💊The TRUTH About DACs (So Easy An Audiophile Can Understand)
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- #copeharder
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No, DACs do not have a sound signature. COPE HARDER.
0:13 - The Chinaman is not the issue here
0:20 - Am I wrong?
0:46 - What Is A DAC?
1:38 - What affects sound?
2:34 - The AUDIBLE SPECTRUM/A DAC's role
3:15 - The Sabre Chip, Placebos, and Word Salad
3:35 - THAT was a lie
3:45 - John Seaber's Take, SINAD, Cognitive Bias, Auditory Buffer Length
5:54 - "Well" (Ronald Reagan)
6:05 - THE AUDIBLE. SPECTRUM. The Limitations. Of. Human. Hearing.
6:15 - Calmer than you are, fire ants taking a shit, well i WaSn'T!
6:49 - Head-Fi Idiot
8:16 - Closing Thoughts
Level matched blind testing. The test that "magical ears" all fear
Wait, are you suggesting that my $20k Huile de Serpent DAC shaped from a solid block of titanium is just a bunch of snake oil? PREPOSTEROUS!
They Hated Him Because He Spoke the Truth
Very pinnable comment here. :3
My favorite part of the audiophile community is looking at reviews for 10,000 dollar DACs that say it's "sublime" and has a "crystal like quality" and then I look at the measurements on Audiosciencereview and it turns out it has a SNR that's worse by 20 dB compared to a 150 dollar Chinese DAC
The cope is real, fight the cope, you have my likes and comments brother, convert the consumerist philistines into repentant lovers of cheap good audio the way it was supposed to be
Thank you for this video with thought provoking ideas. I do respect your opinion. I wish I didn’t hear differences between DACs but… I do!
Having different DACs volume matched and owning them for a while, I find that the most common areas where I hear clearer differences are: the tightness and nimbleness of the bass region, spatial characteristics like being able to hear clearly the reverb tails and their reflections in a recording, and the absence or presence of sibilance and finesse in the treble region. The differences are not night and day most of the time but they exist.
The midrange is usually the area where most DACs get it right tonally. It is also where the music usually lives, where our ears are more sensitive and I get it why some people won’t hear differences between DACs.
Did you make a blind test?
@@ixoye56 Yes, blind test. Rapid A-B. Enjoying the DACs for more than a year in my system. Trying different oversampling filters. Listening to different music.
I would recommend to everyone the book Mastering Audio by mastering engineer Bob Katz 🤓 📖✨
@@joseluishernandezseptien "YeAh! bUt iS He fROm JDs lABs?!¢" - Home Studio Basics, probably.
@@bigbuckoramma what? :O
You are correct. The quality of the master recording is probably the most influential aspect as to how a complete system sounds. I have 3 DACS. 1 ESS DAC, 1 R to R DAC and another ESS DAC built into my headphone amp. They unquestionably sound different. That difference is subtle, but, irrefutable! Yes I could indisputably identify them in a blind A-B test. I also have 3 amps, 5 if you include the preamp and headphone amp. A premium, vintage, British, class A-B integrated amp. A pair of premium, class A-B monoblocks and a class A-B premium stereo power amp. They all sound so different that I know, beyond any doubt, I could and have, identify then in a blind A-B test. Coming a very close 2nd to the master recording for making a huge difference, are speakers or headphones. Making a more notable difference than source components, DACs or amps. As for interconnects or cables, well, I’m not going to get tied up in that circular argument.
Enjoy the music
Certain Dac's do staging and stage size better but I would chalk this up to the filters and output stages.
Certain dacs have bad filters and roll off early (like the RU6 R2R without OS engaged) which also affects the timbre.
R2R will always roll off and alias in NOS.
But the large pantheon of Delta sigma chinesium dacs competing for SINAD and THD+N olympics are the exact same black boxes.
The most hilarious thing is people coping with cable materials being "warm" "cold" "clinical" "sparkly" in addition to power supplies and audiophile fuses.
What about r2r vs standard dac?
Really great work here. For fun I built an R-2R ladder DAC using a cheap micro controller and very closely hand matched resistors. The difference in the pull up vs pull down pin drive resistance limited the SINAD to about 72 dB or the equivalent of a 12 Bit DAC. I demonstrated this DAC to all of my audiophile friends and these guys with multi-thousand dollar DACs raved about the sound of my DAC. As vinyl records have a SINAD of maybe 60 dB on a really good day, I would say many audiophiles have no clue that a 90 dB SINAD system greatly exceeds the resolution of their hearing. So it is hilarious to see people talking about upgrading to these 120 dB SINAD systems from the 108 dB system they bought a few years ago. I spent a few months studying and measuring the performance limits of vinyl records. It was very enlightening to see that the very best systems had distortion of 0.5% at 1 kHz with 5 cm/s standard level and it the distortion increased with increasing frequency from there. Audiophiles are not interested in high fidelity.
I don't identify as an audiophile anymore. But during my own listening experience, I remember that the Saber DACs from around 2010 and earlier sounded different from Wolfson and TI Dacs. I thought it was Saber not going for a neutral sound but wanted their own in house sound that I didn't prefer. I think their DACs still have built in EQ presets. The Schiit Gungnir had an odd sound compared to some others also. When you buy a DAC, you're not just buying a DAC chip, but an implementation of a DAC chip in a multi functional device. And hopefully the quality of the digital filtering is well implemented and the engineering is consistent throughout all of its circuitry so that all signal paths are clean. And the manufacture isn't trying to use some trickery with a hard coded EQ. Then there's the output section which can be hit or miss and also plays a role on how this DAC sounds. Around 2017 a number of amplifiers started showing up with remarkably clean output with virtually no noise or distortion, and each newer implementation only improved. So today, I think most audio equipment from reputable manufactures are going to sound good regardless of the DAC chip, as long as they are being honest. ESS Saber, Wolfson, TI, Cirrus, AKM DACs etc should all sound great these days.
exactly this. A DAC chip/cpu or any other kind of chip poorly implemented will have a difference. I can say, without question that there is a difference between my K7 and K9 and my SMSL Do200 pro and DL200, it may not be the chips (though of course there will be "better" chips in terms of manufacturing process), it may be everything else that contributes to the product. The DAC chip is only one part of the product and to suggest otherwise would be silly.
John is honest I like JDS. I'm using my Atom 2 Stack to listen to this
Word. Perfectly calm.
can say glad to found your site back then when i was about to enter a rabbit hole of choices (expensive ones) and stoping right at the spot when i found your review for „a“ bt dac stated all the features l was looking for.
still solid choice and never worried about „what is right“ can it get better?
thanks for helping me make sound decisions
Oh snap.......he's bringing back the truth series!!!!!!! I absolutely love when he does this shit. Saved so much money just from these videos alone. Everytime I consider dropping $1k on a amp I watch his truth series and it brings me back down to reality.
"But person X did a blind ABX test and found a difference!" No. ABX:ing *filters* (that DOES alter the sound) is not what Stu is talking about here.
It's so cheap these days to get an extremely good audio setup, you can get a 2nd hand yamaha amp for 40€, get some used nice speakers for 100€-200€, some cinch cables and a reasonable dac for another 50€ in total. Without any need to change this setup for the next 10 years. It blows my mind to see even cinch cables for 400€ holy fuck. And speakers made of stone for 5k€ 😂
The ditched MGS3 character, Chinaman (who obviously is of Vietnamese origin) makes a comeback into my consciousness, thanks to a diss vid directed towards the better part of the Audio file community.
Just a normal day in the life.
btw, great choice for the thumbnail... that's one of the most hyped AMPDACs ever, which u obviously knew, since u were feeding the train.
Really looking forward to seeing ur movie anal vids.
I bought a DAC but I still don’t know what is going on. Don’t think that is your fault though. 🤔
😂
Speaker placement and room acoustics have much more impact on your listening experience than a dac. Having said that I did notice an improvement in detail and sound stage when I added the SMSL SU1 to my system (diy Gain Clone amp & Dali Zensor 3 speakers) instead of using the internal dac in my WiiM mini streamer.
I own several. Tested my Apogee Ensemble, Motu M4 and am my UAD Arrow. The Apogee was well balanced, the UAD has less defined high frequencies and the Motu has the clearest sound. All sounded different but all useable. So.......maybe more testing is needed.
All I use is my sound blasterx g6 nowadays and I just love the plug and go nature of it and everywhere I go I get good powerful quality sound. Also I notice that gain thing difference with the g6 with its low power and high power modes... I always think the high power mode sounds 'better'... it does, it has more power haha.
My advice: Focus on upgrading your DAC last in your list of end-game purchases, unless you need them for a specific utility they provide (either that or for aesthetic reasons). High-end DACs can provide useful things, for example, PEQ ( means you don't need to use software), filters, & balanced DACs can give you the option of using 4V XLR rather then RCA. Also there are R2R DACs which are even more niche, but do have a noticeable difference compared to delta sigma. I don't agree there are big sound differences between any decent DAc over 100$ unless its R2R.
yea if I will change my old DAC new one will be R2R otherwise it make no sense
Exactly, cables matter the most so everyone should start there.....not! 🤣
Thanks, man, for stating the truth. I bought last month a Zen DAC v2... I think I'll NEVER EVER need any other DAC my entire life! I paired that with HD600... think I'm set! If something doesn't sound good, I just know it's not my gear - it's the source. Or my hearing. We're getting old lol. Please keep on being honest and helping those with less knowledge and experience (like me).
My question always for the subjectivists who claim that they hear a difference between DACs is one I never get a good answer to. I ask them, does audiophile snake oil exist? If so, what is the threshold? Where do you draw the line? Because no matter how ridiculous the equipment being discussed actually is, I can assure you that someone, somewhere, 100% believes they heard a difference. Even with examples where we understand the technology well enough to know that no difference can actually be there (e.g. "audiophile" grade network cables and switches) you can find people who believe they heard a difference. I want someone who thinks that the DACs make a difference to explain to me where the line between legit audiophile product and snake oil actually is.
I've never gotten a subjectivist to give me an answer to that.
Ive been calling out these UA-cam salesman that claim they're "reviewers" for years now to Demonstrate that they can do what they claim they can do.
So far not 1 of them have taken me up on that challenge.
A lot of them have lots of poor excuses why they won't prove that they can do what they claim they can, the rest of them just completely ignore or acknowledge that they need to SHOW us what they claim they can do.
They like that its easy to just make whatever claim they want to and never have to verify them.
Talk is cheap
If you can't SHOW it
You don't KNOW it
But if they start showing actual data then companies will stop paying them/sending free products. Just trust them bro. 😆
@@HarakiriRock
I'm not asking for data, I'm asking them to show me how good their hearing is by doing a double blind ABX test
Wait, you mean to tell me my container of ‘juiced cobra’ is just a bottle of snakeoil?!
I have 3 DACs (akm, r2r, cirrus) and all sound different. I guess it depends on your hearing skills & biology. Look up for DIY boards where you can swap out these chips to hear the difference from the same boards.
I never really believed in that, got same DAC few years but changed amps/headphones few times, if I will change it next one would be R2R
I've never believed in differences but heard one anyway with the latest FiiO K11 compared to all the other DAC/AMPs I've tried from time to time, where I've never heard a difference in the past. There is noticeably less treble harshness on the K11 at higher volumes. Not significant, but noticeable. I wonder if it may be related to the filter options it applies. I've never been able to figure out exactly what it is, but it's the only time when I've ever heard a small difference. It does other weird things too, though, like randomly cut out during heavy bass drops, so I also wonder if may just be performing poorly in a way that just so happens to sound more pleasant to me personally.
Oh, one other exception being my Mod House Argons, which some of these amps just couldn't power properly even though they got "loud enough". It sounded downright wonky on some stuff. The unbalanced jack on the K11 for example, it sounded like I got them at the dollar store.
All filters options cut the top frequency range differently, that is probably the difference you hear.
Fiio k11 is a dac/amp combination, is i not? I thought this was abut dacs only?
@@Montahue Would the amp portion be where the filtering is applied? If so, then yeah, I shouldn't have offered that as an example.
I prefer the Dixie Cups connected with String DAC Chips over the more expensive one's
First off, wanted to ask about your grandkids 😂. I am definitely on team Stu here and always appreciate your take and the well crafted vids. If you want to really start a tsunami in the “phile” community just do a multi part series on the “snake” oil that has actually sold for bags’o dough 💰 over the decades and still seems to rake it in. 👏🏼 👏🏼 you rock (on both my dac’s that are used for two different systems and sound the same when using the same material on the same source using the same cans 🎧 or speakers 🤷♂️
I want you to live a healthy life and be happy. I hope you are. ✌️
A real Audiophile is born with super-human hearing, rivaling that of dogs. Plus, they are not poor and can afford very expensive power cords, that will transform miles of electrical flow, in the final 6 feet. The process of the electrical transformation is also known as FM. No, not Frequency Modulation.
spitting facts 1:20 1:46 ayyyyyyyyyytttt
The output stage after the DAC chip is what differentiates a cheap DAC from an expensive one, not the chip itself.
I am comfused between HD 599 and K702 . They are almost the same price now on sale .please help 😢😢.
The Eye
Hugo Kant - Out Of Time take a trip with me and don't forget to enjoy the music and not the gear
Now lets see what you think about power cables, interconnect cables, and speaker wire changing the sound. This should be fun.
You are both right.
expensive DAC have in them a very high purity tantalum capacitor which maybe the reason for sound quality if compared to low priced DAC. one fact that my audiometrist relative told me that there are rare instances where an individual inner ear doesnt mature or slow to mature which means they can hear more clearer compared general population.
Anyone says the truth is an ashole these days!!!I am an ashole like you!!!Keep up the good work!!!!
Hey @sshole, ;-) this audiophile is so glad you're right. It saves me a whole lot of gold. A well implemented DAC is all you need in your audio chain. There is a lot of that avaiabe for cheap. Great times to be in the hobby and enjoy our music. Love the video and the way you vent your opinion; i mean present the facts.
Are you talking about DAC chips or DACs as a whole? Because a DAC that you use is much more than just a DAC chip - it has a USB interface, an analogue section, a power supply, and so on. All these things affect the sound. No, I have 3 cheap DACs - Dragonfly Red, ifi iDSD micro and Hegel DAC. They all sound different - Dragonfly is thin sounding with a flat soundstage, Hegel DAC has a thick, fat sound with a fine soundstage but less detail, ifi DAC is the best of the three (and the most expensive) - has detail but it's not sharp, nice soundstage width and depth, have that kind of smoothness of sound that's very pleasant to listen to. The only drawback compared to the more expensive units is the lack of full scale dynamics.
Lol I was just looking for a cheap DAC to replace my budget motherboard audio and this video comes up.
Can you guys recommend some sub $100 or even $50 dac that would do a good job ? TIA
Smsl su1
@@crazyprayingmantis5596 Thanks !
this means that I should buy the cheapest DAC available and spend the rest of the money on something else
You are right.
Hang on, you’ve come across audiophiles who don’t believe the Nyquist-Shannon Rule is real?
I'll just stick to my audioquest dragonfly black.......my first and only DAC that cost me $100.00 😁
Too easy...the type of DAC chip, the analog output stage, the type of power supply and quality of parts used. That's just for DS DACs. R2R DACs...the type, amount and spec of the resistors in the ladders and/or type of multibit implementation plus all the factors above. Really?!
If you can't hear a diierence
try harder or get a more resolving system.
All dacs have a amp stage, this make more diferences than chips itself
A lot of this DAC this and that is just people justifying their expensive hobbies... go for it just don't make it seem like you're impartial.
Stu....you're right. Just be careful of German nihilists.
John is right.
Great video well written
Hey there! I can with 100% confidence tell that some DACs sound very noticeably different. I have Denon x1800 receiver with headphone output and Fostex hp-a3 dac. Once i had my dac in other room connected to ps5, so I just connected to denon receiver and started to listen. Immediately I’ve felt that the sound was just horrible, it was obvious.
So I agree that similarly priced dacs sound the same, but receiver’s built in dac sounded awful, it might be very cheap and have very low stn ratio.
Tbf part of that's an amp not just a dac issue.
@@LinaChun-c6z I would agree but I made an experiment: I’ve plugged my dac into line inputs of the receiver and tested the sound again, it was much better. Not as good as straight from dac, but definitely better. So only thing that changed was receiver’s built in dac
Anyone can TELL anyone whatever they want.
It's the SHOWING them part they struggle with.
Talk is cheap
If you can't SHOW it
You don't KNOW it
@@crazyprayingmantis5596I don’t have an inner urge to prove anyone anything. If you don’t trust my words, it’s totally ok. I know I’m right on this one, I don’t need to convince anybody to have an opinion. I even 100% sure that you personally will hear the difference if you listen to denon x1800 built in dac and fostex hp-a3 dac side by side, because it’s not subtle or hard to hear, it’s obvious immediately as you hear it
@@w140
Cool, but i don't care about what anyone claims they can do.
Do you know that I can jump over a car?
I feel no urge to actually demonstrate that I can and I don't care if you believe me or not because I know it's true.
See how little you care about my claim right now, well it's the same feeling I get when people make claims about what they can do. 😊
Next do cables! 😄
use apple/google dongle when you need to connect your PC to a audio device like a speaker amp or IEMs.
Use a more powerful cheap dongle Dac if you have high impedance headphones.
everything else is snake oil.
how's your grandchildren?
Dude! Space Cadet Team!
So, what DAC do you recommend?😂
I think your hearing is damaged. Probably is from the Fiio dac/amps you are using
😂
👀🫳🏾🍿
If you can't hear the difference between dacs, why are you buying expensive gear? They all sound the same, right? Bah.. Get a different hobby, or be happy you don't need to spend money. (Guy shows several dacs all with ess chips, says they sound the same, of course they do).
This material is entirely simply not true. I have many dacs, and difference between each one is huge. It is without any doubts more significant than difference even between speakers. Simple as that.
What is important, not chip is so important, but whole construction, whole device. For example, I have two ESS and both have totally different sound, difference is Huge. - I have both connect exactly to the same source, amplifier and speakers. And they have different sound than AKM. And totally different sound than R2R - and this one is different in OS and NOS mode. Each person who tested this collection is saying exactly the same, there are no any different opinions here.
R2R, AKM and ESS are much better in clear way in many aspects than a collection of cheap ones, but quality of those cheap is not related with price. Most cheap is definietly bad. But little pricier one is much better, but also is much better than third one - two times pricier than second one. Once again, difference is not directly related with price, but in each case very audible and clear without any doubts. Some differences can be even directly seen on oscilloscope - especially os and Nos modes, DS vs r2r, also effect of each DS filter can be directly seen on oscilloscope screen - most of this is not directly audible, but can be very clearly visually seen within sound wave.
Stuart AI
Somebody drank the coolaid. Too bad.😢
Your tests are completely invalid unless you used $5,000 power cords on all components and had bags of magical pebbles taped to your speaker wires and cables. Duh.
But bruh do you even R2R/DSD/TDR/IR2/TLDR?!?
Bro I don’t think u even audio
Bruh u can’t even AKG my Sennheiser brahhhh
BRAHHH
< ✌️
Bruh, don't even think you can sennheiser my akm! My sennheisr will r2r your ess up it's beyerdynamic quicker than you can say "cryogenic treated quantum ion cables" bruh! 😂
Bruh if only you planar’d your ANC before you RCA’d you’d totally have AKG’d your own ESS, sadly you will have to THX some AirPods instead. I RECOMMEND BALANCED 24-bit/44.1kHz BRAHHHHHHHHHHHH
😂😂😂
This man's editing is like those brainrot videos made for 8 year olds.
There's 30 seconds of actual information in this video, the rest is just a guy acting like he's going through some sort of episode that would land you in a mental institution.
Its funny but not true, It does have a huge effect. I'm not saying it changes the sound signature, but if the dac is horrible it can't produce the accurate sound because its shit. If i listen to a tv series with the same headphone with my onboard laptop dac i barely can hear all the small sounds (or not at all). If i plug in the dragonfly red I suddenly can hear everything.
It's the amp stage in your laptop that sucks, not the DAC.
@@ixoye56 JDS Labs themselves said in this video "DACs can be TUNED", why would a DAC need to be "Tuned" to meet SINAD if they are all "The Same"????
@@bigbuckoramma DAC's can be tuned with different filter options.
@@ixoye56 Oh, so what you're saying is... DAC's sound different. Huh...who knew?
@@bigbuckoramma If you use the same type of filter they should sound the same.
I buying a Topping DX9 anyway
I will hear better than you
Seems like a cry for attention.
Reeks of desperation.
It's generational. Reddit is full this nonsense.
I don't need to prove what is true.
Reminds of today's political landscape.
Wherein, you can't prove trump is a griffter.
PROVE IT. SHOW ME THE GRAPHS AND CHARTS.
Pathetic, for views. 😢
You do realize these DAC chip companies employee engineers/designers whose job it is to create a 'house' sound, right? Presentations by Martin Mallinson of ESS are easily available and AKM even had some sort of roundtable interview w/ their engineers about the 'Velvet Sound'. I mean, you *have* researched how the companies themselves approach their work, right?
Of course he didn't. That doesnt conform to his views like JDS Labs does. Never mind that JDS Labs uses no-name DAC chips, and has incentive to tell you DAC chips dont matter, so they can keep selling cheap components at premium audio prices.
DAC Filters are 100% a thing. Every DAC can hit reference. Like JDS Labs said "if the DAC is tuned right." Tuning implies a difference in the output...but if all DAC's are the same...why a difference in the output? Why the need for "tuning"? WHy even have the need for a reference spec if it is all "the same" and its just placebo?
He contradicts himself, and doesnt even realize it. So of course he wouldnt ask an actual DAC manufacturer if they have a different sound. I bet he would say they have a monetary interest in saying they sound different, because that stokes the fanboys...to which i go right back to JDS Labs never saying what DAC they use in their products.
This also apply to tube amps?