The DAC Scam - Almost everyone believes the hype

Jason Bourne Steals the Blackbriar Files

Jason Bourne Steals the Blackbriar Files

LOL!

Brought to you by the UK division of ASR.  OMG, it’s Amir with a British accent.  Love the way he glosses over the power supply and output stage and doesn’t even broach the subject of the clock, galvanic isolation, etc.  This is a prime example of someone who has to go by measurements because he’s completely incapable of using his ears so swears the rest of us are just fooling ourselves.  This guy is a total joke, and there’s 13 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. 

@audiotroy ​​@loomisjohnson @soix 

+1 ….. big time….

Simply put, “what makes a good DAC?”.

Too many believe that the magic silver bullet secret to a good DAC lies in just choosing a “high-end” converter chip flavour of the day,

Chip design is important, BUT …. with hands-on audio experience and verified by direct unit audition bake-offs …. as we go up the price-point ladder, we also learned that the essence of the musicality also resides in the line signal processing stages, the power supplies (transformers, filtering, regulation), the digital signal processing before conversion, the quality of the key components: clocks, transistors, capacitors, etc. ….these are foundations of DAC sonic improvements

@jasonbourne71 , There’s a bit more nuance to a dac than distortion, sinad, transparency whatever. They can quite significantly change a soundfield, spatial cues, perceivable detail with dsp tricks (fpga, etc).

Get a simple Creative soundcard and try the different tweaks on their dsp engine.

I have a couple of prepros that will let you create a very different experience everyday if one wanted (through dsp).

But, since the vulture priced dacs are typically sold to "purist" guys who are a bit technologically challenged, the dsp tricks.."flavors" are more hidden away.

A DAC is basically a sound card. Expensive DAC’s are trophies for the gullible rich to impress their clueless buddies!