The DAC Scam - Almost everyone believes the hype

There are many audiophools out there, you can see this on some of these posts on this thread and the guy in the video. You have people that claim they are the only people that can take a $200 piece of equipment and make it a giant killer, or if you pay more than $5 for a cable, you are a fool. Then what’s scary is the guy in the video that calls himself a mastering specialist and he can’t hear.

Decades ago, I owned the Audio Alchemy pieces with the outboard power supply and this was my 1st time I used the i2s interface, it came with the AA equipment. How did it sound? Ok for its day but would be terrible today. Since then I’ve owned 6 other dacs from Audio Research, Wyred 4Sound, Auralic, and a few from PS Audio. The clown in the video only thinks that all dacs have chips in them, so what does this guy think about fpga based dacs?

There are big differences between dacs, good and bad. A friend brought in a bunch of dacs into his home for a month so he can determine which 1 would he buy. The dacs ranged in prices f I’m $2500 to $15k. A few of us evaluated these dacs and there was no 1 winner. Only 1 person liked the most expensive where a couple people liked the middle of the road dacs. Then a newer fpga dac came out and blew all these away. 
 

As for somebody that claims a dac doesn’t make a big difference in the overall quality of the total system, this is a fallacy. If the source is bad, you think a pair of million $$ speakers will fix that? Nope! That’s like saying a $500 power cord is snake oil when I heard a $200 Nordost power cord make a huge difference in sound with a $5000 McIntosh integrated with magnepan 20.1 speakers. Just think how a better power cord will make a $100000 amp sound? Cables are like tires. I spend over $500 for a Porsche rated tire (not tires) which makes a Porsche handle to its fullest extent whereas this same tire on a Toyota would not make the Toyota handle like a Porsche. But, on the other hand, you put a $50 Toyota tire on a Porsche, this $100,000+ car will handle no better than the $18k Toyota 

The guy in the video may be deluded....

But many others criticizing him  can be deluded too...

 

 (To be clear i can audibly distinguish any dac i ever owned but evaluating the dac performance ask for more than just plug and play)

 

 What those selling low cost dac as well as costlier higher  dac design and quality miss is that:

----The performance depend heavily on the coupling with the other pieces of gear...

--- The performance evaluation and optimization depend of the system/acoustics

--- The performance evaluation of any dac change a lot if all the gear pieces are well grounded...

 

How many here own a conditioner which need a grounding process ?

Almost all people...

Is your linear power supply grounded ?

Mine is too ...

Is you amplifier grounded ?

Mine is...

Is your pre-amplifier is grounded ?

Mine is...

 

Guess what ?

There is no relation between the sound of a dac in a well grounded system and the same dac in this system not grounded at all...

I know that by experience and experiments...

I never bought costlier ground box either ...

I designed mine...

 

 No sellers of any piece of gear will say when they are selling their "masterpiece" buy a ground box (most are costlier than my system)...

Guess why they dont say that ?

 

 

 

 

How many times is this video going to be posted? Here's the bottom line: take a $200 DAC and then swap out the cheap power supply with a high quality linear one. Notice any difference in the sound? You almost certainly will. Next, if the DAC uses socketed op amps, swap them out for good discrete op amps. Hear any more difference in the sound? Again, you almost certainly will. There is a lot more to the quality of a DAC than just the chip itself. The chip, how it is implemented in the circuit, the power supply, the output stage are all huge factors. 

The Wiim mimi, GTFOOH! 🤑

@medium_grade