SBAF DAC Talk II

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

  1. sidq

    sidq Acquaintance

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    I don't know many people in the 3D/render workspace but i work in photography + video and everything is mac. I honestly don't think I've seen a non-mac on set or in office in 3 years not including the occasional client with a Thinkpad. For reference I work in mostly commerical advertising + fashion (although I've seen most areas) as a DIT, digitech and retoucher.

    This isn't going to chance anytime soon. not because macs are better, I've had my fair share of issues, but because they're the status quo and everyone that touches your machine knows how to use them. I do think the new 16" is the step in the right direction and will probably pick one up. I am impressed with my Iphone 6 though, I want an 11 for the camera but it just refuses to die.

    My current schtick with Apple is the XDR display, I'll need to upgrade my monitors soon and was hoping it would be a cheap alternative to a Flanders or Sony but by all reports the local dimming and haloing is a nightmare. I know a couple of colorists who have already returned them. I can't believe they touted it as "for professional use" when it blooms worse than a $200 gaming monitor.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2020
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Bet you these photographers and video guys won't be buying the new Mac Pro tower for $6999.

    The small independents in post are using their old Mac trash cans (higher end) or buying iMacs if they need something new.
     
  3. sidq

    sidq Acquaintance

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    I know 2 indy digitechs who have bought them already but the lions share of photographers need laptops and MacBook pros are fast enough. Photography isn’t particularly taxing.

    I see lots of trashcans rack mounted on location for film work, these will eventually get replaced by cheese graters but they aren’t in any rush.

    In video world 7k is chump change where even on small productions you have several hundred K of equipment. Blow the light bulb on a big HMI light? That’s $1000 thanks.

    I’m not wealthy and don’t own any of this shit like that hilarious Bernie Madoff dude with his home studio, but I work around the target market every day and i think I’ll see quite a few new MP in the coming years.

    Most middle of the road post houses in London seem to use imacs for a GUI screen, connected to a Sony / FSI / Eizo etc for serious work.
     
  4. neogeosnk

    neogeosnk Friend

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    Eagerly awaiting the Sonnet Morpheus impressions/review/loaner. 6Moons review was horrible.
     
  5. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    The compactness, reliability and bus-powered are what sell it for me. I've missed having the Echo2usb; if that thing worked on Win10 I'd still be using it. The Clarett 2Pre is a little too chunky to take in the bag, and then I need AC power on top of that. I figure at home I can just use the Babyface optical output into my Lyra.

    If I decide to try Rednet, I don't actually need the lowest latencies. Still worth it plugged straight ethernet with the Dante virtual whatchamacallit? Or what about the Rednets but using thunderbolt?
     
  6. redrich2000

    redrich2000 Facebook Friend

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    Thought this might interest some of you... An Australian audio youtuber (not me) has just posted a 4-part interview with Rob Watts from Chord Electronics talking about his approach to making DACs. Here's the first part.

     
  7. EagleWings

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    Having never heard a Vinyl source or a good NOS DAC, I could never relate to people complaining about the presence of treble glare/grain in digital systems. I think for the first time, I might have caught a glimpse of, what the lack of treble glare could sound like.

    As I am constantly traveling, I preferred to have a portable DAC/Amp or a DAP, which could double as a DAC in my desktop system. Which is why I had been using the Hugo2 and last week I picked up a Cayin N8. My desktop chain is:

    MacBook (JRMC) > DAC > EC BW2 > HD800SDR and LCDi4

    Going from from Hugo2 to the N8, seems like a veil of treble glare is removed and acoustic instruments and vocals sound more natural and realistic. Other differences are, N8 sounds more punchy, dynamic and slightly fuller, whereas the Hugo2 sounds a bit more detailed and zippy. Stage dimensions, airiness, layering and separation are within the ballpark of each other.

    Now I am interested in picking up desktop DAC that is free of this treble glare shit. A large soundstage is a must and the unit should NOT require long warm-up time. My budget is $1500 tops. Given my requirements, please point me toward a couple of options I could look into.
     
  8. Firegon

    Firegon New

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    I'm also (impatiently) waiting for some Morpheus impressions. DPD decided to play baseball with my Yggy2, so I need to find a replacement relatively soon. And the 6moons review ... well it exists, that's about all I can say.

    As for the Hugo2 replacement: You could try to go for the MHDT Orchid and try to find the Bendix 6385 Red Bank - that thing gives a huge soundstage. Possible upgrades also include swapping the TDA1541 to S1 or S2 if You really care. But it is a tube DAC, so it needs some warmup time to sound decent. Also, Hugo2 will outperform it when it comes to detail/resolution.
    Used Yggdrasil would also be a decent choice except it doesn't have a great soundstage. It's fine, but certainly not large.

    Can't say anything about lower Denafrips, Metrum and Soekris1421/1541 as I've never heard them.
     
  9. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    What else have you owned or heard besides the Hugo 2? Anything R2R is likely going to need SOME warm up time to sound it’s best, but there’s no need to get too worked up about it in most cases I think.
     
  10. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    The Red interfaces are Mac only. Very good like Metric Halo and Apogee but Mac only. Rednet is both windows and PC and you need the card to get acceptable latency for recording. DVS is solid but not as immune to bullshit like the card. I don't know how fast the card is but it is totally immune to bullshit plugins like a Lynx or RME PCIe card.

    There is nothing else bus powered close to as good. The Babyface Pro is a brick of solid aluminum that comes with a carrying case. There is just no flexibility with it beyond getting an ADAT pre. You can't even record a full band with it in any setup. There's not enough expansion for a band in the room recording and a lot of bands can only play all together at once and you just gotta record all the bleed and deal with it. Separate them and they start f'ing up because that's not how they practice.

    The MOTU M2 and M4 are the next ones in bus powered land. Definitely better conversion than RME from the mic pre test @philipmorgan sent me but reliability? Who knows. They're new products. RME cleaned up the treble nastiness and got rid of the analog parts that cause IMD but the whole sound is basically a cleaned up version of lofi solid state pro gear and budget hifi with nasty caps and poorly coupled op amps in the signal path. The lack of proper weight, the midrange with no depth, hollow but forward upper mids, etc. There's no meat. Lynx, MOTU, and Focusrite all cleaned up their act. UAD is cleaning up their act. Apogee stopped behind stupid like with the Duets, Symphony I, and og Ensemble. RME is a few generations behind in sound. Once Thunderbolt and ethernet protocols get further developed and more widespread, they're fucked. The Focusrite and RME Dante cards are expensive because they are pretty much ethernet accelerators that take care of everything for hte computer. Plugging MOTU AVB into a mac with ethernet or using DVS for Focusrite works but is very slow for recording.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2020
  11. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    Chord sucks and NOS mostly sucks. Avoid RME. Consider the Lavry DA 11 or a used Dangerous Convert 2. There are no treble problems in either of them. If anything, the Convert lacks some air but that is it. Otherwise, it kicks ass. The Lavry is warmer and less detailed.
     
  12. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Sorry, off-topic...
    The last time I looked MOTU were making expensive boxes that had a great reputation, but depended on proprietary drivers and were positively hostile towards helping anyone produce anything for Linux. Now I find they are making small, class-compliant boxes that are not expensive. And they are winning praise from you.

    Interesting.
     
  13. EagleWings

    EagleWings Friend

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    Thank you. I was looking into the MHDT DACs before moving back to India, but a Head-Fier warned me against getting one because, apparently the good tubes and chips were becoming harder to come by. So I didn’t take the risk then. I don’t mind sacrificing a little bit of detail and resolution, as long as the performance itself is not a tier below the Hugo2. I’ll look into these again.

    Yggdrasil is not an option because of the need for the warm up to reach its peak performance. Tube warm up should be fine because, we are talking about 30-60 mins. It’s the warming up of DACs like Yggdrasil and Gungnir Multibit that wouldn’t work as we experience power cuts every now and then.

    The 6moons’ review on the Morpheus gave me a headache for four days. Morpheus is out of my budget though.

    Gotcha, thank you. Unfortunately I haven’t been fortunate enough to try even a single highly regarded Destktop DAC, sans the Modi Multibit and Modi 2 and I wasn’t a fan of either. I have tried the Chord Dave as an AIO, but it had the same treble problem. So Chord DACs are not an option for sure.

    Thank you, I’ll look into these 2 DACs.
     
  14. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    MOTU upped their game and started making slightly warm sabre boxes a few years ago without going full Apogee warmbutt. Last year they moved the DA conversion down to the ultralites and now make very cheap bus powered conversion that measures a little worse and probably is a little worse because it's bus powered but compared to other cheap interfaces under 400 bucks or so? They all suck in comparison. The bus powered M2 and M4 are not gonna have the oodles of headroom that the mains powered ones have and have pots in the signal path. You're more likely to clip stuff and run into power issues from your computer. Even the Babyface Pro from RME can run into those. The big boy AVB stuff uses the volume control on the ESS 9016 V2 chip to control the monitor and line outs and has a DSP mixer inside it running on an FGPA with the USB drivers like RME's Totalmix but bigger, slower at 44.1khz, slightly less stable but much better sounding.

    The drivers are solid. The sound smacks RME. You can predict when they will crash unlike with most USB. Don't be stupid.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2020
  15. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Noted, by an ex-RME-fanboy! And affordable... Even to a deaf guy who isn't spending any more on hifi.
     
  16. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Yeah RME just sounds tiny, grainy, and in your face with lack of depth and sharp treble and no warmth. The MOTU has good bass, depth in the midrange, and decent treble and some warmth. The headroom is much better too on the AVB boxes. RME is easy to clip stuff and when run hot (not even clipped) RME boxes mostly get nasty. Clip them and you die.

    RME also has the import markup in the USA combined with the third party distributor markup before even hitting dealers. You end up paying more in the USA than even "Apple premium" type brands like Apogee and get worse sound. Other brands like SPL have this too but they sound good.
     
  17. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I was talking with a supplier and they were saying that MOTU just sucks on windows though? That's why I leaned into the RME (plus my experience with the ADI-2 Pro was generally quite favourable).

    @ultrabike can you shove all our dac talk into the dac thread so we don't muddy up the schlongs?
     
  18. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Moved some post here. Carry on... :)
     
  19. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Maybe the Metrum Onyx? I had it for a while and found it fairly forgiving in the treble. The other reasons why you like the N8 sounds similar to the Onyx vs the Mojo for me, which I also owned for a while. I never really paid much attention to the warmup time with the Onyx while I had it though, because I just sort of assumed it would take a while, so I just left it on all the time. Is leaving the DAC on all the time not an option for you?

    @msommers or @Magnetostatic_Tubephile did you notice any warmup time improvements with the Onyx?
     
  20. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    I was going to suggest the Onyx but given "a large soundstage is a must" I can't recommend it. It isn't small but isn't vast either.
     

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