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DACs: Cheap vs Expensive

Jalousie said:
People who say they can hear differences between similar-class products or wires or whatever actually can't in double-blind listening tests.

[Let's hear from the flock before the popcorn and lock.]
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Ah you forgot to test me, and all the people I know, so maybe your small sample of data is not enough, or maybe the testing was not very scientifically rigorous and did not account for some confounding variables.

Proper testing is no simple matter.

Also a null result does not disprove something it just fails to prove it.
 
As many have pointed out before, listening is subjective, and individual choices are also based on subjective evaluations for most of us.

I have heard more expensive DACs that I do not prefer, dollar value has no place in what I like subjectively. My preferences landed me with a DAC based around the Philips TDA1540D chips and a discrete output stage, and no over sampling so purely 14bit goodness as it was intended.

I've also heard more expensive DACs I did like, Gieseler Audio and Abbas Audio to name two.

And yes I do hear differences with many DACs and many Cables, I even found that TDA1541 chips often sounded very noticeably different to one another depending of date and production when I was using a modded CD-60.
 
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Jalousie said:
People who say they can hear differences between similar-class products or wires or whatever actually can't in double-blind listening tests.

[Let's hear from the flock before the popcorn and lock.]
Click to expand...

Got anything constructive to add to this thread other than provoking others?

What's with the sudden influx of objectivists seeking to mark their territory on any thread that contains opinions about sound quality? It's becoming tiresome having this forced down our throats at times.
 
Oasis8 said:
I have heard more expensive DACs that I do not prefer, dollar value has no place in what I like subjectively.
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Absolutely. Dollar signs are a major hearing impediment for many. If it costs too much or too little, it automatically sounds like shite.
 
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Jalousie said:
People who say they can hear differences between similar-class products or wires or whatever actually can't in double-blind listening tests.

[Let's hear from the flock before the popcorn and lock.]
Click to expand...
I stand by my first comment, but I should have worded it more delicately and wrong thread to post it in.

[Apologies for the snark in my second comment.]
 
Yeah, loneliness may be one issue, but I think this current objectionist movement is driven by anger (we live in the age of outrage) - the feeling that someone else has access to something they don't have access to.
And it's so unnecessary - for example I don't appreciate fine champagne, but I'm comfortable that I will never have these (apparently) enjoyable experiences that others have when they taste different levels of the stuff. And I don't jump on a forum called champagnesciencereview and share scientific measurements asserting that beyond a measurable limit, all champagne tastes the same.
Similar deal with rap music. I don't appreciate it, but I'm happy that others do, and I don't try to prove them wrong.
Similar deal with spirituality, etc. etc.

A positive point on this subject is that after years of me suggesting to a family member how best they might integrate a good quality sound system into their family room, they finally said to me - look, we now realise we're not audio buffs, and we can't hear much difference between different systems, so we're happy to just use a B&O sound dock, as it fits in with our decor.
Bravo. Live and let live.
 
Instead of people breaking out their internet bachelor of arts degrees in psychology, ever think maybe there's a more common reason here? Like you got trolled?

I apologized ^^^. Let it go.
 
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I'm not sure what the divide is between Cheap vs Expensive so I'm going to say $50-200 is cheap and $201-500 is in the middle and > $500 is expensive.

If a person owns a CD player in the middle range, it probably already has an internal DAC that a cheap DAC is not going to improve on and sort of vice-versa, there is no reason to connect a cheap DAC to a middle range CD player.

Except no one should be buying a DAC just to go with an CD player, so I digress.

All that said, Yes, you can get a really good DAC for $100-200.
 
Surely whether something's cheap, or expensive is relative to the amount of disposable income a person has, and the level of investment in the hobby (emotional, and financial).

If going by pure monetary value then $1-$1000 is cheap, $1000-$5000 is mid range, and $5000 plus is expensive.
Considering that the top model from the company that made my DAC in 1994 was £10,000, when CD was the main digital source.
 
pete_mac said:
Got anything constructive to add to this thread other than provoking others?

What's with the sudden influx of objectivists seeking to mark their territory on any thread that contains opinions about sound quality? It's becoming tiresome having this forced down our throats at times.
Click to expand...
The OP asked some specific questions

My question is: why are there huge disparities among the DACs in the market today? How much does a DAC chip cost? Do prices directly affects the sound quality? To what extend does price matter? At what price point does the law of diminishing return kick in?

I'm not sure he would want all the answers from everyone to be the same.

I'm an enthusiast, not an 'objectivist' but as an enthusiast I do pay attention to how it all actually works as opposed to 'just listening'. Should I not be allowed to give my answers to the OPs questions just because they don't match some other people's answers?

Now if the thread had been about how much better his new $10K DAC is over his old $1K DAC then I agree that people commenting on how they probably sound either the same or extremely similar would be inappropriate.
 
Mart Mccall said:
The OP asked some specific questions

My question is: why are there huge disparities among the DACs in the market today? How much does a DAC chip cost? Do prices directly affects the sound quality? To what extend does price matter? At what price point does the law of diminishing return kick in?

I'm not sure he would want all the answers from everyone to be the same.

I'm an enthusiast, not an 'objectivist' but as an enthusiast I do pay attention to how it all actually works as opposed to 'just listening'. Should I not be allowed to give my answers to the OPs questions just because they don't match some other people's answers?

Now if the thread had been about how much better his new $10K DAC is over his old $1K DAC then I agree that people commenting on how they probably sound either the same or extremely similar would be inappropriate.
Click to expand...

For clarity, I'm in no way seeking to supress people giving their opinions.

My comment was a reaction to the often confrontational, dogmatic attitude of some objectivists as per the posts I replied to above, and in other recent threads. The post I quoted is but the tip of the iceberg.
 
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