To DAC or not to DAC .... myth?

[House de Kris]

I was going to offer a counter-perspective to the OP's friend from someone a little closer to the subject matter, but after reading the OP's subsequent comments I figure he's just a troll and not really looking for real information. No problem, saved me a lot of typing!

 

[trhee]

Your friend is a babbling idiot when it comes to audio.

 

[onwardjames]

Before I came onto AK I never heard of DAC, when I registered on AK I was catching up hard on the subject and found very valuable information to form a decision on which direction I wanted to go with my audio equipment. I have most my music collection in digital format and wanted to stear away from having to plug my computer with and audio jack to the amplifier to not having to use my pc at all when listening to music, because pc's are so distracting and timeconsuming.

The choices are endless if you don't know what you want and vendors can wrap you up in silk sale pitches poking you to buy something you don't need, but it comes down to making an informed choice of gear within the budget you have to spend.

I am VERY happy with the result, and I have had days where I was on the brink of madness trying to grasp the theory behind DAC and the different ways it was brought unto the market. It was worth it al the way. If there wasn't any difference in sound I still would be plugging the pc into the amp, because there is an internal DAC in the pc.

AK is a group of HIFI enthousiast, your friend probably doesn't care for HIFI at all, his opinion is coloured by it. AK members can drool over a new TOTL item that comes out or over some vintage rustbucket that they managed to revive, read up hours with no end on reviews and tech specs, etc. eventually sometimes forgetting to simply enjoy the music that is playing. But I like to come here to chime in on a shared interessed.

If the Marantz CDP is your pick then why would you listen to someone who isn't into HIFI to buy some piece of crappy shanghai? Maybe he is obsessed by cars and you could advise him that all cars are basicly four wheels driven by an engine, so don't go throwing away your money on a fancy full option Rolls Royce when the Dacia is basicly doing the same.

I have 17,000 digital FLAC files, and would be very interested in your choices. Could you give us a rundown of your gear?

 

[rnorton]

SO I was looking at an expensive Marantz CD player when a fellow I'd met once before who engineers equipment told me its pretty much all snake oil with the "DAC" advantage of expensive gear. He says the DAC in my IPOD classic is probably just as good as the DAC in the Marantz. Claims a good DAC costs no more than $20 in raw form. The rest is in a nice case and marketing.

Had me thinking that's for sure. Cant say I've had a bunch of DACs lined up to test though and they are all so expensive. Once again he assured me that's all BS. $20 the rest for connectors, casing and an expensive story.

So .. anyone have an real life experience? ... his story makes sense but again, I haven't the real life fortune of testing all the offerings for myself.

The DAC in an iPod classic is a VERY poor one. The ones up to Gen 5.5 were no prize but FAR better than what they use now. They found a way to reduce their costs by a dollar merely by reducing the audio quality by a considerable degree.

Basically, your friend is full of it, though.

 

[for_p1]

The DAC in an iPod classic is a VERY poor one. The ones up to Gen 5.5 were no prize but FAR better than what they use now. They found a way to reduce their costs by a dollar merely by reducing the audio quality by a considerable degree.

Basically, your friend is full of it, though.

DAC chips used in portable players rarely cost more than $1. On the other hand designer of high-end gear may decide to use one (or pair) that cost $60 a pop. DSP for custom filters and sample rate conversion may cost another $50. Now add analog part, power supply, case, boards, assembly etc.

 

[jefrodigital]

Just skimmed but it seems to me the thing is DAC's are like every product on the market. Theres no black and white rule.

Sometimes an exernal DAC is better than the internal. Sometimes its not.

Your friend said $20 to make, yes in production. Who knows what goes into reseach. No one ever takes that into account. Gotta recoup paying people to work on a product thats not available for sale.

But like other products there's cheap crap, inexpensive gems, a midrange of all variances, and a high end containing real cool stuff and overpriced junk.

The main board is $20 - fine. What kinda case do you want it in ? Audiophiles will rarely admit it but part of the $$$ goes towards the case. Nicer knobs, nicer power supply, nicer looking. Whatever. All factors in as well.

You can have 2 $100 DAC's. One may have the same insides as a $25 model with a nice case. Feels luxury. Knobs are metal and smooth. The other model has the same DAC as a $200 unit buy in a crappy case. Plastic knobs. Annoying bright ass blue LED.

Neither may be better than the DAC in your cd player.

The only hard rule of DAC's I've found is if you're using any DAC for your PC it will be a huge improvement 95% of the time.

 

[stereofanboy]

...........People are not born with the knowledge they are color blind. At some point early in their life they are given a test, like a red and/or green number against a gray backdrop. Most will see the number, some won't............

.............If you hear something better, buy it. If you don't, don't buy it. Just make sure your results are physical and not psychological, the Brain can play tricks on you.............

Your thoughts provoked me into having a couple of my own. The color blind people will never be able to reliably choose correctly. The test is strictly visual, there is no one telling them audibly which is which.

In audio it's different and also the same. In blind testing, the result is often that the subjects can't choose reliably. This may be why blind listening tests are vigorously resisted by those who insist that they can hear only when they can also see.

When buying audio gear, it doesn't matter if your brain is fooling you, as long as it does it consistently. This applies only to your own listening. If you start giving purchasing advice to others, then it does matter if your brain is fooling you.

.............It also seems that most of the effort is in trying to make the digital signal sound more analog..............

Yes, that is the purpose of a digital to analog converter.

 

[livestrong]

Before I came onto AK I never heard of DAC, when I registered on AK I was catching up hard on the subject and found very valuable information to form a decision on which direction I wanted to go with my audio equipment. I have most my music collection in digital format and wanted to stear away from having to plug my computer with and audio jack to the amplifier to not having to use my pc at all when listening to music, because pc's are so distracting and timeconsuming.

The choices are endless if you don't know what you want and vendors can wrap you up in silk sale pitches poking you to buy something you don't need, but it comes down to making an informed choice of gear within the budget you have to spend.

I am VERY happy with the result, and I have had days where I was on the brink of madness trying to grasp the theory behind DAC and the different ways it was brought unto the market. It was worth it al the way. If there wasn't any difference in sound I still would be plugging the pc into the amp, because there is an internal DAC in the pc.

AK is a group of HIFI enthousiast, your friend probably doesn't care for HIFI at all, his opinion is coloured by it. AK members can drool over a new TOTL item that comes out or over some vintage rustbucket that they managed to revive, read up hours with no end on reviews and tech specs, etc. eventually sometimes forgetting to simply enjoy the music that is playing. But I like to come here to chime in on a shared interessed.

If the Marantz CDP is your pick then why would you listen to someone who isn't into HIFI to buy some piece of crappy shanghai? Maybe he is obsessed by cars and you could advise him that all cars are basicly four wheels driven by an engine, so don't go throwing away your money on a fancy full option Rolls Royce when the Dacia is basicly doing the same.

I have 17,000 digital FLAC files, and would be very interested in your choices. Could you give us a rundown of your gear?

I'm also interested in reading more about the gear you ended up with - after reading your post, I found myself searching for your signature to see what you had

 

[Olafur]

Amplifier: Sansui AU-517
CDP: Denon DCD-1560
Network Streamer: Marantz NA-7004
DVDP: Philips DVP-632
Speakers: B&W DM2 MK2
NAS: Linksys Mediahub

Here's the link to a thread I started in the Members' System section for some pictures and post while I was in the upgrading process. This thing grew as I went along and that is the fun, each time you get a sonic improvement and a rush when a new addition is connected. I am now at a point where I can enjoy a complete set, which does what I expect it to do. Is there alot better equipment out there, of course, is there alot of crap that I could have bought and don't need if I didn't do the effort of thoroughly researching the options, certainly. I am happy both ways, I didn't waste my money and I can still dream of improvements and tweaks.

Most of my gear I bought second hand, except the Marantz network streamer. This device combined everything I needed. I wanted to play audio from my music library, which became a NAS further on; I also wanted a DAC to upgrade my DVD a.o. I wanted the end result to be esthetic and match. It had to fit my budget aswell.

The NA-7004 is a streamer/DAC/tuner. The DAC has optical in and asynch USB in. I use the optical input for the audio from my DVD and digital decoder when watching movies/tv. The asynch USB I use for audio from online sources that can't be streamed, it functions as external sound card when plugged in. More info in this thread.

 

[Bubo]

Short answer, it depends on the application.

If all you want to do is drive a $2 pair of Apple or other cheapo ear buds than the onboard DAC with the MP3 player fills the need.

Would I buy a CD Player with an expensive DAC and analog section built in? Absolutely not. Moving parts are less reliable and all eventually fail. The DAC on the other hand should last forever if the design is any good. This tech is relatively mature, with higher bit rates and word lengths comming down the pipeline. 24x96 is generally considered to be the cost effective state of the art and accurate aka indistinguishable* from analog. Bigger word length and higher frequency would move the dots closer together theoreticly approaching infinite closeness, but how much is enough to mimic pure analog aka Declining Marginal Returns.

Is a DAC just a bunch of hardware on the board? NO, there are all kinds of implementation and applications issues, and the most difficult part is usually error handling.

My systems are Vintage Mac and Yamaha amps and pre amps and tuners with Klipsch Speakers. I had a friend who is a professional musician who toured with A List bands, does voice overs for radio and tv and works as a piano teacher, and still performs locally. He listend to George Winston December on Vinyl and CD copied to my hard disk playing through a DAC and stated no noticable difference between the two (wyndham hill did great recording and mastering work totl). He summarized both as sounding like you were seated on the bench of a Grand Piano aka lifelike.

After a lot of homework and reading the forums, I decided a stand alone DAC was the way to go. There are a number of good units out there, I wanted a DAC that faithfully reproduced the recording with Zero Coloration of any kind.

There are also a number of interfaces, protocols and line rates to contend with each having its own implimentation and application issues, so robust and flexible were big for me. I also wanted a unit that would last a long time either as a table top or rack mounted.

I settled on the Emotiva XDA 1, the next Rev the XDA 2 $300 has a great feature set and price point since they sell direct and are a subsidiary of an outsource electronics manufacturing company. I beleive the Engineering is in the US but can't say for certain. I love the XDA and would buy the XDA 2 if I need another one, need and want always a tough one. Simliar product sell for around $700 to $1000 half of which is dealer mark-up.

Note this unit has a quality built in headphone amp, If you are a headphone guy I would also take a look at the Bellari A-540 tube Class A headphone amp where a little coloration may be a good thing expecially for low bit rate listening.

This is one of many tube headphone amps you can hang off a DAC.

Another tube option that gets good reviews
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-20047125-47.html

SO I was looking at an expensive Marantz CD player when a fellow I'd met once before who engineers equipment told me its pretty much all snake oil with the "DAC" advantage of expensive gear. He says the DAC in my IPOD classic is probably just as good as the DAC in the Marantz. Claims a good DAC costs no more than $20 in raw form. The rest is in a nice case and marketing.

Had me thinking that's for sure. Cant say I've had a bunch of DACs lined up to test though and they are all so expensive. Once again he assured me that's all BS. $20 the rest for connectors, casing and an expensive story.

So .. anyone have an real life experience? ... his story makes sense but again, I haven't the real life fortune of testing all the offerings for myself.

 

[JoeESP9]

Interesting first post. I hope you realize many here do not agree with you.

FWIW: Apple bought Beats because of the profit structure not because they sound good (they don't).

 

[cpt_paranoia]

I think the fact that Beats don't sound good, despite costing a lot, suggests Apple aren't really concerned about good sound. They are marketing Beats heavily, in the worst meaning of 'marketing'.

 

[JoeESP9]

I think the fact that Beats don't sound good, despite costing a lot, suggests Apple aren't really concerned about good sound. They are marketing Beats heavily, in the worst meaning of 'marketing'.

This is exactly why Apple doesn't have any interest in stand alone DAC's. Those who buy them are concerned about better sound. Apple couldn't care less about good sound.

 

[JoeESP9]

What you seem to be ignoring is that the analog output stage is probably more important the DAC chip itself. The PC/MAC onboard ones don't sound as good as a standalone DAC with a decent analog stage.

If a "better" DAC doesn't sound better to you that's on you. Many (including me) that post here hear differences in DAC's. You can save yourself some money since they all sound the same to you.

 

[IPADave]

As JoeESP9 stated the sound of a DAC is more then just the DAC chip. There's more than one way to skin a cat, and design a DAC.

-Dave

 

[cpt_paranoia]

But those who disagree with that should come up with better arguments

You might want to have a read of the DAC reviews at Audio Science Review. They are objective measurements, not subjective. It is clear that DACs behave differently.

I'm a pragmatist engineer, with experience of designing digital/analogue systems (not audio). I'm not a 'golden ears' type. I've posted elsewhere on the forum about the aspects of ensemble DAC design that potentially impact the objective and subjective performance. Dig them out if you're interested.

 

[luckybaer]

(...)

 

[Alobar]

And yet another newbie surfaces, and going to save us a boatload of money, this time on DAC's..

 

[spark1]

I could say that if you want to throw away your money, that's on you, but that isn't an argument.

Didn't you just say it?

Why argue about such a topic? You believe that all DACs (DAC chipset + analog stage + power supply) sound the same, based on your experience. Others believe that there can be a significant variance, based on their experience. You can make your decisions based on your experiences, and others can do the same.

BTW, I'm not understanding the purpose of your comment about the goal of a DAC (perfect reproduction of the original signal). The same could be said for all components in the chain....source, preamp, amp, speakers. Do you find that all speakers sound the same? There are different DAC designs and implementations, just as there are different speaker designs and implementations....why would it be surprising that they have different results?

 

[spark1]

All that a DAC needs to do is take digital information and render its complimentary analog wave. It's math and nothing more. There is nothing to design, the chip does the work, unless of course you want to ALTER the original analog waves and charge a lot of money. I personally don't want my sound altered, I want it to sound as intended.

Once you get into the sound altering business, all bets are off and there is very little to argue about. Play around with the sound and charge all you want, but now you have a different product than what a DAC is. There is a DAC in an apple airpod (very tiny) and there is probably no other DAC in the world that does a better job at doing what it is supposed to do: take digital information and output its complimentary analog wave.

You do understand that different approaches are used to achieve the same goal, right? There is a bit more to it than just math. Your comment that "there is nothing to design" misses the point that different chips do the job differently (different designs of the circuitry within the chip). And then there is the corresponding analog section (which is functionally, and in the common vernacular, part of "the DAC".

BTW...please point me to a study which shows that all DACs sound the same.

I suspect that I am being trolled here, so I'm done. Thanks for playing.