The biggest issue is not the chip, it is analog part. Cheap DACS use cheap op amps and electrolytics as well as do not isolate digital and analog power supplies.
Is there any such thing as a bad sounding DAC these days?
I think the problem of DAC for quality audio has been pretty much universally solved. Not to say all DACs are equal, they aren’t, but do any that really matter these days not sound “good”?
Showing 7 responses by mikhailark
@knownothing - measures what exactly? Frequency response, noise and harmonics are only metrics of ONE frequency. My major was in signal processing and spectral analysis. For example, does anyone measure equipment using white or pink noise (better representation of actual music) and compares spectrum? Or, better still, take a piece of music, play back via two DACs, then measure difference in analog outputs using high precision instruments? Never seen any measurements. So there. Remember when equipment measured awesome but then someone discovered that some gear sounds better and that, apparently, signal slew rate is very important and not just sinewave with 0.00001% THD. A bit later people discovered "joy" of intermodulation and started measure transfer of 19 KHz + 20 KHz since it produces 1 KHz parasite. Ah, but there are so many frequency pairs like this. So you have minimized 19 and 20. But what about 18.7 and 19.95? Or triplets? Or quads? Or that white noise that includes all frequencies? |
@markwd - yeah, I am familiar with the guy. He is just hobbyist, some former Microsoft guy that made money on stock options and thinks he knows everything. Typical corporate VP buffoon. Multitone is OK, but still not enough. |
@markwd - I owe you NOTHING dear. You go to ASR and discuss "audible" with your buddies and test new awesome $100 DACs. |
@chervokas - to be entirely correct, it is just Fourier Transform (FT). FFT is a Fast Fourier Transform which is an algorithm (one of many) that implements FT in discrete form for a typical computer chip. FFT is only approximation, it is NEVER precise as Fourier sequence is infinite for complex signals like music. Thus, ANY transfer to frequency domain and back (such as for Dirac) is somewhat lossy. Discrete chips and methods all have limited precision. |
@markwd - why do you think I care about your opinion? |
@markwd Dude, all proofs are at ASR, you know everything. Everything is the same, measurements are everything. Go chat there. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263224123009363 The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is a cornerstone of digital signal processing, generating a computationally efficient estimate of the frequency content of a time series. Its limitations include: (1) information is only provided at discrete frequency steps, so further calculation, for example interpolation, may be required to obtain improved estimates of peak frequencies, amplitudes and phases; (2) ‘energy’ from spectral peaks may ‘leak’ into adjacent frequencies, potentially causing lower amplitude peaks to be distorted or hidden; (3) the FFT is a discrete time approximation of continuous time mathematics. What else do you need to know about FFT being just an approximation? LMAO. Now you gonna tell me "but it is so small so it is not audible". Right?
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