When people say this, how many of them do you think have professionally designed electronics for audio or other similar low noise electronics?
When people say this, can they clearly and concisely describe, in point form, exactly what is wrong with the power supplies on these units?
I would be more worried about isolation on the interfaces. |
"Does a DAC sound better with an overkill power supply?" Yes. My first "serious" DAC was an Audio Alchemy DDP-1. I tried this with & without the optional stand alone power supply. The difference was easy to hear. With the optional power supply the bass was more pronounced & the highs were cleaner. Also... what dow jones states above is right, just haven't run across one of those yet. |
Some people want their DAC to sound like nothing, similar to how some people believe that the best preamp is just a passive one with a quality attenuator - nothing but a straight line with gain. Others believe that these components are major contributors to the heart and soul of music delivery. Neither are wrong, and each person is entitled to his or her preferences and values. I am in the camp of the latter and believe that a DAC and preamp are integral to bringing the music to life. To do so, the analog stages of each component need to be exceptional. Part of making these stages exceptional is quality power. Good quality power also helps to reduce noise in the DAC’s digital stage as well. There have been numbers of threads where people have upgraded or bypassed their DAC’s built-in power supplies and have reported improvements from doing so. I did this myself with the PS Audio DirectStream DAC, continuing to leverage the internal power supply to handle the digital display and firmware while handling the analog and digital audio stages with a Farad Super3 linear power supply. The improvement was notable with a much blacker background, faster, stronger bass and less etched / more natural presentation overall. |
Yes and no, the power supply on the cheaper streamers do introduce noise into the system. Like with the blusound node. It's a great streamer but getting a better quality power cable does help out a lot. I've also heard one modded to use an external power supply and it does help out a lot. But with any decent built >$1000 DAC, you wont have an issue with that. |
This is largely a problem if one like listening to their music at very low levels.
And this is also largely true.
But, answer the OP’s question, it also makes a difference as to what the input impedance of the preamp is, and what the output impedance of the DAC is. The Audio Precision measurement gear likely has a super high input impedance, so it does not likely suffer… or it is not likely to pull down the DAC’s output in any measurable way whatsoever. Luckily, most manufacturers provide the input and output impedances of their gear. So that helps to a large degree. |
Tony, It was an honest question. I am very confused by ASR loving these cheap DACs. My Yiggy has a very large PS and sounds great. My interest is curiosity as to how these $300 to $600 dacs test so well and have very low noise. I believe they have small power supplies due to the tiny sizes of these units. I don't have an "ASR Bias", just wondering if we're all paying too much. |
The source is the most important part of the system (after a certain price - almost all modern speakers and amplifiers sound acceptable). Dirty food generates/exacerbates jitter. |
While I totally get the argument for beefier power supplies, and it's probably never wrong for a DAC to have one/them, but life once again showed me nothing is universally true, with a wonderful sounding DAC (MHDT Orchid) that's light as a feather, and thus I no idea if a power supply needs to be heavy in order to be of high quality. Interested in what others think about this. |
Have you considered the obvious answer? They are engineered very well? There are other higher priced dacs with light power supplies. RME ADI 2 uses an external brick. Benchmark have light weight internal switching supplies. |
Are you paying too much? I am a firm believer in the quality of power supply and parts matter significantly and separate the good components from the not so good. If you find the frequently praised low-cost (Well measuring) DACs to equal your more expensive one, then you could make the argument that you overspent. personally, I would be surprised if this was the outcome. But in this scenario, it’s your ears and your audio system. Just do comparative listening. Charles |
@koestner, it is understandable when all the people commenting are telling you that this level of performance must be impossible the way they are designed. However, all these replies telling you that have one thing in common. They are all made by people who are not EEs, and who lack any significant amount of electronics design experience. What they are telling you comes from product marketing sheets, not from real world knowledge and experience designing these types of products or similar types of electronics products.
@holmz , no the AP does not have a crazy high input impedance. A few minutes of Google would have shown it to have 100K resistor in parallel with 100pF, or very close to most pre-amps and amps that we would use. It also has selectable 600/300R termination.
@koestner , the units were measured and achieved the performance measured. That cannot be explained away any more than the units that were measured and measured poorly obtained that level of performance. All the excuses in the world does not change that.
Where I personally would be concerned about the performance I may achieve in my system would be with USB on the lowest cost units due to the lack of isolation. This could result in ground related noise from the DAC connected and the next device in the audio chain. If this is the case, though, you will hear that noise in the quiet passages of the music. If you don't, draw your own conclusions. Audiophiles like to repeat phantom, effectively non-audible noise sources they read about on data sheets. A few minutes on Google and you will find USB isolation products for a few hundred dollars.
Below are pictures of two well respected DACs even within this community. One uses a simple 12V external wall wart. One uses an internal, what looks like an off the shelf switching power supply. In both, all internal voltages are generated on board. If you look at the second one, the layout is pretty tight. Other than the enclosed power supply (metal case adds a few dollars to cost at most), there are no fancy shields, no special compartments for each section, No esoteric capacitors or resistors. However, while many audiophiles do not like its sound or more specifically its lack of sound, no one seems to question the validity of the performance it achieves.
This is a $300 product. It has less features. It does not have many big electrolytic capacitors, but it has lots of tantalum capacitors (rectangular yellow things) which many other boards do not. Properly used they can fulfill similar functions. If you look at the DAC sections, they are not all that different. Their higher end product which achieves even better performance and has more features does have more complexity and obvious power components, but does not squeeze that much more performance out.
|
Charles has the answer, experience the difference for yourself. I'd suggest the dacs with lesser power supplies may resolve very well, lack in substantive, analog like sound qualities. This has been my experience and others based on subjective reviews I've observed.
My only direct experience was Perpetual Technologies digital setup from many years ago, Between Modwright and my own mods, this was Frankenstein setup, nearly every part changed over the years, lots of power supply mods as well. PS mods were important, better filtering and greater supply resulted in higher resolving, more natural sound quality, greater micro/macro dynamics. |
Yes, experience it yourself @koestner, but keep in mind comparing two products with very similar sounds requires more than just swapping them in and out and getting an impression. A simple small volume difference will create far more of a sound difference than swapping the two DACs ever will as will anything that impacts frequency response. Saying that, your Schiit Yggdrasil has some questionable performance that is far enough off "accurate" to be audible. You asked about power supplies? Well the ones, objectively in the Yggdrasil are really crappy ... or at least the ability of the product to negate the effects of the power supply. The effect is the same. Also appears to be issues with single ended (RCA outputs) that are substantial (easily could be audible). You won’t note it as a flaw, but it will sound different from something else if compared. Being acclimatized to what you have, something new and different may not be viewed better, especially when it is a frequency response change.
If I am not mistaken, after being constantly pilloried, for good reason, in ASR reviews, Schitt went out and bought some proper test equipment and fixed their design issues. Their later DACs measure much better. |
@charles1dad +1 Good answer! Mike |
When someone first decides to get into Hi-End HIFI they are usually shocked by the prices. Well ASR plays up to this with you can get a $15k DAC for $150.00 and all cables sound the same and the like. As others have said the only things you can trust are your ears and ASR completely discourages listening tests because they are unscientific...lol. Yeah I would really enjoy listing to a cheap a$$ DAC with terrific specs rather than a DAC packed full of world class components that measures like a donkey’s hind leg but sounds divine. Please remember tube amps normally have around 1.5% distortion but most people love them, so the tiny amount of DAC distortions being measured are irrelevant if you’re running tubes or even SS for that matter. And in answer to your question, all equipment benefits from good power, low noise power supplies. |
Why do audiophiles feel a need to distort the truth? (There is another word for it). Be honest about what they really say. Come on, you can do it. Do I have to do it for you?
Perhaps you see the dissonance in the two statements you just posted. Or perhaps you do not.
|
| Post removed |
| Post removed |
I agree! |
ASR created a following of minions who like their opinions to be formed for them by someone else. Amir’s tests and measurements are questionable as he strives to “debunk” the high end “myths” and that’s how he gets his subcribers/audience. |
@tuberist Send it to Amir and find out exactly how badly you got screwed with this DAC. You could’ve just bought a $99 Chinese reference DAC that measures perfectly. Also, don’t forget to dig into that storage bin to pull some basic audio cables that came with your vcr 30 years ago. They’re just as good as high end cables. All you gotta do is just peel that yellow video cable off the RCA L/R and your all set! |
Even if you do a comparison between two DACs--one with a huge power supply and one without, how do you attribute any difference in sound, if there is any, to the power supplies when everything else is different? The entire design and implementation matters. It really comes down to the ASR measurement-is-everything approach vs. subjective listening. I can think of nothing better for showing how little measurement really tells one about a DAC than going to an Audio Note dealer and listening to something like a DAC 5 (or any of their lesser DACs). The Audio Note DACs measure so poorly, deliver waveforms that are almost totally unrecognizable from sine waves, that they should not be able to produce any music at all. Do the audition and tell me if that is what you hear. |
Astute observation! I enjoy open discussion forums and the various opinions and points of view. Perspectives I do not agree with can nonetheless be stimulating and thought provoking. Needless to say I suppose is that we all have our limits. In my case I hold little regard for those who display a glaring disregard (Mocking) for the gift of hearing and concentrated listening. We are endowed with this very special and vital sense for a reason. When measurements are revered and reliance on hearing is dismissed or sneered upon, something is vastly out of kilter.Audio components are sought for the single purpose of hearing them perform as intended, listening to recorded music. Why is this activity for some, downplayed and replaced with infatuation with numbers and instrument derived test results? How is this possibly of more value than using one’s own ears? Not scientific enough ? Both have value and measurements have meaningful application. In my opinion the listening process to judge audio merit has far greater significance.
Charles |
+2 @charles1dad @nonoise |
You ask a good question - but I think ultimately what you’ve come across is a case of people dismissing (or perhaps minimizing) the performance of a component under the misguided notion that price or fancy parts is an indication of how a piece of gear performs.
So why does an inexpensive component measure well? Adhering to good engineering and design principles most likely. What about all the hubbub over different power transformer types, discrete circuits and custom digital filters? It’s really all just marketing in the end.
If you decide to compare the Yggy to something like the Topping D90 SE, then I highly suggest removing this type of psychological priming through a blind test. You can draw inspiration from this Wikipedia article on ABX testing. Not knowing which source you’re listening to (and probably keeping your eyes closed) during testing helps you to judge solely on sound quality. Don’t forget to pay attention to the section labeled ’Confidence’. |
I don’t think it works that way, unless maybe one brings their own ear phones. The room and the music have a huge effect, so the idea of being able to AB with an hour or two of time is not going to happen.
|
I am afraid that I don’t follow your reasoning. If he were to purchase the inexpensive DAC, he owns it. He can then do comparative listening over what ever period of time he chooses. There’s no better way than direct comparison in one’s own audio system. Charles |
Yeah @charles1dad ^that^ works.
But when two units can both be shown to measure well, then it is doubtful that there is a lot left to hear. |
I assumed we were talking about long term comparisons in one's own system. Quick A/B comparison in audio showrooms won't tell much. Don't want to go in depth on this, but I recall doing the quick A/B comparisons back in the day. Nearly every audio showroom had multiple components on display, all connected to switch board. Salesmen would do the old switcheroo on you, these guys were real magicians in fooling you into preferring most expensive components. This was good learning experience for a couple of budding audiophiles. Ever since then proponents of blind testing regime have caused a chuckle. |
