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I'm not all in on digital systems because I'm not all in on DACs

We were lucky to have the makers of the @Arion1 speaker line join us in another conversation.  One of the points the rep made was he didn't understand what the problem was with digital among audiophiles. 

I am in many ways a digital music guy.  I have no vinyl and use Roon for all of my playback but this all stops when it leaves my Mytek DAC.  I've taken a great deal of care in selecting my integrated amplifier, and my speakers and how they are configured.  I rely heavily on OmniMic and Roon's DSP before the DAC... so why won't I just let go and go 100% digital?  Why don't I use digital crossovers after my preamp and convert my system to fully active?

The answer is in a series of experiences I've had with digital playback.  DAC's can sound wildly different.  I'm staring at two right now.  A Topping DX3 and a Mytek Brooklyn.  One sounds thin and lacking energy and bass while the other sound really good.

The same thing happened to me when I was trying to upgrade from my Theta Casanova.  I was looking for a processor that was HDMI friendly and inexpensive.  I went through a number of them which had the same problem:  Thin and gutless until I got an Oppo BluRay player which sounded better than all of them.  Sadly the Oppo DAC/headphone amp was a horrible ear drill to my ears.

So I'm not against digital signal processing or DACs, but within my budget I'm not willing to give up control over the sound of my DAC to a new crossover in the chain without listening.

What are your thoughts?

erik_squires
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,903 posts
 

I'm not a digital guy in that I don't relish the thought of trying out all the different DACs out there. Too many flavors and choices don't get me any closer to the musical truth if they all sound different. In the end, I'd just settle on a sound that suits me and may end up being the furthest thing from the truth. That would drive me mad.

I'm the digital kind of guy who settles on a well received brand that has a long track record of getting it right and go from there. My present SACD player has two filter options (which I discovered years after getting it and it did make a favorable difference) and having a few more is all that I'd need.

Saying that, I'm looking forward to getting the Technics SU-G700M2 as it eschews the DAC portion and processes the digital signal as is, all the way to the speaker outputs, where it flips it, via a filter, to an analog signal so the speaker can play it. 

To hear that signal in a less corrupted form is something I'm looking forward to. I have the option to use the digital out of my SACD player or the analog out with the signal fully processed thru the players DAC. Some reviewers preferred it that way and others didn't, but it increases the choices available. 

All the best,
Nonoise

danager's avatar
danager
958 posts
 

You do realize that the "filter" is a DAC Digital Audio Converter. Not converting the signal to analog filtering it and then converting it back to analog it theory should be better but would be really interesting in how much better it sounds.

 

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,903 posts
 

I kind of understand that but it seems that Technics does it all in house without an off the shelf DAC, but through their JENO engine which looks more and more like it has the qualities of a FPGA of sorts. There's a review of the big brother SU-R1000 were the reviewer clearly states there's no DAC in it as well.

All the best,
Nonoise

danager's avatar
danager
958 posts
 

Something like this maybe?

 

 

 

erik_squires OP
16,262 posts
 

From what I can see, Technics is using a PWM output with feed-forward built into the DSP engine.

Maybe there is feedback on the output as well, but I haven’t heard anything about that portion.

A real shame that after all that work it doesn't actually measure a lot better.

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