SBAF DAC Talk II

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by Maxx134, Jul 22, 2018.

  1. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    My extremely limited experience with DACs is just this ^ : 'tissshhh' vs 'tish' or 'ting' from, among others but most notably, the NPC DAC in my CD player vs coax out from the same player to Modi Multibit. When I first heard the difference I thought I understood what "DS hash" (a term I think I first saw used by Psalm) means; though the comparison might be a bit extreme, as somebody (IIRC @bazelio ; apologies if not) described Modi Multibit cymbals as "coming from inside a cave".

    I don't think it can be tonality sensu stricto (eg the Modi Multibit doesn't measure with a big drop in the treble nor the CD63-II with a big rise); but I couldn't tell you what other characteristic or process is responsible.

    Evidently there are many DS DACs that don't do this, or at least not as badly, but my impression is still that most people who'd describe themselves as sensitive to "treble fuckery" prefer multibit. Or am I way off base and need to hear better examples of both species?
     
  2. skem

    skem Friend

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    FWIW, this treble-fuckery/etched/over-attack I speak of reminds me of Mytek’s glass shards, but is coming from an R-2R!
     
  3. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    You are not the only one that struggled with the A2 change with Gungnir Multibit. Yggdrasil A2 has some things similar to OG Gungnir Multibit, but it is still brighter with less warmth and body through the upper bass and midband than either of the Gumbys. But it has so many other great aspects it brings to the table. I finally let Gungnir Multibit A2 go. Long live King Yggdrasil.
     
  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Stand in front of a drum kit. Stay there for a bit. Have a casual conversation with someone, the guitar player, the bar owner. Then the drummer smacks a crash cymbal that just happens to be behind your head.

    I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but I can say that such things do come with a bit of shock. That's what the Convert-2 gets closer to doing than most other DACs. It's not a comfortable feeling, but IMO, it's more real.

    The Mytek? That's where every instrument with the fundamental notes from the female voice upward, violins, guitar, harp, you name it, has this nasty nasty hard glare and sharpness.

    There is always sibilance to varying extent in recordings. The Eagles live Hotel CA track, Glen Fry spits sibilants all over the place. Same with Alanis' Unplugged album. Now add to that natural sibilance (they should be mastered / EQ'd better) a strange sheen, a hard glare, a unnaturally sharp edge that causes pain. That is the Mytek Stereo DSD.

    To this day, I still remember @LFF staring at me after 5 seconds of this. I knew what he was thinking: WTF are we being subjected to this?
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2019
  5. westermac

    westermac Friend

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    Gungnir Multibit A2 does best with some warmth in the chain (which could certainly cause trouble for those whose OG Gungnir Multibit WAS the warmth in their chain). Its treble is smooth but not to the extent that is generally expected of Multibit DACs - it's not going to pull any punches if your favorite recording has nasty treble.

    I was previously running it in a pretty neutral system (Vidar > Dynaudio M1) and something had to give. Swapped out the Vidar for a B&K ST2140 and now it's just right; the treble is still clear but I can tolerate the crappier recordings that I love. If I ever lose my soul and strictly listen to audiophile recordings of solo harp I will go back to a more neutral system (or when I lose enough of my high frequency hearing).
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2019
  6. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    I seem to sense that a general leanness exacerbates the harshness/etch in the highs and sibilants. In terms of leanness it's not just tonal, but a sense of body in the instruments/sounds that's deflated, almost like they're dried up (for lack of a better term). Soekris is in this space by having uncanny separation, but without the more dessicated body of say my V30. This dessication could be manifesting as a tonal difference in the mids and etch in the treble.

    This stuff is hard to describe.
     
  7. skem

    skem Friend

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    I have a theory for what I’m hearing on this R-2R DAC that makes it so grating to my ears... I think it’s odd-order harmonic distortion. And I bet it comes from the glitch energy associated with the MSB shifts, since it’s actually a 12-bit ladder with a shifting voltage rail. I’m going to dig more into this. Could also be a bad push-pull analog stage.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2019
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Some R2R DACs I've heard can be strident.

    Glitches from bit flips in the MSBs are no more than bit flips in LSBs. It's how many bits flip at once.
     
  9. Priidik

    Priidik MOT: Estelon

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    My bet is that clock quality is key here; especially for Sigma-Delta, where level is more dependent on clock than for multibit.
    With some dacs I get this 'imaging fatigue', feels like strings are drawn through the brain, ear-to-ear.

    It's a can of worms, hahahaa. It could even be the vref for the ladder that is wimpy or noisy psu.
    Filters can do this, too.
    I'm still rocking the original DIY Soekris board and it can sound between sandblaster penetration to Lindt chocolate smooth with different math.
     
  10. Don Quichotte

    Don Quichotte New

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    But... I thought that with the A2 revision Gungnir Multibit and Yggdrasil swapped places in terms of warmth and body?!

    I actually bought the Gungnir Multibit (A2 version, I'm pretty sure, considering the match to the sound description I'm reading here) and returned it after heartbreaking deliberations - mainly because I wanted a bit more midbass weight / punch, better HF extension and blacker background. I was considering trying an Yggdrasil A2 some day towards the end of the year, Should I reconsider?
     
  11. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Probably depends on your definition of warm. Warmth to me is not just emphasized bass, it needs to add body to the mids as well, otherwise it just sounds like bass bloat. Yggdrasil doesn’t do this compared to Gungnir Multibit A2 in my system at least. Male and female vocals don’t sound more full or chesty on Yggdrasil, in fact I find the opposite compared to Gungnir Multibit A2. Perhaps there is another terms for this than warm. Body perhaps.

    At any rate, Yggdrasil does/can have a bit of a emphasized bottom end compared to Gungnir Multibit A2, but I mainly found this using the SPDIF input, not USB.

    What is consistent with Yggdrasil for me over Gungnir Multibit A2 is this:
    - more slam/ punch at all frequencies (aka stronger dynamics)
    - blacker background, way more instrument seperation
    - less forward, more expansive, larger soundstage, better imaging, better layering
    - more extension at both ends
    - wetter delivery (quicker/smoother attacks, longer/smoother decay) vs Gungnir Multibit A2 which I find drier/blunter - this is more similar to Gungnir Multibit A1 for me.
    - plankton/microdetail/atmosphere like nothing else - just crazy resolution

    I had a hard time with the loss of body/weight/density through the midband going from Gungnir Multibit to Yggdrasil, but I’ve gotten used to it now, and everything else that I mention above makes it impossible for me to go back. Especially with my new speakers, which puts Yggdrasil’s resolution and soundstage on display better than my previous speakers, which I realize now, crushed a lot of these details.
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2019
  12. zonto

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    What speakers are you using now? You still owe us your bookshelf monitor shootout post. ;)
     
  13. Slaphead

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    This ^^^^

    You come for the bass, then you relish the treble, but you stay for the midrange.

    A midrange with a good body is to die for. Too often I've heard a full impactful lower bass and a bright clear treble, but only to have a midrange that's either a hard upper, almost screeching, midrange, or a muddy lump of a midrange due to excess mid bass bleed.

    IMO those extremes are typically demonstrated more by the transducer rather than the DAC/Amp, but the wrong DAC/Amp with the wrong transducer just exacerbates the situation.
     
  14. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    "Body" "Meat on the bones" "Heft"

    What frequency(ies) these translate to I don't know, but I know it when I hear it.
     
  15. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Body is often just unclean bass, upper bass bleed into the lower mids, saturation, or compression. Neither Gungnir Multibit is very neutral here. Marshall amps don’t honk and pop on them.

    I perceived the Gungnir Multibit 1 as fairly cohesive and warm from bass to treble with the midrange veiled and everything overdamped. It sounded if the signal had been run through a colored compressor (1176, SSL master bus, certain plugins) to give it cohesion and uniformity but of course way way less distorted but maybe more veiled than those. Almost like a two way speaker made to go low and warming mids over like Kh120, HS8, or all the massive two way floorstanders I’ve heard. This compression and cohesion was the Gungnir Multibit 1’s strongest attribute and did sound good with certain recordings or if you dug that sound.

    Gungnir Multibit 2 is more open, wider staged and v shaped. The bass and treble were let loose. Bass is fatter and more “rounded”, treble more dynamic but not much more detailed, but the mids are still compressed and now have perceived bass bleed. It didn’t gel as well altogether. I didn’t like it as much as the original. Mids are a weakness rather than the weakness (v shaped warm two way that goes too low sound almost this time) being the overall “sound” so it’s a harder sell. Not that I love

    Lavry Black has great body without bleed but the bass is totally different, less rounded but warmer dare I say, mushier than other non lean Pro boxes, and the treble is unmolested by euphonic considerations. Mids and staging not compressed and detail is much better but it doesn’t have that “glue it all together” effect of Gungnir Multibit 1. The Yggdrasil 1 didn’t either. The Lavry mids are just much better and much more normal overall but USB seriously sucks on it and it is about 500 USD overpriced (versus 300ish for the Gungnir Multibit)

    If you’ve only heard Schiit Gungnir Multibit and perceive its mids as truly normal or right, you’ll never get why my example of the Lavry mids are better Despite the warm as hell bass without an ab comparison of Gungnir Multibit to something less colored on a setup that will actually reveal the differences. HD 650 and JBL 305 will have a harder time.
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2019
  16. EagleWings

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    As the term Body is quite subjective and is open to interpretation, depending on the individual’s definition of the term, it can be either good or bad. What Psalm refers to as body in his first paragraph, is what I would refer to as bloom. So, in my books, bloom is bad. Good example is the stock HD650. I see body as the necessary fullness in the midrange notes. So, per my definition, body is good or at least preferable.

    The right amount of body is achieved through:
    1) Right balance between the bass, mids and treble. Boosting the treble will decrease the body and vice-versa. Boosting the bass alone with either result in a darker or muddy sound. So all three ranges have to be in line, within an acceptable limit.

    2) Right balance between the lower-mids, center-mids and upper-mids*. Dialing down the upper-mids can result in more body. But the center-mids has to be intact, else, lower-mids will start to dominate and make the sound bloomy and wooly. But reducing the upper-mids too much will start affecting the solidity/density of the midrange notes.

    If you prefer a slightly fuller body than neutral, without being affected much by bloom, then a very-slight and gradual downward slope from the bass down to the treble, with a touch of sub-bass roll-off and upper-treble roll-off will give you that.

    All this is just oversimplification. But basically, with the right balance between the frequency ranges, you can rest assured that you will have sufficient body.

    * Lower-mids: 400hz - 800Hz; Centre-mids: 800Hz - 1kHz; Upper-mids: 1kHz - 5kHz
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2019
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    300 to 700Hz give or take.

    And what @EagleWings said about balance below and after that range.


    Upper bass / cloud region. 150-300Hz give or take. Bloom as in "300B tube bloom", which is this part, even though everyone calls it 300B "midrange bloom" - but part of this bloom does extend into the mids. Also known rather derisively (or affectionately depending upon personal preferences) on SBAF as "warmpoo" if too much.
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2019
  18. skem

    skem Friend

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    This describes the PSA DS dac
     
  19. taisserroots

    taisserroots Friend

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    I mean I can see why people call it midrange bloom, since a lot of fundamentals still come from here, especially with deeper vocals.
     
  20. Don Quichotte

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    @rlow
    Thank you for your detailed answer! I kind of need a rather full-bodied sound for my Stax 3030, otherwise they sound too ethereal / anemic, but the rest of your description makes Yggdrasil A2 an enticing proposition for me...
     

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