Can you guys really hear huge differences In DACs?

Ok thanks. Remember I’m asking thus the question marks in my posts.
I’m not implying.

Thank you !

 

And the Yggdrasil doesn't measure well either.

 

I have the D20 but your assessment is applicable with it too. It certainly has proven it's not a bottleneck. I owned the "class A" rated MF V90 DAC - it sounded identical, which sounded identical to the DAC in the Parasound Hint - level matched of course. But know that my systems are unresolving and I'm already deaf at 33.

 

With my first outboard DAC (a CAL Alpha), I never connected more than one source to it at a time: My CD transport. But now I have a bunch of different digital sources: My Oppo 103 Vanity HD (connected both via coax and I2S), My Media PC, My HEOS streamer, a Raspberry Pi streamer, My old Sony SACD player, and my Mytek ADC.

So I love having all of those inputs on my PS Audio Direct Stream DAC! Plus it is fun to be able to A/B different types of digital transmission formats.

 

I think if you compare three DAC's at a similar price point they will sound... wait for it.... similar.

A two thousand dollar DAC compared to a one thousand dollar DAC? There you might have some significant changes.

 

Bummer about being deaf but at least that unresolving system thing shouldn’t be too big of a deal.

 

the parasound dac you used prior was also not good, mf also. dont care about class a, meaningless
get a ifi idsd and compare wih your topping. you should hear a clear difference. if not, return it. since your in the staes it should be free.

also worth it to try a NOS R2R but there's none cheap. those sound clearly different then DS dacs. measurements in dac are meaningless, they really dont say enough. please dont believe Amir measurements of Schitt products, he's been shown how he manipulates measurements. flat out dishonest and as a axe to grind toward schiit

 

Sonic differences in DACs is more about the technology and engineering choices in a DAC design than price point.

A $200 and $1000 DAC made by the same company using the same digital filter design and same family of DAC chip are going to sound more similar than two $1000 DACs from different companies that are using significantly different digital filter designs and other engineering choices.

 

So true. I have several DACs that fall into this category: Schiit Bifrost Multibit (NOS at 176.4 & 192), dB Audio Labs Tranquility (NOS), MHDT Lab Pagoda (NOS, tube bufferd), and Chord Qute EX (FPGA). All very different designs and easy to hear differences. I like them all.

 

That’s cool but also doesn’t make sense.

I thought a DAC was supposed to do digital to analog conversion.
What you are saying is that each designer is putting there sound signature in there.

Just a legit observation. Not trying to be difficult.

 

many ways to convert digital to analog, each chip has a sound of its own. then the output stages, then how good is the PSU, isolated from the input, ECT

 

Still doesn’t make sense.
Analog has one sound. What you do with it after is different.

Still sounds like manufacturers are putting there own sound signatures in there.

 

Again not trying to be difficult.

 

I was just going post something similar including the designers themselves. Many ways to skin a DAC.

 

They are. It's what they like and how music should sound to them. Same with every other component being manufactured.

 

Yeah I just thought that as a DAC this component would be a bit less colored.

Speakers are colored, Amps are , preamps..etc. but I thought that the output of the digital info would be the same across the board.

 

Not at all.

 

Analog doesn't have one sound.

For example, there are different ways to do preamps. Different preamps of different designs sound different, even at the same price point. Same with phono preamps.

 

Ok fair enough. Thanks for the info!

 

DACs are supposed to be neutral, but what is neutral? One person's forward sounding is another's laid back, no?

 

Differences in DACs can be dramatic, provided the rest of the system is revealing enough to allow you to hear the difference (and you know what to listen for). IMO, much of some audiophiles’ dislike for digital audio can be chalked up to bad DACs.

A while back I did (level-matched!) comparisons between the “giant killer” (according to some, at least) “perfect measuring” Topping D30 and a few other DACs, ranging from a few $100-$200 dongles to the Yggdrasil. The differences were significant, and the D30 was the worst of the bunch. Flat soundstage, wonky tonality, etc. (When it comes to tonality, the DAC’s filter makes a big difference, IMO.)

As with any equipment, though, if you don’t know what each DAC sounds like first, you’d never pass a blind test, because you don’t know what to listen for. You also need to have a clear idea of what an acoustic guitar or a snare hit sounds like in real life.

And, as noted above, if you’re listening to 192 MP3s on a pair of Beats, you’re wasting your time worrying about a DAC. Upgrade other stuff first. (Not that you need to drop big bucks to hear DAC differences. A decent $100 headphone amp and a pair of HD6XX are more than good enough to notice DAC differences, even if they become more dramatic with more resolving gear.)

 

Yeah I think I got the ears. 30 years guitar, 5 years piano and 2 years violin.
I just have to hear some of this stuff to see what the differences are and my preferences. That’s the problem. Access to a bunch of these.

Thanks man !

 

digital need to be converted. and everything in the path will affect the sound.

its not what you do "after". that actually means nothing, but its how you convert digital to analog. R2R or chip. every chip has different sound, different input requirements. psu around the chip, isolation, digital input, all affect sound

 

Analog has one sound?!? Since when has this ever been true?

FWIW: Some designers certainly are putting their own signatures in there (such as when adding redundant tube output buffers). But other times the actual conversions are truly more linear, and have less in the way of unintentional phase shifts, and less pre-and post-ringing, etc. Some are more and some are less sensitive to jitter. Some omit all analog and digital filtering in an attempt to have zero phase shift and no pre-ringing, but at the cost of MASSIVE amounts of ultrasonic noise, etc.

All DAC designs involve some fundamental trade-offs in terms of performance. But some designs have less of these trade-off than others (or at least subjectively or sometimes measurably better tradeoffs), and other designers believe that their trade-offs are better than anybody else's.

I know that it seems unintuitive, but when you listen to a new DAC and hear information out of your CDs which you know by heart which you have never heard before, or which you have only heard on the very best analog systems, then you will know that you are making progress.

There is a reason why Records have made a resurgence in recent years, and why so many people have disliked the sound of digital for so long. The funny thing is that today I now find that the very best digital and the very best analog sound shockingly similar.

 

The good thing about DACs is that you can find them used on places like Head-Fi at prices low enough that you can try them and break even reselling them if you don’t like them. A budget DAC with selectable filters (like the iFi iDSD Nano or one of the Emotiva Egos) is a good place to start figuring out what you like, IMO. Eventually you can try comparing one of the Schiit Multibit DACs to a Sabre DAC to get a sense of those (big, IMO) sound differences, too.