DAC suggestion - Page 5

@serf...

so... you don't know how to test... but you are unafraid to share conclusions...

interesting logic there....

Well Mr Mcnarus, I will apologize to you. I'm not trying to be an ahole to you. I'm actually a really nice guy and my personality is very jovial and light-hearted. My apologies specifically to you if I have offended you.

You do have a point though, this is light, light work for me. Arnyk is nothing.

I said I don't scientifically test audio gear. Does that mean I can't make conclusions?

What conclusion have I shared that you deem I should prove my credentials?

I wasn't personally offended. But I think you're suffering under the misapprehension that an Internet forum is a linear device, so to speak. It's not. It can go off on all sorts of tangents, and there's nothing you or even the moderators can do about it. That's why I'm suggesting that you and others just chill. If Arny bugs you, put him on ignore. If you don't want to lose his more constructive posts, then learn to recognize and skip past his more combative ones. (I often do.)

What I do object to, and take offense at, is the periodic suggestion from some audio simpleton (nobody on this thread, of course!) who demands that the people he disagrees with practice self-censorship, or else that the moderators censor them directly. If they want to have a conversation with only likeminded people, they should lock themselves alone in a room somewhere. They'll be much happier.

I think aserf is correct. We should keep all posts on topic to the thread, and further prevent repetitive information from being "vomited" into multiple threads. To that end, I suggest a single thread discussing psychoacoustics, bias, and the benefits of controlled testing, and another containing discussions of all audio and video equipment advice and recommendations where objectivity isn't allowed.

Fair enough?

No.

There are forums all over the Internet where the Yahoos can discuss which DACs give them the biggest hard-ons, without any fear that someone who knows what he's talking about will spoil his fun. The value of AVS is precisely that yin and yang come face to face here. If that's not the kind of discussion you want, then maybe you should look elsewhere (like the OP apparenty did).

Was the sarcasm really that subtle?

Guess so!

But that's exactly what they're asking for.

I went back and read most of your posts. I agree, they have very little information with any sifnificant meaning or broad applicability. About half, maybe a bit less are barely on topic.

Interesting assertion. To assert that credibly, you would have to be able to produce my resume. If you can't, you are just saying stuff. Free associating. Speculating wildly based on literally nothing but your lower brain.

So Serf, here's your last opportunity to claw back some of the credibility that you incinerated yesterday. Produce my resume, or if you will, my CV. If you can't, then the rest of your credibility has just flushed down the drain. Whooosh! ;-)

Only enough to get you to incinerate any tiny amount of credibility around here that you once had. ;-)

If I'm so much nothing, why all the purple prose?

Savant I'm not a professional diagnostician, but I do quite a bit of volunteer work with people who have troubled lives and have relevant formal and informal training in that area. I think I know what your issue is.

Seriously. Can someone redeem this thread and post material that either contains DAC recommendations or provides results of blind listening tests, even if (or, perhaps, especially if) those tests conclude that the DACs evaluated are indistinguishable?

Rather than having these arguments about DAC experiences in the abstract, how about some examples of actual DAC reviews or listening tests, the methodology of which can then be specifically critiqued.
Edited by marvin4653 - 8/5/12 at 3:37pm

Here: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.matrixhifi.com%2Fdac1.htm
More listed: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.matrixhifi.com%2Fpruebasciegas.htm

Marvin,

DBT reports have been posted in the past, and most of the regulars here know about them, which is why we seem to be having a data-free argument, when we're really not. But there are always new members like you, so we need to post them again periodically. (It would be great to post this all in a sticky. If anybody knows how to make that happen, please PM me.)

Anyway, diomania has given you one set of data (a bit tricky to sort through because of the machine translation), almost all of which showed no audible difference. There have been a number of tests published in US audio magazines over the years with similar results. When I get back to my main computer tomorrow, I'll post citations. (They are not available online, so far as I know.)

Thanks! A little disjointed with the translation, but lots of information. Is the consensus that those tests were performed properly? Those are some pretty wild results if so.

I've been hanging around in one form or another since around 2006, but I haven't actively followed the forums in a while (leaving work for grad school didn't really put me in a position to upgrade my 2CH setup), so if there are some well-known authoritative tests out there I've missed them. I'd definitely appreciate it if you (or anyone else) could toss up some links for me to digest. Over the past few years I've switched my primary source from a standalone CD player to a PC playing FLACs, but right now I'm just using the computer's 3.5mm audio out to my integrated. I've been thinking it would probably be good to switch to the PC's optical output and insert an external DAC into the chain.
Edited by marvin4653 - 8/5/12 at 10:20pm

Why do you say wild?

I presume that when you listen to your own system, blood does not come gushing out of your ears! ;-) IOW, it sounds pretty good to you, right?

Why are you not trusting the evidence of your own ears?

Or, is the evidence of one's ears only valid when they perceive differences?

If someone asked me to do careful tests of certain DACs I would ask:

(1) They provide the equipment
(2) They pay me for my efforts
(3) If possible, they participate in the tests

None of these are on the face of it unreasonable requests. I have zero hope that anybody will do it, because the only serioius money in this game comes from people who need to prove the existence of audible differences among good DACs, and for the most part, that is mission impossible.

People with nothing better to offer will try to quibble with them, as they will with any tests they don't like the results of. But the results (both negative and, in a few cases, positive) are exactly what you'd expect if you know the science behind this stuff.

As promised, some published tests on the subject:

—Masters, Ian G. and Clark, D. L., "Do All CD Players Sound the Same?", Stereo Review, pp.50-57 (January 1986)

—Pohlmann, Ken C., "6 Top CD Players: Can You Hear the Difference?", Stereo Review, pp.76-84 (December 1988)

—Pohlmann, Ken C., "The New CD Players, Can You Hear the Difference?", Stereo Review, pp.60-67 (October 1990)

—CD Player Comparison, The Sensible Sound, # 75, Jun/Jul 1999.

—CD Player Comparison, The Sensible Sound, # 74, Apr/May 1999.

If memory serves, the first article did find a difference between a first-generation CD player and newer models. Beyond that, all were indistinguishable. Again, not surprising if you know how DACs—and ears!—work.
Couldn't hurt, might help.

Any data on this particular speaker, ProAc Response 3 speakers? I am not familiar with it.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ProAc+Response+3+speakers

Sooo, that's your 'proof'? All I see is proof that web design has come a LONG way in the last decade.

You do realize proving the negative in this case (and most others) is a logical impossibility.

It seems very likely that mere facts won't sway you. It appears that in your universe, there is a linear connection between SQ and price, and only an interface that costs infinite dollars could possibly be sonically transparent.

It is your money!

People like Ethan and I who effectively hooked up chains of ADCs and DACs in cascade up to a decade back, and found that even 10 mid-priced units are undetectable as compared to straight wire, are politely doing what wise people do when faced with this situation. ;-)

Tee Hee! Titter! Titter!

From my quick skim of the site, it looks like in most cases the sources could not be differentiated. That was pretty surprising to me, considering that comparisons are not just between DACs but complete sources. So in an example like the link below, a portable DVD player couldn't be distinguished from a Mark Levinson DVD player. I would have thought that there would be some audible difference, whether from the DACs, the output jacks, or just the signal path. I tend to be suspicious of claims that different digital signal paths can create audible differences (for example, expensive optical cables or special USB cables), but I've always assumed that analog signals were more vulnerable to interference and degradation in a way that would be audible in a comparison like that. Not to say my assumption is correct, but that had just been my understanding. Thus, to me the tests seemed "pretty wild" based on my existing understanding (however accurate or inaccurate that understanding actually is).

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.matrixhifi.com%2Fpruebasciegas.htm
What "evidence of [my] own ears" are you referring to? I don't own a DAC (that's why I found this thread), so I haven't compared the computer's headphone jack to the computer's optical jack routed through a DAC. I think my system sounds pretty good right now, but that doesn't really mean anything in isolation, does it? There was a time when I thought my JBL Creature speakers (heh) sounded good, and they certainly didn't cause "blood [to] come gushing out of [my] ears," but that didn't mean that there weren't better speakers.

I don't have the means to conduct an ABX test with a DAC in my system, and I would be highly skeptical of any sighted listening tests I performed myself with large gaps in time between switching a DAC in and out of my system, so I was hoping this thread and others would provide me with some information about whether different DACs have been found to be audibly different. From the links diomania posted, it seems like they might not.
Was this directed toward me? No need to clear your calendar. Again, I was just hoping someone would toss up some links to tests that other people have done so that I could check them out.
Edited by marvin4653 - 8/7/12 at 9:28am

I appreciate that, thanks. I wish I could read some of those, they look like they would be really interesting. For whatever reason, the impression I got back when I was more actively reading this forum was that different DACs could sound different, so this is all pretty interesting. I wish some folks had posted information like this in the past (or if they did, that I had seen them!).

Where and when did you see such thread? I don't know about yours but on my screen, this option is visible: http://www.avsforum.com/search.php?action=advanced&search=

I'm not trying to indict AVS circa 2006; like I said, that was just the impression I had. I very well may have read the wrong threads, or not payed close attention to what I read. At the time I was more interested in speakers (my big purchase at that time), so I wasn't really closely reading for information about source equipment and DACs.

Just to prevent me from looking utterly nuts, I searched the site by date and here are a few threads from around 2007 discussing DACs that state, without objection by any poster, that different DACs sound different. Again, I'm not saying they're correct, but it was probably threads like these that gave me that impression.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/894223/which-dac
http://www.avsforum.com/t/781528/recommendations-for-dac-and-music-server
http://www.avsforum.com/t/780014/help-choosing-a-dac

And your understanding is correct...but. The limiting factor here is the resolution of the human hearing mechanism. Just because a circuit adds a little distortion doesn't mean you can hear it. Under normal operating conditions, people can't tell the difference between most amplifiers, either, and the analog stage of a CD player is a lot closer to a straight wire than an amplifier is.

The critical component, as always, is the speakers. And the room you put them in.

Well, not every thread catches the eye of the Objectivist Thought Police.

In my own experience with external DAC units (or AVR) for converting stereo digital S/PDIF to stereo analog, there are usually noticeable sonic differences.