Not a lot of DAC talk on here...

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by The Alchemist, Oct 10, 2015.

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  1. tiberiantwilight

    tiberiantwilight New

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    hi purrin, musical brightness aside, would the yggdrasil be a sensible upgrade over the m920? i'm planning to purchase the Yggdrasil in a year or 2 and keep my m920 as a dedicated headphone amp.
     
  2. tiberiantwilight

    tiberiantwilight New

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    got my m920 for $1395 from massdrop...currently using it with a pair of lcd-2fs.
    no real complaints so far, the sound is detailed and precise. there is a bit of brightness with badly recorded music but nothing out of line.
     
  3. blackships

    blackships Friend

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    How big a jump would I get going from a GOV2 to a Bifrost Multibit? I'm currently running the GOV2 into a Project Polaris and have been toying with getting a Bifrost Multibit later this year, but will probably skip it if I won't see much in the way of real gains.
     
  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Most likely it will be a significant upgrade. I don't know how you will react or have heard other good multi-bit DAC. The timbre of the R2R or R-string DACs is very different from DS DACs, especially most Sabre based stuff.
     
  5. Luckbad

    Luckbad Traded in a unicorn for a Corolla

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    You're already in the territory at which you will rarely, if ever, see "real" gains. The Bifrost Multibit is quite good, but it's only marginally better into a Project Polaris than an Emotiva Big Ego, which isn't as good as the GOV2.

    From where you stand right now, you'll only ever see incremental improvements.

    I now have an Audio-GD Master-11. It's awesome. I can identify if I'm using a Bifrost Multibit vs. an Audio-GD DAC vs. an Emotiva. Barely. Night and day improvements are a thing of the past once you get up to and beyond something of the GOV2's quality level.

    You have to be stupid and addicted (like me and most of the rest of us here) to keep spending money chasing the last few % of sound unless you have extra cash lying around.

    To answer the actual question: You'd probably hear less than 5% improvement. I think you could tell a little bit of a difference because Sabre dacs tend to be a little on the bright side. Between my decent Burr Brown DACs (e.g. Emotiva Big Ego) and the Bifrost Multibit, I knew which one I was listening to on the right setup, but not with the Project Ember II or Polaris and JVC HA-DX2000s (I need a more resolving amp like the Audio-GD Roc and more resolving headphones like the Sennheiser HD650 to reliably ID the different DACs).
     
  6. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    So are these really the best multibit dac chips?

    Burr-Brown PCM63
    Analog Devices AD1862
    UltraAnalog D20400

    I have one with 4x PCM63 chips & it definitely made everything better from my previous iFi Mico iDSD. Much more separation, air, small details & bass definition.
    Would a AD1862 or D20400 give a better sound?
    I think purrin said the D20400 sounded veiled to the PCM63 in his thread on Head-fi.
     
  7. Luckbad

    Luckbad Traded in a unicorn for a Corolla

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    It's all subjective. I love Burr-Brown chips more than any I've heard, but I've only heard a handful of the top tier multibit/R-2R dac chips.

    It'll vary if you prefer NOS or oversampled as well. I know @Hands did a lot of searching for the perfect NOS DAC chip and landed on TDA1541A, but he's a NOS guy and most aren't.

    Others love the Analog Devices AD5791BRUZ (because Yggdrasil). I believe one or more of the Schiit guys thinks the PCM63 is the best DAC chip of all time--perhaps other than their AD stuff.
     
  8. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    What's the main differnce in sound from a NOS vs oversampled DAC?
    I'll probably be getting a DAC with the TDA1541 chip soon to make a A/B comparison.
     
  9. HitmanFluffy

    HitmanFluffy Hoping to see real genitals someday!

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    Broadly speaking NOS DAC's tend to be warm and overly smooth, often at the expense of fine details. In many of them there is a discernible treble roll-off.
     
  10. Luckbad

    Luckbad Traded in a unicorn for a Corolla

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    That's true of most NOS. They're hard to implement well, and you're unlikely to find a NOS dac under $1000 that's worth trying.

    You need extremely low jitter, so it's costly even before you get into the DAC section (I'll eventually get a nice USB -> S/PDIF converter to further improve jitter on my DAC for this reason).

    Hopefully the expert (@Hands) can jump in with more info.

    I had a NOS dac from Audio-GD. The NOS-1704 uses PCM1704UK chips. Admittedly it's a bit soft in the treble area and not ultra detailed, but it's a good listen.

    Now I have an Audio-GD Master-11. NOS is just a capability of its DAC section (it's usually 8x oversampled), and it also uses the PCM1704UK chip.

    However, NOS mode with the M11 is only rolled in the treble by 0.25dB at 20Hz! It's a much better NOS mode than his earlier NOS-1704. Same chip, same company, better NOS.

    If you have the scratch, the Master-11 or 7 are great to try NOS mode with because you can pretty directly compare the differences on the same DAC.
     
  11. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    Here comes my usual spiel based on my own experiences. I've heard enough non-oversampling DACs to know they're not all warm and overly smooth. ;) Some are pretty lean and agile. Some are pretty rough sounding. Some are warm. Some are smooth. What I have found is that it's very difficult to find a non-oversampled DAC that is pretty balanced sounding across the board. Most of them have major trade offs, which some can live with, but most cannot. That's why I went on a crazy hunt for the NOS DAC that would be perfect for me.

    Personally, I don't find the treble roll-off on non-oversampled DACs paired with redbook or similar content to be THAT noticeable subjectively. I know some people see -3dB at 20KHz and freak out. In my experience, most of the music I listen to doesn't have a ton of content above the 15-16KHz area, so it's not some drastic difference. Don't get me wrong...there is an audible difference, but nothing that jumps out at you and screams severe treble roll-off. To me, it is a slightly pleasant way to give music a bit more ease at most, but I'd even consider than an overstatement.

    Nice thing is, non-oversampled really benefits from "high-res" content. That is, music with a higher sampling rate. It actually matters with NOS. This moves the treble roll-off higher up in the spectrum, so to speak, and due to the sample-and-hold nature of the DACs, increases the number of samples or "steps" in the signal. For anyone that has seen the stair-stepped sine wave output on NOS, essentially this makes those steps finer and more numerous. Alternatively, I like to think of NOS giving you a sort of blank slate to play around with tons of different software upsampling filters to find something that really suits your tastes. For example, the upsampling filter in XXHighEnd is built around the idea of no filter ringing and was designed with NOS in mind. Too bad the software is about as unintuitive and ugly as software can be. Some people prefer NOS DACs coupled with software upsampling. Some don't. Most just simply prefer an oversampled DAC and leave it at that.

    If you have a top-tier multibit chip with good accuracy and a top-tier non-oversampled implementation surrounding it, you can get a damn good sound. If you have a chip with inherently weird subjective characteristics, or worse, crappy accuracy (i.e. TDA1543, the chips Metrum used in the Quad, Octave, and Hex, and so on), you'll get a noticeable drop in resolving power and detail retrieval or other undesirable sonic traits. The 1704 is a pretty good chip, but something about it sounded artificial in the treble when I heard it in a NOS DAC.

    Once you move into the realm of TOTL non-oversampled DACs, you'll be able to eek out most of the fine details and resolving power that you'd find in TOTL oversampled DACs. I do agree that it's probably near impossible to get quite at that level of oversampling in that regard (you can get very close, IME, but it's tough), but I find non-oversampling to have positive subjective qualities that oversampling does not FOR ME. Can't repeat enough that this is based on my experiences, my tastes, and that I'm very much so in the minority. That's why I recommend good oversampling DACs for the vast majority of people, because I know where I stand when it comes to this stuff.

    So, let me generalize how I view the strengths and weaknesses of non-oversampled vs. oversampling when considering some of the best DACs I've heard.

    Oversampled - Generally better retrieval of the smallest details, larger stage (primarily in width), easier to get a sense of air, easier to get a greater sense of separation and imaging, tends to sound a bit tighter in the lower register (but not always), instruments and vocals sound more flat and on a two-dimensional plane, transients are ever so slightly smeared (could be placebo). This is totally subjective, but even when I feed NOS high sampling rate content to negate the treble roll-off, I get listening fatigue much faster with the vast majority of oversampling DACs than NOS for some reason. Also, I noticed a lot of oversampled DACs make things like nylon guitars sound like the string have a bit of metal in them (i.e. less correct with timbre or whatever). I tend to prefer the tone/timbre on non-oversampled DACs, but, really, NOS was the best thing that's happened to me for this inexplicable listening fatigue I would get no matter what other things I tried to change in my gear chain.

    Non-oversampled - Generally gives vocals and instruments more body/weight/presence/internal air (I know "internal air" probably makes no sense) along with making them sound like actual three-dimensional objects...not flattened against a 2D plane. Vocals actually sound real to me on NOS, less so on OS. Smaller, sometimes squashed soundstage (not always squashed, but almost always smaller - though more sphere like to me, where as OS sounds more like, again, a wider 2D plane). Can lack some of the last bit of air, but, again, not always. Transients seem to be sharper and easier to differentiate. Better sense of music rhythm and micro-dynamics (or, in my mind, how quickly the DAC transitions to the minute black spaces in between the notes). May or may not have extra warmth, but it does seem more NOS designs than not trend towards extra warmth. Does wonders for my listening fatigue even when you feed it high-res content to correct for treble roll-off.

    Those are just my experiences. See, I have very particular tastes and needs, so non-oversampled DACs work really well for me. The way I see it, I hear pros and cons on either side. I just had to go with whatever worked best for me and connected me to my music. Isn't that what it's all about? Thing is, I know some people are more connected with their music in different ways than I am. Some hear the smaller NOS stage or the slight treble roll-off, and that kills it for them. Some might hear those absolute tiniest details not be quite as present, and that kills it for them. Some look at measurements and scream, "NOT TEXTBOOK PERFECT!" and that kills it for them.

    Really, it all just comes down to the journey and figuring out what resonates most with you. Most people prefer oversampling DACs, and for perfectly legitimate reasons that in theory make more sense than most of the non-oversampling marketing garbage. I just happened to find my tastes go against the grain in that regard, but I'm not naive about what most others look for.

    Anyway, I've said all this before, and I'll probably say it again in the future. Those are my generalized NOS vs OS DAC thoughts.

    I'd be curious if some of the local Colorado guy would share their brief thoughts on the Audial Model S (non-oversampled) DAC I brought to the recent Denver and Boulder meets. They gave me a few interesting thoughts in person that I think others might benefit to know as well, since they're not as biased as I am on this topic.
     
  12. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    Nice write up. That pretty much summed up for what I was looking for!
    NOS seems like the sound signature I'm looking for.
    Too bad it's so hard to search for NOS dac as most don't even mention that in their description pages.
     
  13. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    I would still suggest trying to find local people or go to meets where you might be able to listen to a NOS DAC and do some comparisons. Most are better served by oversampling. There are a couple cheapy TDA1543 NOS DACs that can give you a glimpse into the NOS sound, but even that might not be the best way to approach it if you're curious.
     
  14. Kamikazi

    Kamikazi Friend

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    The reports on the new AKM DACs are quite encouraging. We have an opportunity to get early access to some of the new NuPrime Audio gear. Their soon to be launched DAC-9 looks like it will be based on the AKM 4490. Should be worth a go? Otherwise perhaps worth waiting to see whether Schiit will release some updates, but then it becomes a tough decision, I'd always go for the multi-bit option over any D-S.

    Btw, nice feedback Hands. Generally that's one of the issues with recommending NOS DACs, their sonic signatures are all over the place. I was convinced most of them sounded rolled off and not as detailed as their modern sigma delta equivalents, till I heard the Theta DS Pro Gen V. It wiped the floor with most high end DACs I've heard so far.
     
  15. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    NOS = non-oversampling, not new old stock. ;) (Theta Gen Va is an oversampling DAC.)
     
  16. hifi01170

    hifi01170 Acquaintance

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    Which NOS dac would you recommend ? Let's say something equivalent to the geekout v2 but among NOS dacs?
     
  17. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    You mean like in terms of price range, form factor and function, or general sonic characteristics?
     
  18. UltraShock

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    Some DACs are unclear whether they are NOS or not. For example my E-MU units feature 128x oversampling on the DA stage, but it's unclear whether or not it oversampled unless you specify it in software settings. Otherwise people online argue about whether it oversamples or not when used as a standalone DAC.
     
  19. Ferrum

    Ferrum Acquaintance

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    I had a Ontech DAC based on the AD1865 chip with a very precise clock and giant power supply. Never heard anything better then or after. I had a few meets at my home and almost every one who visited bought one. Resolving power, voice and transients was its best parts, very addictive.Sadly it lacked all modern connections so I had to sell it when I moved to a computer source.

    I tried and heard many, many 1541 based dacs both DIY and commercial products. I'm yet to hear anything that sounds good for me, they lack resolution, sub bass and top end and that's a big no, no for me. Talked to a owners of those dacs and they are not bothered by that, they say it makes it easier to concentrate on the music. Good for them , but not my cup of tea.

    cheers
    Ferrum
     
  20. hifi01170

    hifi01170 Acquaintance

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    In terms of price range and overall positionning like in marvey's chart.... maybe a similar chart for nos dacs would be helpful! :)
     
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