Will the AK4499EX successor come out in 2025?

[voodooless]

We are kinda going off the topic, but I gave them a list of DACs I wanted to hear and told them to mix them up in any order for me to hear it, I just took some notes on each dac after listening to it. I was quite excited to try the R2R dacs like the Topping Centaurus and the Topping D90 discrete

So level matching then?

 

[tyanlion]

So level matching then?

Well I told them to make sure everything was the same sound wise apart from the dac, sounded leveled to me. They ran it through the amp which had the same level db the whole time

 

[Randyman...]

So level matching then?

Well I told them to make sure everything was the same sound wise apart from the dac, sounded leveled to me. They ran it through the amp which had the same level db the whole time

Doesn't "sound" like it

 

[tyanlion]

Doesn't "sound" like it

lol

 

[voodooless]

lol

It’s not lol. It means your little experiment was totally pointless.

 

[tyanlion]

It’s not lol. It means your little experiment was totally pointless.

Lol. Yes I am sure it doesn't hit your high and mighty standards.

 

[voodooless]

Lol. Yes I am sure it doesn't hit your high and mighty standards.

It’s not a high standard. Proper level matching is the bare minimum that is needed for such tests. This has been proven time and time again: level differences trump any other audible differences in these devices by a wide margin.

 

[oleg87]

Lol. Yes I am sure it doesn't hit your high and mighty standards.

If basic controls are "high and mighty standards" you might be on the wrong forum

 

[Randyman...]

Lol. Yes I am sure it doesn't hit your high and mighty standards.

It is the very-fallible human perceptions that get fooled with minute level mis-matches - even in the .5dB range. There is nothing "wrong" with your method of auditioning DAC's - it just wasn't level matched for the best chance of being totally valid w/o a subconscious volume bias (louder is almost always experienced as being better - even if you think {are told} the levels are identical).

 

[Mnyb]

Not really high and mighty .

We have this tread where all DAC's sound diffrent fud eventually ends up

Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?

I know there are people out there that think cables affect sound, which is much worse, but there really is no response to something like that, but just to smile and nod. But what about people who talk about DACS as if they were headphone drivers or speakers, and talk about the SOUNDSTAGE...

www.audiosciencereview.com

tldr .

Of course a really badly designed DAC can potentially sound different .

But if you in any experiment managed to get two reasonable well designed DAC's to sound different . You made an experimental error it's a simple as that .
They do not sound different . its like being "the one" in the matrix if you actually heard differences, not very likely .

Main obstacles , sighted not double blind, not close enough level match ( use volt meter not spl meter acoustically ) and picked different filters , for some reason both ESS and AKM provides some filters that's not transparent and does not fulfill the requirements of the sample theorem.

 

[voodooless]

I think your OP question is fair, and there is no need to justify asking the question.

It’s not about justifying the question. Anyone can ask almost anything they like. This is about understanding the context of the question. Meanwhile, the real question was the very first sentence of the OP:

I was wondering if now is a good time to invest in a high end AK dac,

And this is what most sensible answers focuses on and rightfully concluded that it’s basically never a good time to invest in a high-end DAC, because it’s been a solved problem for decades. So this:

We are kinda going off the topic,

Isn’t off-topic at all. Because the belief that DACs sound different is the whole reason why the question came up in the first place.

 

[Scrivs]

Hey tianlion!

Be kool like me, getan RME!

 

[nanook]

Tbh its more of getting value for your money, if I change out the neuman speaker system I have, for speakers with no dacs inside, the better dac it would be better. Whether that may or may not be perceptible in the future is a point that can be debated in the future.

I have said time and time again on this thread not to search for underlying causes for what I want to do but people just don't seem to understand that and keep digging on the kh80 and kh750. I feel I should have just said some non-dac speakers just to remove this problem.

"I don't think anyone knows when those AK DACs will be available. " I feel if people really don't have any idea here which is suprising. I actually thought I would recieve some sort of answer in the first few post.

Just to be clear I am gonna explcitly state this for any further posters on this thread to stick to the topic. Take it as I want to change my Neuman's to something else with no dacs in them and then try to answer the question.

It's quite obvious that no one reading this thread knows - including you.
AKM would be stupid to share rumours about a new top-of-the-line chip as this would screw up their current sales and make their customers really unhappy because their products will start to gather dust.

I for one am fed up - people here try to help you get the optimum sound for little money and you just keep complaining that we don't know what AKM is going to do.

And yes, I don't know either.

 

[nanook]

It’s not a high standard. Proper level matching is the bare minimum that is needed for such tests. This has been proven time and time again: level differences trump any other audible differences in these devices by a wide margin.

I just can emphasise the argument of proper level matching. 0.2dB louder does not sound louder - it just sounds a little better, punchier, etc.

For those interested:

Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

Nowadays you are more likely to get: 'Duck Dunn's bass took me back to a time when I was seventeen, lounging on the porch with the smell of fresh bread baking wafting lazily out of the kitchen window.' Agreed. Plenty of subjective reviewing is awful. Among my biggest pet peeves is when a...

www.audiosciencereview.com