Cause of different sound between dacs

For a brief illustration of some of the complexities that are involved in optimizing just a couple of the many factors that have been cited by the others above, take a look at this paper (although it focuses on A/D rather than D/A conversion).

Entire textbooks have been written about many of the individual factors the others have mentioned.

Very few designers can be expected to possess world class expertise in all of these areas. And designs that are intended to meet a given set of requirements will inevitably be implemented differently by different designers, regardless of how similar their expertise may be.

Regards,
-- Al

I admit to being "gobsmacked" as John Malkovich put it.
And I thought bits are bits, chipsets are so improved they must be nearly identical, power supply function so well established that there must be a basic template that is efficient & effective. This is just another reason why stadardization would be so helpful and "economical".
I thought the 2 dacs I quoted must be soo similar as they are at the top of the heap.
Mindnumbing.
OK. Is the newer K03 better than the original or new Alpha Dac and if technically possible please reveal some of the reasons. I assumed the k03 being newer,from a huge digital company, MUST be better. Am I mistaken?

I wouldn't look inside because its all "GREEK" to me.
I was hoping for a simpler answer and a simple way f
of making sensible choices. I'm feeling like stepped into a land mine-and wouldn't know one if I saw it. Scary.

It's easy to establish via careful listening that two DACs sound different just by a/b testing. Like vanilla and french vanilla say. But a lot harder to establish which is in fact BETTER. Which is better, Vanilla or Chocolate? Two things that are different cannot be equally good. One may beat another in one aspect of sound and lose in another. Differences might be subtle. Some may not matter to any particular individual, others may. What is better is often determined by personal preferences in choosing between two different beasts.

Two DACs can sound identical just because you are using a poor quality preamp or any active preamp at all in the system. These can totally homogenize all sources.

I don't use any preamp, active or passive. Makes a world of difference.

If you must use one, use a passive transformer. Requires the DAC to have decent output drive though...

Steve N.
Empirical Audio