is no way to rule out cognitive bias. Plenty to read about the subject on this forum, if you're interested.

Measurements only tell half the story. With the right DAC, it will add realism to your music.

Measurements don't tell stories. Music tells stories. Measurements help us to understand what a piece of electrical equipment is doing.

 

[Killingbeans]

IMHO, ESS Sabre DACs are clinical, it left me feeling fatigued after half an hour of listening, while the AKM DACs have this velvety sound.

It's amazing what marketing can do. Just cook up a concept called 'velvet sound' and let people's imagination take care of the rest

 

[SIY]

It's amazing what marketing can do. Just cook up a concept called 'velvet sound' and let people's imagination take care of the rest

Listening to Velvet Sound
Deep bass lowing
Never a care, that the DAC has more air
Listening to Velvet Sound

 

[highpurityusbcable]

The only clinical thing is an audiofool's mental state.

 

[ahofer]

We did a blind test. 4 musicians and 4 violins. First he played the Stradivarius to memorise the sound. Then he could pick it each time during the test. None of us were able to do that.
We listen with our brain. This can be trained to better hear those differences in the sound.

There are signature sounds on most instruments. Most string instruments have “wolf” tones, where the instrument has a peculiar resonance or deadness. There are also different frequency emphases on each instrument due to finish, age of wood, bridge characteristics. This doesn’t surprise me at all, especially from someone who knows what notes and fingerings he is hearing. It’s very different to hear a bunch of instruments, cold, and pick out which one is a Strad, although they have enough peculiar and measurable sound contours that scientists have been able to artificially age wood to emulate them.


https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/science/stradivari-violin-wood.html?referringSource=articleShare

 

[JustJones]

No idea if this has been posted here before. Some musings on old vs new.

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents....verall, and in head-to,playing was old or new.

 

[Maki]

There's a reason why tons of Topping DACs flood the used market, because people are dissatisfied by how they sound.

Surely it's not because popular products tend to appear proportionally more in the used market, no way that could happen.

 

[RobS]

If the products were good, you would hardly see any on the used market.

It's always telling when you see a lot of the same products for sale used, there's a correlation of folks being unsatisfied with their performance.

 

[Maki]

If the products were good, you would hardly see any on the used market.

It's always telling when you see a lot of the same products for sale used, there's a correlation of folks being unsatisfied with their performance.

Yes, which is why you never see i7s or Ryzens on ebay. Oh wait...