I’ll believe it once I see it. They said that about their anniversary editions and still they weren’t true NOS.
yeah EC modulators and all. It is a different sound , no question , but it lacks the depth and weight of PCM. To me at least. It does sound bigger and ‘ fuzzier’.
A decade or so back, I wanted an amp that gave me the functionality and connectivity I needed due to the number of sources and codecs I'd begun accessing music through. I auditioned a few amps back then - Harman HK990, Exposure 2010s, Leema Pulse but in the end went with an Onkyo TX-NR818. The Onkyo had DSD, internet radio, all the then main audio codecs aside from DSD, a good tuner, a decent phono stage and - as I was using it in stereo only mode - 120wpc with a decent damping factor. £1000. I got it for a hefty discount, but in truth, it was a fantastic amp. The Exposure was a fine looking thing, as was the Leema - minimalist loveliness you can't fault. The Harman was a tad less impressive - build quality was excellent, a hefty old thing harking back to the muscle amps of the 70s, but seemingly had reliability issues - it ran hot from memory and had onboard fans. Weighed a ton too from memory! So, I think the references to "DACs are the AVRs" - well, that's maybe no bad thing. I had one AVR which acquitted itself well in stereo mode and delivered everything I needed, well, and better than several of the stereo integrateds of the day. These days, I use a Cambridge Audio DACMagic 200M - which, funnily, comes with DSD, MQA and all the rest. It's almost like an AVR of a decade ago and works - and plays - very well.
I spent the evening listening to Sinc-Mx. I might be over the DSD thing. My previous DAC had enough self noise that it masked the HQP modulator noise. The previous unit did sound great with the DSD feed but I may have started a new chapter of R2R PCM, again.
It’s definitely a different sound. But it sounds a bit like distortion to me. It’s softer for sure than PCM and has less depth, but it’s a bit bigger.
Just messing... Wish I can help. I don't know much on that department. There is one thing that I made change besides listening 5 to 10% on digital. I have a node 2i with a built in DAC. It works but I wont use it as a playback for my analog recordings. Since when I bought the Motu M4 wired interface, that's been my playback (for that purpose) since and use it for "home hi fi"playback to reel mastering if I ever have to touch digital. I'm sure that there are others way better. But the sound of the node 2i and motu is light years difference. Other than this I have no use for DAC because 95% of music source and listening are all old school analog. Good luck on the search.
Funny thing is I went into it expecting better things from the DSD section. Before hearing it I had a built in bias against the PCM section thinking it was superfluous to the unit. The DSD section is better than my previous DAC. Better enough that I think I hear the distortion in the DSD conversion. What happens when your expectation bias is broken? Throw it out and start over. Does one need to get to DSD512 to move the noise out if the audio band? Maybe that is the magic that PS Audio found and why they go 10x or 20x DSD. Not sure I'll know that answer anytime soon. Without the ability to go that high with DSD I may be a PCM convert.
I have tried quite a few DACs in the last years and end up coming back to my lovely MHDT Atlantis that I purchased in 2017. The only dac that could have made me depart form the Atlantis was the Audio Note Dac 1 Signature.
I don’t know about R2R It seems to be the new ‘ flavor of the month’ and influencers everywhere promote it. btw maybe I’m wrong about R2R. Since I only tried one and didn’t like it.
Venus II honestly I think R2R is being super ‘ peddled’ especially from headphone users , and is the new ‘ old’ tech. i may be wrong
Hmmm, I’ve not had the opportunity to check out the Denafrips line of products. Was ready to try a Terminator once but was advised against it and I trusted the opinion. I’ve read various posts stating these DAC’s are “not really NOS” even though they are resistor ladder implementations- is this true? Was this the dac you called pipe and slippers?
I just purchased a used Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE DAC. It only has NOS, no oversampling unless you use software. The Holo Audio DACs, like the Denafrips, are in such demand, you can buy one and if you don't like it, you can get most of your money back on it. I have not played with oversampling yet. I have JRiver Media center 30. I could not be happier with the Spring. I have bought so many 'upgrades' over the years that turned out to be a dissappoint. In my 40 years of chasing better sound, this is the single most satisfying purchase I've made.
I would say most of the music recorded is analog, can be digitalized both ways…regarding digital recordings most pcm, agree
Modern studio recordings are going to be recorded in PCM. But for things like classical there are a lot (relatively) being recorded in high rate DSD. You can go to sites like NativeDSD to find recordings that were done in DSD. Most are going to be live acoustic style recordings by audiophile labels and a lot of classical music. If you want a PCM FLAC version of those recordings it has been converted from DSD or DXD to PCM.
Ham- Do you purchase titles from Native DSD? If so- how did you like the quality of the presentation?