Have you seen - or listened to - those separate D to A converters? Do they justify the price? Especially, a $400 DAC connected to your laptop, playing through $50 speakers -
Have there been any double blind listening tests of these critters, or is this another case of the power of suggestion?
What lab measurements would you make (and presumably done by the engineers at the companies), to test their superior performance?
-- Rich
Compared to a laptop motherboard DAC, they are obviously better. Much better. Extremely better. They don't have to cost $400. I use a Echo Audio Indigo DJ PCMCIA, much better.
I use headphones. I don't know what you would hear through $50 speakers.
Bob Morein (310) 237-6511
A $50 DAC playing through $400 speakers will sound better every time!
Trevor.
If you have $50 speakers why are you even considering a $400 DAC ?!!!
geoff
Because today is the feast day of Saint Absurdum.
-- +--------------------------------+ + Dick Pierce | + Professional Audio Development | +--------------------------------+
Which ones? I have used separate D/A boxes since the mid-eighties. Mind you, I have never used them through $50 speakers.
Which critters? Frankly, listening through $50 speakers it can be hard to tell the difference between music and noise.
I have done double blind tests for years between D/A units and many of them sound different. Is different better? Sometimes.
Superior to what? I'd certainly do all the usual D/A tests, linearity, clock phase noise rejection, etc.
--scott
-- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Some of these DAC are touted for laptop or iPod use. I guess you can tap directly into the digital stream, somehow.
Like this:
What methods and controls did you use?
-- Rich
This is interesting. It looks like it's really an ipod interface, that happens to have a DAC in it. The interesting thing about it is that is provides an ipod interface, not that it has a DAC.
And yes, the DAC in it is probably going to be better than the one in the ipod, but that's really not saying very much.
In the professional audio world, it is normal for equipment to have standard AES/EBU or S-PDIF interfaces. Normally you see D/A units designed with these interfaces, to be plugged into computers or CD players or DAT machines or what have you.
Typical professional D/A units can be found from Benchmark, Prism, Grimm, Weiss, Meitner, Apogee, and db technologies, among plenty of others.
In the nineties when CD playback was very popular in home audio systems, there were a lot of consumer D/A units made with S-PDIF interfaces for use with CD players. Some decent ones were made by Emco, Audio Alchemy, and so forth. These are still usable with modern audio systems.
You name it, I have probably used it at some point on a DAC review. Most popular is switching between a reference DAC and an unknown, with one person in the studio and one person in the control room.
I have also done straightwire tests with an analogue tape source going into an A/D and D/A pair, and the original source compared with the converted version. The first print review I ever did was doing this with a PCM F-1 translating source material from a Scully 280. It was a very enlightening test. It's hard to find something that sounds worse than a Scully 280, but Sony managed it.
--scott
-- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Dunno - the DAC in my daughter's iPhone was pretty good.
-- Les Cargill
I bought a Lindy SPDIF DAC for approx £40 if I remember correctly via Amazon. It plays via B&W DM330 speakers. I haven't done any testing as such except that my aged ears find the sound superb in comparison with the TV speakers which are crap. There are a few customer reviews on Amazon UK. Hope this helps. Don
I imagine the difference you hear is 99.99% down to the speakers, and maybe 0.01% the DAC. I'm probably being overly generous to the DAC, actually.
d
Good question. If you get a meaningful answer, then the above claim has some credibility. If you essentially get put off, then you might consider moving on.
Lots of people have done actual level-matched, time-synched, DBTs of DACs designed and built, and that have reasonable pretentions of quality, and have often had a great deal of difficulty finding reliably audible differences, perhaps starting with this one:
Masters, Ian G. and Clark, D. L., "Do All CD Players Sound the Same?", Stereo Review, pp.50-57 (January 1986)
It should be noted that these tests involved mass-market digital players from reputable manufacturers. It is quite possible that prior to 1986 DACs that sounded different were more prevalent, or that limited-availability DACs that were less highly engineered caused audible differences. For example, the article itself found minor audible differences that were probably due to its DAC in a product that was introduced in 1982-3.
By 2010 many situations where audible differences between DACs whose price and reputation varied considerably were difficult or impossible to find had been documented. You can find evidence of this at:
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