The Emperor DAC has no Clothes

Hi Bryon - yes, we are basically in agreement. The whole build quality thing gets argued about much more by vinyl guys, particularly on the asylum. My main point in this context is to state that too many audiophiles tend to assume that just because component A uses a more expensive part than component B, that it is therefore going to sound better. This is of course not to say that many components cannot be improved, just that the cost is not necessarily the issue.

Rob, here's one reviewer's thoughts...

I respect your conclusion/opinion, though my experience has been largely different, even prior to reviewing. I've been through dozens of cdps/DACs now, many before writing publicly. If there were not what I would call an "efficacious" benefit to pursuit of different digital front ends I would have given up on trying them long ago.

My experience is exactly opposite yours; I am finding that digital front end is supremely important and varies vastly more than most people know. As a system is elevated the importance of seemingly small/nuanced differences in cdps/DACs become huge.

I happened to just finish reading a book by Ed Viesturs on K2, a mountain where every "little" decision made can make the difference when climbing between life and death - literally. I've never died building a rig - ;) - but some systems have died an ignominious death due to one thing, a poorer digital front end.

I'm still trying to figure out how you and your friends can hear such fantastic results when switching power cords and using gentle tweaks, but can't hear differences between DACs. It doesn't add up. I would never summarize digital front ends as being less important to shaping the sound than cabling, amp, etc. In fact, I assert that if you pay little attention to the digital source you are asking for mediocrity. Sorry, no offense, but the source in my mind has become far more critical to system building than I thought it to be 15 years ago.

From what you are saying in your posts it's almost as though you're trying to see how close you guys can get these DACs to sound. Well, that's easy. Change a cable, tweak this or that; no problem. A reversion to a mean is always possible. But that hardly means the players cannot be taken in different directions, in fact vastly different directions, even though starting at relatively similar sound.

OTOH, there are players which do sound relatively similar. If that's the case you simply have to keep searching until you find one which is radically better, not conclude that they're all of one shade of performance.

To that end, did you ever try Opamp rolling the EE DAC or DAC Plus? I'll tell you straight up, if you didn't you lost out big time on that DACs potential. And if you did do so and said you couldn't hear a big/vast improvement I would filter heavily everything you said about sound in the future. :)

BTW, did you know that Bill O'Connell of Morningstar was originally quite concerned about my Opamp rolling the EE DAC, but once he tried it he was shocked at the result. Guess who is now offering the DAC Plus with an Opamp upgrade? Yup; Morningstar! He'll sell a ton of them because the DAC Plus sounds radically different with the Opamp change. I wouldn't waste my time on it writing about it if it wasn't worthy. Just ask the others who have tried it; I don't know of a single person who has done the Opamp upgrade and said it doesn't do much, especially for the money.

As far as cost/value/sound ratio - which may be your primary consideration, I have found a loose connection between cost and performance. It is not absolute, however. I have heard $10K players which rock my world, and also $1K players that do the same. I used to think there was not that much difference; I've used enough of them now to not hold that opinion.

I have had amps/speakers/DACs etc. which do sound similar. That in no way, imo, means ALL of a certain component sound similar and are not worth investigation until one which IS radically better is found. I fundamentally disagree with that assertion, and I reached that conclusion long before reviewing; in fact, it was cables, which are considered widely to hold the least potential in system development which changed my opinion about it.

In the end in one sense it doesn't matter; if you enjoy your rig you're doing the audiophile thing well. Who's to say why your four DACs sound similar? I know one thing; I could take those four DACS and make systems which sound similar to a degree, or take them and make systems which sound nothing alike. The slight nuance at the source which seems not so important can be critical to what is heard at the end of the chain.

hi doug:

regarding changes to the opamps, what improvements in sound, or what differences did you perceive from the stock op amps ???

or, another way of asking the question:

what are the sonic deficiencies with the stock op amps ?

Douglas, thanks for your comments. I've made my points based on the units we heard. I will continue to audition DACs in the coming months and perhaps my perception will change!

Cheers,

Rob

All it takes is an active preamp and an inferior SD/PDIF cable in the system and all DACs will sound poor and the same.

Get rid of the preamp or replace it with a Music First Transformer passive linestage and get a good S/PDIF cable, such as the Ridge Street Audio Poiema. Drive the DAC with a really low jitter source. Then you will hear significant differences.

The NOS DAC will likely pull ahead of the Delta-Sigma converters. Why? because these older chips dont do any jitter reduction, so they need all the help they can get, plus these dont have digital filtering which is the bain of all digital audio. Apodizing does not fix this IME.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio