DENAFRIPS DAC ---- Owner Impressions, Feedback, General Discussion, Questions and more....

With that as the background, here is what to expect and what not to expect:

-         I call it a demo instead of a shootout because I dislike the term shootout. Shootout seems to indicate something is going to get shot down and the expectation is there will be a winner - the last one standing. Even if you compare among many makes with different sound signatures the concept of winners and losers requires a unique and definable set of measurable standards. In all my years in the business I have yet to figure out what these standards are. All I know is everyone listens differently and like different things, and each has his/her favorite sound, just like his/her favorite color. I assume that all of us listen to enjoy the musical performance and hopefully are moved emotionally by what the performer tries to communicate to us. High-fidelity is just a means to that end in that it seeks to recreate the original performance most truthfully.

-         A demo is meant to outline differences if they exist in the way the DACs sound. The difference maybe so subtle that they essentially sound the same. Where there are differences significant enough, one should be able to describe them. That is more important than whether one likes one DAC over the other as that is a totally subjective judgment.

-         As such, I find that it is more difficult to discern differences among DACs from the same manufacturer. They may all have a common “house sound” that fits the designer’s ear and any differences tend to be difficult to define. So I expect the differences are less pronounced among the different Denafrips DACs than between a  Denafrips and a comparably-priced competitor’s DAC .

-         So the results of a demo are only useful if the subjects can clearly define the audible differences so that they can be used to guide the determination whether one may like or dislike the DACs in question. One must use this information judiciously especially when the number of subjects in the test is small. A broad conclusion that one DAC is superior than another has to be based on clearly defined and universally accepted set of criteria.

-         So if the intent is not to shoot down any particular DAC but rather to describe their differences then a pairwise comparison is better than comparison among many DACs at once as it gets too confusing with more than two things to focus on at a time.

With all of the above considerations in mind, I plan to conduct the demo this way today:

-         Draw lots to assign the different Denafrips to the different inputs of the preamp so the audience does not know in advance which model they are listening to.

-         Again draw lots to select the two pairwise Denafrips models to compare first, then the other pair.

-         Play a selected music track for about one minute so the audience can get a mental picture of the performance, then repeat the same passage on another model immediately. I find that this is better than switching in real time as it is difficult to synchronize everyone’s brain to be ready at the time of the switch. Also, you will be listening to a different passage after the switching so it is difficult to correlate the characteristics of what you have heard before and after the switch.

-         Ask the test subjects to keep notes for each pairwise comparison as to whether they heard a difference and if they did to describe it.

-         After enough pairwise comparisons to discern the relative performance of the different models stop the demo and ask the audience to share with the group their findings.

-         Again, the goal is to see if there are differences among the models and if so how to describe them.

I will report findings of the session later on. They will help us decide how to streamline the demo at AXPONA so that it is most informative and helpful to the audience.

Vinh Vu

Gingko Audio and Danacable

A demo is meant to outline differences if they exist in the way the DACs sound. The difference maybe so subtle that they essentially sound the same. Where there are differences significant enough, one should be able to describe them. That is more important than whether one likes one DAC over the other as that is a totally subjective judgment.