Serious Question: How can DAC's have a SOUND SIGNATURE if they measure as transparent? Are that many confused?

[billyjoebob]

To me they are two sides of the same coin, so I'm rather confused now...

You agree that DACs don't need to be especially sophisticated in order to reach the limits of human hearing, but you disagree on them being indistinguishable when they exceeded that limit?

Just to make it clear, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Just trying to clarify what I meant with post #3418.

I guess you used the word indistinguishable instead of the same.

 

[Killingbeans]

Yes, but I didn't substitute 'all DACs' with anything similar

 

[Mnyb]

Maybe that was me that substitutet ? Point is all roads lead to Rome . In this context well developed DAC's should sound extra ordinary similar as should anything else that is transparent too ?
It's simply absurd to think that there still is very large differences between these products after decades of development against exactly the same goal ? But that's part and parcel of the myths surrounding our hobby that there always are dramatic improvement in every product category every year perpetually ? when the human animal that should experience this is unchanged .

It's incremental finessing against various goals and markets , features design etc ? If i had realized when i was younger and dummer 3/4 of all my so called upgrades served no purpose ( they where rather sidegrades to other good enough performing products ).

When hifi magazines and typical forums continue to fail us we at least have ASR to get some part of the real picture here .

I made an interesting experiment once o took a decade worth of hifi magazines and looked at the add's for a Japanese brand of HiFi and particularly at their midfi integrated amps and it looks very much as practically the same amp , they moved some knobs renamed some functions adjusted some spec here and there but nothing revolutionary .
A larger trend is that over a decade you may see a shift to better transistors or current feedback topology and incorporating better op amps or similar ? but the adds speaks of vibration damped chassis special transformers and bamboo fiber capacitors or other nonsense

 

[Killingbeans]

That's the thing. When you hit a hard wall of diminishing returns and there's no more real innovation to be had within the usual demands of market, the advent of BS and voodoo is imminent. Seriously, why do people think this hobby has been plagued so viciously by snake-oil for so many years?

 

[LTig]

I made an interesting experiment once o took a decade worth of hifi magazines and looked at the add's for a Japanese brand of HiFi and particularly at their midfi integrated amps and it looks very much as practically the same amp , they moved some knobs renamed some functions adjusted some spec here and there but nothing revolutionary .
A larger trend is that over a decade you may see a shift to better transistors or current feedback topology and incorporating better op amps or similar ? but the adds speaks of vibration damped chassis special transformers and bamboo fiber capacitors or other nonsense

Just look at the meagre specs of the Marantz AVPs 7701x and 880x series. Despite citing lots of improvements within each series and highend BS in the 880x series the specs regarding THD and output levels are the same for all models in both series.

 

[Robin L]

Like I mentioned before, level matching does not makes sense because I had to use various volume levels to find a clue for each combo.

Then the test makes no sense.

 

[Pdxwayne]

Then the test makes no sense.

So how do you tell if you can pass an online blind test?

You check at one volume level, you can't pass, that's it, you give up?

 

[Robin L]

So how do you tell if you can pass an online blind test?

You check at one volume level, you can't pass, that's it, you give up?

Have to have levels that are exactly matched. If not, the test is invalid.

 

[Pdxwayne]

Have to have levels that are exactly matched. If not, the test is invalid.

I did. Still same results. See

DAC and amp combos did not give same clues when running online blind tests. Why? What would be the desired clue?

Excuse me if I have this wrong. To be valid, apart from being double blinded, you'd have to run each stack multiple times out of sequence. Not attempt it ten times on one stack then move onto the next, you'd have to randomise the stack order and run it myiple times. As it stands it appears to...

www.audiosciencereview.com

In case the link still not working for you, it is post #22 of this thread with title
"dac-and-amp-combos-did-not-give-same-clues-when-running-online-blind-tests-why-what-would-be-the-desired-clue".

People will still doubt me even if I do further voltage matched retest. So, like I said in post #41 in my thread, feel free to join me and perform a "blind" test of online "blind" test with me. You can confirm if I can or can't sense a different.

 

[Goodman]

Why does having different op amps make them sound different?

Honestly, I don't know why, but there seems to be a consensus among Op Amp rollers much like tube rollers, that Op Amps do sound different, have they not improved along the years like other chips and components? Are these people delusional?

 

[Jimbob54]

Honestly, I don't know why, but there seems to be a consensus among Op Amp rollers much like tube rollers, that Op Amps do sound different, have they not improved along the years like other chips and components? Are these people delusional?

Only one way to tell. Measure.

 

[Doodski]

Honestly, I don't know why, but there seems to be a consensus among Op Amp rollers much like tube rollers, that Op Amps do sound different, have they not improved along the years like other chips and components? Are these people delusional?

OP amps have improved. The bandwidth/slew rate is so good now that rollers are mostly plugging and praying in the hope they get lucky and notice a change.

 

[SIY]

Honestly, I don't know why, but there seems to be a consensus among Op Amp rollers much like tube rollers, that Op Amps do sound different, have they not improved along the years like other chips and components? Are these people delusional?

"Delusional" in the same sense as someone who thinks square A and square B are different shades of gray.

 

[SIY]

Now, to caveat this, in some cases, ignorant swapping of opamps can significantly degrade performance (e.g., oscillation, RF pickup...), so there can be a CHANGE, which the overly enthusiastic hobbyist might rationalize as "improvement." But unless the hobbyist knows more than the design engineer, the chances of "fixing" a "problem" and "improving" actual performance is about equal to my chances of getting oral from Scarlett Johanssen this afternoon.

 

[TBone]

... is about equal to my chances of getting oral from Scarlett Johanssen this afternoon.

certain she'll have something to say today ...

 

[pma]

My hope is that at some point ASR addicts will finally notice that it is the low-level time-domain behavior of a DAC that is relevant, not the high level frequency domain behavior.

You have at least one supporter on this. But I think you know it. Re "ASR" generally speaking, I have lost all hopes that the general public will.

 

[voodooless]

@KSTR, @pma: what tests would you guys propose to reveal these low-level time-domain issues?

 

[TheBatsEar]

"Delusional" in the same sense as someone who thinks square A and square B are different shades of gray.

Optical illusions are the best way to explain that we live in meaty brain-support-suits that can not reliably measure reality. We have to use external tools to measure and get a real sense of reality.

If you see this optical illusion, and still think your hearing can be trusted in any way, you are officially stupid.

/thread

 

[Goodman]

Now, to caveat this, in some cases, ignorant swapping of opamps can significantly degrade performance (e.g., oscillation, RF pickup...), so there can be a CHANGE, which the overly enthusiastic hobbyist might rationalize as "improvement." But unless the hobbyist knows more than the design engineer, the chances of "fixing" a "problem" and "improving" actual performance is about equal to my chances of getting oral from Scarlett Johanssen this afternoon.

In the poker world we say "you have 2 chances Slim and None, but Slim just left town. More elegant than your Scarlet Johanssen reference.
I agree that you can't blindly change op amps, but there are cases where the designer of the Dac suggest you do change the OP Amps as an inexpensive upgrade.

 

[SIY]

... there are cases where the designer of the Dac suggest you do change the OP Amps as an inexpensive upgrade.

Marketing triumphing over technology. Unless they show actual significant data, and even then...