Just when I thought digital could not match analog


I recently had an experience that forced me to re-think a long held belief about audio sources. The experience was a recent comparison between the new dB Audio Labs Tranquility USB DAC (fed by a Mac Mini computer) to my reference analog rig (VPI Super Scoutmaster). In the past, every time I compared digital to analog, it was clearly evident which was which. The analog always sounded much more real, fluid and involving. No matter what strengths the digital had, it was never even in the same ballpark as analog. I have even found that inexpensive analog rigs have these particular advantages over digital. This has now changed. The dB Audio labs DAC is in the same ballpark as analog! In fact, it was difficult to tell the Tranquility DAC from the Super Scoutmaster. It felt like comparing two analog rigs, and my analog rig is no slouch costing approximately $7K. After more listening, I found that the analog is slightly more fluid and the digital is slightly more dynamic. Which do I prefer, hard call… But, this is the first time I have EVER found a digital source that is even comparable to analog! I will be adding a Tranquility DAC to my system and finally be able to enjoy digital as much as analog.
sdfish
Hi Foster 9,

From what I understand, in order to get the best sound from DAC, you would want to use a Mac Mini hooked up via one of the better audiophile USB cables. I'm pretty sure thats how I will configure my own personal system after I buy this DAC.

Tom
Might be interesting for those ONLY looking at a PC music server based syetem but the complete lack of flexibility in terms of any other input options (SPDIF or Optical) makes it a non-starter for me.
I don't believe a vinyl system end based on a super scoutmaster (you did not mention a phono stage or cartridge) can be taken seriously as a reference level analog front end.

Or even close.

Go fish.
The way the designer described the DAC to me is that it's meant to work with music coming directly from a computer's hard drive where the music rips to the hard drive had error correction enabled. So, the transport needs to be a PC but they have also found that Macs were slightly the better sounding. That is why the DAC is USB only, so the dac see's a perfect copy of the CD. He also told me they are working on a SPIF/DIF to be released at a later date. I think they wanted to make their best sounding DAC as their first offering.