The Border Patrol DAC - Maybe linearity in a DAC is bad ... Spitballing

The issue is that even poor measuring DACs still have barely audible distortion or whathaveyou, unless it’s a total garbage product.

It also has been shown that ~10sec is the limit for when one can accurately compare the sound of one instance to another (with precise detail), so any reviewer talking about another product they reviewed 6 months ago should not and cannot be held as valid.

Also, sighted listening that’s likely not level matched should also be taken with a grain of salt. If I go to an audio show and show two DACs, one a cream of the crop $10,000 one with a beautiful exterior, and the other being the same product but in a cheap plastic casing, I bet 99% of the attending audience will pick the former as sounding better.

@mickeyb

I found it very transparent

Hmm, Stereophile’s measurements show it has some slightly audible distortion, and I was just in conversation with someone who owns one and says he likes that it adds a slight tube sound, and that while not as transparent as his Parasound ZDAC, he preferred it in some instances. It has piss-poor volume (bit-depth) linearity, which likely contributes to what this person described as tube like, as if we use a 0.1dB threshold like Amir from ASR likes to use (though he sometimes uses 0.5dB), the BorderPatrol technically has the resolution of 10Bit, whereas even the $80 Grace SDAC has 19Bit.

EDIT: Oh, and the Stereophile review (done by actually listening to it)  also states it’s not as detailed as say the Benchmark (rolled off highs and softer bass), and is more for those wanting a more intimate, smooth sound, rather than every detail exposed.

@charles1dad

@nonoise

Because all these listening impressions are done knowing the brand/price/looks.

Unless you are doing double-blind, quick-switching, level-matched comparisons, it is scientifically impossible to thoroughly compare the sound of two different products. So Michael Furmer’s story of how he heard a difference in his $18,000 speaker cables when he was in another room working while another person wired them up, cannot he taken as there truly being a difference, even if he believes so.

I could make my own speaker cables for $100, give a BS description, charge $5000, and I gaurentee you if I do a demo at an audio show, I will get positive reviews and maybe even a customer or two.

There is no way the Benchmark DAC could remove the soundfield information of being recorded in a church, the placement of the musicians, etc. Those comments easily show that it’s all in his mind. You can talk about tonal balance, distortion, noise floor, channel separation, etc., but saying it removes the church walls is just ridiculous.

And again, the Benchmark is proven to be not cold, regardless of sighted listening impressions. Being cold is a rolled off bass (or emphasized treble; kinda the same thing if volume matched), and the Benchmark is dead flat. It could only have rounded off bass if your speakers were made with tube amps in mind, very few exist today (I only recall seeing 1 brand), but maybe if your speakers are from the 60’s.

I hate to repeat this, but a speaker at an AES myth busting talk gave a story of how he tricked people into thinking a McIntosh tube amp was playing when in fact it was a solid state, and the people described it differently than the same solid state amp it was supposedly being compared against. If doctors have to give sugar cube placebos to make sure drugs work, you can bet our ears can be fooled in what we are hearing (just like our eyes were fooled with the color of the dress a while back).

At the end of the day, you hear what you hear, and it’s your money.

And no, I’m not having my own definition of cold. Cold is the opposite of warm, warm sound is rolled off highs (like ELAC speakers, Andrew Jones himself states this is intentional and also described it as warm). If you don’t mean that, then don’t use the incorrect descriptive word.

And also, no, even if I made my own recordings, and compared to different DACs, if they weren’t compared to with the restrictions I stated, even I wouldn’t be able to accurately state which is closer to the original. Our brains are very stupid in this regard, there’s not a human alive which can accurately compare two audio products while knowing and seeing what the products are. 
 
I would like any explanation anyone can conjour up on how the Benchmark could remove the church walls in the recording. It’s like saying one speaker wire has a wider soundstage than another, it’s simply an impossible acchievmant as the two have nothing in common. It’s like me saying using fine china over everyday ceramic plates makes the food taste better (metal spoons over plastic spoons do in fact alter taste though).

@douglas_schroeder

It’s not that it’s literally removed, but rather that the resolution of one is superior, allowing to hear deeper and wider into the soundstage, thus capturing the extremely minute character of the reflections off the walls of the venue.

That would make sense if we weren’t talking about the Benchmark losing detail to the BP, as the former is vastly more transparent.

It’s more a simple fact that no one on the planet can accurately compare DACs unless it’s double-blind, level-matched, and quick-switching.