The Emperor DAC has no Clothes

Rob - agree with you. I was fully expecting to prefer tube mode, but ss mode just adds more to my system. The added detail and resolution is welcome, especially without the listener fatigue I tend to equate with SS gear. Having tube preamplifier and amp probably helps in that regard. For whatever reason, the tube mode just does not blend in well with my system. As you mentioned, tube mode may work very well in revealing SS system where the goal is to add some warmth at the source. As usual, there are no absolutes and individual system synergy tells the tale.

"So Audioengr, other than the renowned MAC Mini, what are some examples of reasonably price yet quality digital sources with low jitter? Any laptops besides the Macbook Pro?"

With the advent of Async USB interfaces, this has nothing to do with the computer. It has to do with the USB interface. This is the digital source I'm talking about. This is what impacts the jitter.

If your computer uses a soundcard, then yes, the clock and interface is in the computer and this is where the jitter matters. But if we are talking about high-performance playback, this is not about internal soundcards. It's about high-performance external USB converters and USB DACs. This is where the low-jitter master clocks are located and this is what determines the jitter.

Mac Mini and Macbook Pro are certainly a good place to start to get something reliable going, and installation of Amarra or PM etc.. will definitely help with SQ, but this is second-order compared to the interface and clocks. The computer is not what determines the jitter level.

People seem to be fixated on the computer hardware and getting the best one for audio with all of the tweaks. It's not about the computer if one uses the optimum interface. I use a stock 2009 Mac Mini myself. Nothing special. I may put a SSD in it eventually.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Loomis wrote:

"about four to five percent of the cost of good value high-end electronics is in the actual electronics that do the work"

That may be the case for the V-DAC, because that company has marketing and lots of employees to pay salaries. They probably have 3X margins so they can sell worldwide through distributors etc.. This is a typical model for consumer electronics.

Some high-end companies however have very few employees, dont advertise, and put a LOT of cost into the products, causing their margins to be small and their prices to be higher. Most of these are smaller companies that sell direct. There are actually much better components available, including connectors, internal cabling, multi-layer high-quality silver-plated circuit boards, low dielectric absorption capacitors, low ESR capacitors, low inductance resistors. Clocks (oscillators) that produce lower jitter are expensive, very expensive. When a designer uses these parts in the design, the result is much higher cost, but also lower electrical noise levels, better dynamic slam, more clarity, wider and deeper soundstage and less harshness in the audio output. More analog-like. The performance is definitely better than less expensive designs.

This is not about op-amps and IC's. What makes a really stellar component is the other "stuff", as well as the implementation.

BTW, Read the review of the V-DAC in TAS. You will learn a few things about jitter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Very interesting, all. Rob, I've been following your experimentation with various DACs with interest, and, well, my interest remains. I suspect, in the end, however, that we're all more in agreement than otherwise. Marketing hyperbole aside, I submit (surmise?) that there are really a limited amount of variables in play that can meaningfully differentiate one piece of gear from another when it comes to sophisticated, well-considered DAC implementation. When one gets to comparing the differences among the sort of gear that we're all so fascinated with, the bottom line is that the differences are really not going to be all that earth-shattering. Put differently, and as has been observed many times, we’re likely the obsessive few dealing with vanishingly diminishing returns between the 99th percentile (above which most folks never imagine to venture) and the 100th percentile of very-likely mythical “true reproduction” of recorded material.

All that said, I do not for a moment mean to diminish the relevance (or importance) of these small distinctions. They are, after all, what we’re all about. Although I am admittedly guilty of having limited experience on my own digital safari, I certainly identified and developed preferences among various digital sources. My “reference” for years has been a Meridian 508.24. Hardly the last word in anything, but a relatively (and enduringly) nice piece of kit. When I first sought to make the transfer to a computer-based system, spent a little over a year with a MHDT Havana as the DAC. Also nice, but in the end just didn’t think it was in the same league as the Meridian. Warmth and bloom that I so chase after, yes, but clearly at the expense of resolving power, finer detail, and the more-complete sense of presence and recreation of space that these micro-details convey. Minor – very minor – distinguishing details, but on the whole details that convey a materially different experience. I’ve also had in my system a less-expensive Taiwanese DAC (a friend’s, don’t remember the make) that was significantly less impressive than the MHDT. Again, very minor details in the grander scheme of things, but the sum of the parts were materially less capable of conveying presence and the full experience. Following the day spent comparing the MHDT, the Meridian and the mystery DAC with said friend, I became obsessed with finding a more resolving DAC that could run with the Meridian – and to me this entailed moving from the non-up-sampling offerings to something else.

With that, I found myself in a shootout between the Ayre QB-9 and a Bel Canto 3.5 at a local shop (mostly Bel Canto electronics, higher-end Totem speakers, running Amarra on a Mac for a source). Yes, somewhat arbitrary, and arbitrarily limited, but there you go. The Ayre and the Bel Canto were awfully similar, no mistake. Both portrayed a largely indistinguishable soundstage and level of detail and were quite impressive. Ultimately, to my ears on that day, in that room, on that equipment, the Bel Canto was slightly more etched and “sharp” in its presentation, while the Ayre was a touch warmer and more relaxed. A very minor difference, but a material one in my book. Ended up with a pleasantly-cheaper Ayre.

Since then, spent about a year running bit perfect (through Bit Perfect, which is great) in integer mode with no upsampling. Then I started to acquire more and more high res material. Recently, I have converted to a USB 2.0 feed and begun upsampling (by powers of two) to either 176 or 192khz, depending on the source resolution (44khz x4, 88khz x 2, or 96khz x 2). Fascinated by the flexibility this gives one to change really material stuff with only the ticking of a box (on Bit Perfect, did I mention I like that program?). Still not sure there’s a clear preference – often changes depending on the material – but love the flexibility. The bits/transport end supplying what the DAC is fed makes a real difference. And absent a common language regarding that, I suspect that DAC comparisons may be at a real impasse. I will say, however, that the whole experience has severely damaged my belief that there is such a think as “truth” or a meaningful benchmark against which to objectively rate all comers. You can judge X against Y in-system and prefer one to the other, or not, but at least I don’t seem capable of going much beyond that. And one can make and perceive changes, but conveying them to others through words, much less convincing anyone that one may be “better” than another, is so fundamentally context-based and subjective as to be nearly impossible. I will say, apropos of the original premise, that the difference between a $200 Kimber USB cable and the free one that came with my RAID drive – especially running USB 2.0 – is exactly zero. Usual caveats, my system, my room, my ears, but I stand by conclusively zero. (And this from a true believer that cabling elsewhere in the system makes surprisingly significant differences.)

(And if you really want to damage your calm, get ahold of some analyzing software and an SPL meter and run some hard data on your room performance. I’ve had both a professional sound engineer and a world class ballet dancer graciously comment that I can generate some of the best sound they’ve heard outside of a professional recording studio – bless them both, does wonders for the ego – but, let me tell you folks, my room’s a travesty. In the interest of moving from strategic wild ass guesswork (“SWAG”) to actual f-ing data (“AFD”), I’ve seen the AFD and my room’s an unmitigated disaster. Makes quibbling about the finer points of DAC selection seems a total waste of time. Relativity and context is a bitch. Alas.)

Anyway, ramble aside, DACs have one thing going for them that no one can deny – they’re likely more portable than just about anything else in this “hobby.” I’ve got two (the Ayre and the Havana). Anyone in the NYC area interested in continuing the shoot-out? Can’t make any promises, but I could be game....

more detail and resolution, does not intrinsically denote that the sound is better.

but i appreciate that someone has indicated a reason for preferring the solid state path.

i think that the availability of a tube circuit provides the opportunity to vary the sound of the unit.