How much one has to spend on a dac to get the true analog sound

[ZolaIII]

Given the 'fact' that 99% (an objective measure ?) doesn't have any hearing sense I must conclude that such includes me (an average joe) most likely, and only about 95 members here have good enough hearing.

All together and told over & over again counting in all (good gear, bad gear, good hearing & not so good hearing...). Even including me. In the end sound will be only as good as the weakest link in the chain is.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Did DAC's improved thrue time? Don't you think they will future improve more?

Certainly they have got simpler and cheaper. Very much so. Whether as a result of this their sound quality has effectively improved too is debatable.
Clever people like @Miska have also written code to get still more linearity from digital.
My belief is that I am unable to hear distortion once the level is -60dB or better (and the loudspeaker people talk about much more than this being inaudible) I don't notice noise on recordings of music if it is lower than -80dB.
So for me, whilst I know that DAC's technical specs and measured performance has improved since the early days, I don't find the gain to be audible, and therefore pointless for music listening as opposed to equipment and recording marketing.
I do plan to compare my Sony DAS-702ES with my RME ADI-2 Pro with matched levels one day but have not yet, I don't enjoy comparing kit when I could be listening to music. Last time I carefully compared DACs, around 10 years ago, they were insufficiently different to consistently know which was playing.
There is a far, far greater difference in SQ between recordings than there ever has been in digital equipment IME.
After all there are a huge number of people who listen to LPs and are happy with the SQ and it is about 11-bit equivalent and whilst there may be some output from some cartridges at frequencies >20kHz in all liklihood it will be spurious and/or effected by roll off or resonance than of resonable quality.
DACs were already better than any part of an LP replay system when they came out, so if LP is OK (it usually is for me) the DAC improvements have been of academic or production engineering (well worthwhile) benefit, not SQ.
IMHO

 

[solderdude]

All together and told over & over again counting in all (good gear, bad gear, good hearing & not so good hearing...). Even including me. In the end sound will be only as good as the weakest link in the chain is.

Which usually is the listener, the transducers, the room and sometimes the recording/file.
It is rarely the electronics or they are measurably f'ed up, purposely or not.
Whenever the electronics are said to be the cause this usually is 'deducted' from sighted or incorrect 'evaluations'.

 

[AudioSceptic]

It's not a hocus pocus and shore thing I am rolling bring the snack & beer & come over.
Our formal logic which we don't think but just act upon it is very limiting. We try to categories thing's in logic categories but there are always cases that don't comply to the pattern.
For instance no one will doubt statement that all birds fly, penguin is a bird, penguin doesn't fly. That's a school example. On one occasion some pore sailor came to Aristotel the father of our formal logic telling him how he whose sailing on a dead sea, Aristotel momentarily trow him out calling him a lier. Aristotel couldn't even imagine something like dead sea, sea that is a cradle of life. Today we of course know pore sailer whose telling a trogh, where dead see is & why it is like that.

You are making trivial logic errors. Please stop.

 

[ZolaIII]

You are making trivial logic errors. Please stop.

Those are school examples but obviously not simple enough for you.

 

[mansr]

You are making trivial logic errors. Please stop.

Logic errors? I thought it was gibberish.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Logic errors? I thought it was gibberish.

Probably both.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Those are school examples but obviously not simple enough for you.

Really? Do you actually know the meaning of what you wrote? (Perhaps your English isn't as good as you think it is.)

 

[SIY]

Guys, why are you feeding it?

 

[bobbooo]

I am at half right now, from 10 so far seven times I identified HI-FI correctly, twice whose wrong & once I don't really know as A & B only go up to 20kHz both. Actually it's other way around you need pretty good DAC amp & headaphones as hardly you will have a power amplifier that goes over 100 dB SINAD.

If you do a blind ABX listening test in Foobar between the hi-res and their corresponding 16/44.1 files and post your log and signature, people might take you seriously. Otherwise it's just hot air. Note you'll need to get 13/16 or more trials correct to make sure you are actually hearing a difference. This would correspond to ~99% confidence you can tell the difference, or about a 1 in 100 chance of your success being down to chance. This site is called Audio Science Review, and as such requires evidence to back up your claims.

 

[ZolaIII]

If you do a blind ABX listening test in Foobar between the hi-res and their corresponding 16/44.1 files and post your log and signature, people might take you seriously. Otherwise it's just hot air. Note you'll need to get 13/16 or more trials correct to make sure you are actually hearing a difference. This would correspond to ~99% confidence you can tell the difference, or about a 1 in 100 chance of your success being down to chance. This site is called Audio Science Review, and as such requires evidence to back up your claims.

It's not my survey nor experiment but you didn't actually bother to read it. Did you?

 

[ZolaIII]

Really? Do you actually know the meaning of what you wrote? (Perhaps your English isn't as good as you think it is.)

I have a master degree on topic which at least I can smoke while listening to Zappa & chilling out. & what do you have on topic that makes you credible? Empty phrases...

 

[BDWoody]

 

[UCrazyKid]

Take whatever you already have in your system and add a tube buffer. Now you have analog sound.

 

[majingotan]

Take whatever you already have in your system and add a tube buffer. Now you have analog sound.

Don't forget to add your favorite idol/singers too! I added mine and I can literally feel their voices singing in front of me

 

[Xulonn]

..

I have a master degree on topic...

 

[Svperstar]

Late to the thread. I've posted about this DAC before on here but not in this thread.

Back in 2007 I decided to reward myself and dropped $650 on a NOS Tube DAC which claimed to sound "more analog"

It sounded absolutely horrible. To this day it is the worst sounding piece of audio gear I have ever owned. My dirt cheap Topping D10 sounds exponentially better, so did my old Walmart Discman I used in High School.

 

[bobbooo]

It's not my survey nor experiment but you didn't actually bother to read it. Did you?

Yes I have read the original survey and I know it's not yours. Unfortunately the survey, although well-intentioned, is flawed methodologically and statistically. An ABX test is the only valid way to prove you can hear a difference, so I'm asking you to do your own test. Take two of the files of the same song (one hi-res the other 16/44.1), load them into Foobar2000 and run its ABX Comparator with 16 trials and post the results log and signature. If you're so sure you can hear a difference between hi-res and 16/44.1, you'll pass this ABX easily. What are you so scared of?

 

[Blumlein 88]

I have a master degree on topic which at least I can smoke while listening to Zappa & chilling out. & what do you have on topic that makes you credible? Empty phrases...

Did not know they issued masters degrees in analog sounding DACs. But I don't got no educashion. Did you get your degree from Philips or Sony?

 

[ZolaIII]

Yes I have read the original survey and I know it's not yours. Unfortunately the survey, although well-intentioned, is flawed methodologically and statistically. An ABX test is the only valid way to prove you can hear a difference, so I'm asking you to do your own test. Take two of the files of the same song (one hi-res the other 16/44.1), load them into Foobar2000 and run its ABX Comparator with 16 trials and post the results log and signature. If you're so sure you can hear a difference between hi-res and 16/44.1, you'll pass this ABX easily. What are you so scared of?

Well then read it again. It is a duble blind A-B test. I will submit my result there.