DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend
R2R dac sadly will be at a disadvantage then as they specifically do PCM (redbook) "bit perfect" and should be better in the shootout, that's why one of the very high-end dacs now I've seen have a discrete R2R stage for PCM and a ESS Delta Sigma for the dsd streaming It would be good if you could get some CD's and a transport also for this shootout Cheers George |
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one note - I am using FPGA in the marketing sense. That is, DACs that are not using a traditional DAC Chip (ESS, Burr Brown, Etc…) or an R2R but are exclusively using FPGA chips and therefore are firmware based. This is generally how Chord, Audiobyte, Playback Designs, etc… refer to their products. I have a few transports here. I can order a CD or two with decent tracks on it. Good suggestion since lots of folks are CD users. I would love to have more people involved. I will try and have my wife listen. She is a good counterpoint to my taste. For example, I like the MScaler, she hates it intensely. I will try and get a few other folks involved for specific ABs. |
Hate to put another fly in the ointment but! If you do A/B using CD and streaming, be aware early CD’s are usually not compressed (sound much better), where later of the same cd (re-issues/re-masters) are compressed, and are what you usually get when streaming. Just look at this one and only album they came together to make, and you’ll see, and why I campaign for all streaming/download companies/sites to give the provenance of what they sell you. And why I stay with CD until they do. (green is good uncompressed) https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/year?artist=Traveling+Wilburys Remember, dynamic range gives the music breathing space. (without quite, you have no loud, = compression) Cheers George |
I don’t really understand why there is this perception that FPGA = Good, while dac chips such as ESS, AKM, Burr Brown etc = Bad. Most FPGA designs are from one man operations with one idea and a limited budget, while the chips are generally designed by expert teams with larger budgets. Of course, either can be good or bad, depending on the implementation. Some of the most highly regarded high end DACs available use the current ESS or AKM chips, for example. Personally, I prefer the Lumin X1 and Mytek Manhattan II with their ESS chips to the Chord Dave I owned, despite its FGPA. In other words, don’t pre-judge the DAC merely because it uses a particular architecture. It is the implementation that is more important. And you should definitely involve your wife. If she hates the M Scaler, it sounds like she has good taste and better hearing than most reviewers out there. |
