Which DACs are known to be sweet/rich/relaxed?

This will probably seem whackadoo but Akiko Audio used to make a product called a Squeezebox. I asked an Akiko dealer about it and he said that he uses one with his solid state tuner because it makes it sound like a tube tuner instead. They're not very expensive but I'm not sure how difficult it would be to find one. However, if you could try one out with your DAC, it might reveal whether or not a tube sounding DAC will make any improvements.

Having a custom listening room is next level audiophile. I always thought I had a pretty good system, but until I had a custom room, I didn't realize how far from "good" it was. There is no substitute.

Big learning moment!
To see what the impact of my large, mostly untreated living room is, I decided to drag my 374lbs / 170kg Stella Utopia speakers to my bed room :)

I put a few mattresses and diffusers up against the wall, rug on the floor, thick drapes behind the listening position, etc. Photo here: https://ibb.co/PNCzHnW

This well dampened environment made ALL the difference! Old recordings and playing loud no longer caused any harshness or brightness. Room wasn’t dead either: RT60 was around 400-500ms, about half of my living room.

This reminds me that the room is one of the most important components in the chain.

My 13 x 20ft / 4 x 6m bed room is obviously too small for these huge speakers to spread their wings. But it was a great way to prove a point.

This finding prevents me from chasing different gear. I’ll either install more absorption, or simply accept that a large, mostly untreated living room has its down sides.

https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/products/new-products/MCD12000

I am surprised that, for a $12k Dac/CD player, its Dac section does not have I2s input and its player does not have I2s output...

R2R and Denafrips....the only way to go....OR I just picked a Shiit DAC for bedroom system and it's fing fantastic.

"sweet, rich, relaxed"

I don't think these characteristics are likely to be found in a digital system.  Perhaps in a very high 64/256 recording, just maybe.

The DAC is the bad elephant in the room.  Every time you think you have a good digital recording the DAC goes and spoils it with dither and clock errors that cannot be rectified.

Once you have converted actual sound to digital there is no way back.

Going back to the suggestion of cables - I can really recommend Sommer Epilogue, XLR or RCA.

It’s a really high end construction, but bargain price. It really helped me achieve a smoother & richer presentation, but still just as detailed. The change was not subtle. Epilogue is used in High End studios and also with B&W for their testing for 802D speakers etc.... so really worth a go for the cost of entry.

I have had the Mola Mola Tambaqui in my system and this would be my suggestion before you consider switching DACs.

I really loved the Aqua audio la scala dac.  The roon player was a lumin, I don’t recall the model, their entry level.   I would describe the sq as sweet and relaxed, like a fine Italian dinner and wine pairing.  If I wasn’t closing in on retirement,  would swallow the cost.  Currently using sonore ultra rendu player and audio gd r7.  Combined 3700 dollars.  I call it my high quality knock off.

One of the BEST for the money = Chord Qutest

And if you want to spend RIDICULOUS amounts of money = dcs Bartok

I’m going to re-iterate that changing your front end streamer is most likely to take away the edginess with your existing excellent DAC.

The aforementioned Grimm MU1 is my favourite for achieving this and it’s all in one box with the Roon "NUC" included in the tin (so you don’t even need to worry about finding a separate Roon Server).

It’s a stunning piece of kit.

Someone mentioned earlier that they replace their dCS stack with it.

I'll probably be castigated for this recommendation.

Before you do anything, install a dedicated grounding system and connect it to every metal case with a separate lead back to the grounding point rather than creating a daisy chain between pieces of equipment.

That should make a massive improvement, but to completely fix the issue, you'll need to do that same with all speaker drivers. Sometimes just grounding the frames or baskets isn't enough and it's necessary to also ground the magnets.

It that fails, then and only then consider changing equipment.

Good to hear some other folks own an Audio Research Ref CD9se… an incredible DAC that gets the details and nuances in order with exceptional balance and musicality.

 

Mine has really profoundly influenced the sound quality of my system in all the right ways.

Another vote for an Acoustic Research solution. In my case I replaced my Esoteric K03Xs because it was sharp on the leading edges, no matter what cables amps preamps or speakers. I was lucky to find an AR Ref CD9. This is an all tube affair and significantly fixed the problem I’d had. All of the highs became clear transparent and never harsh. I use the DAC for streaming via coaxial and find it so much better than the onboard DAC in the Pioneer N70Ae.

The CD9 plays into a SS AR LS10SE and Luxman M900u to a pair of large horn speakers with super tweeter. No harshness or sibilance at all but lots of airy highs.

Another vote for an Acoustic Research solution. In my case I replaced my Esoteric K03Xs because it was sharp on the leading edges, no matter what cables amps preamps or speakers. I was lucky to find an AR Ref CD9. This is an all tube affair and significantly fixed the problem I’d had. All of the highs became clear transparent and never harsh. I use the DAC for streaming via coaxial and find it so much better than the onboard DAC in the Pioneer N70Ae.

The CD9 plays into a SS AR LS10SE and Luxman M900u to a pair of large horn speakers with super tweeter. No harshness or sibilance at all but lots of airy highs.

I think 5% sounding bad is a symptom that all recordings are being reproduced sub optimally. At least in my experience, as I shifted the overall balance such that the emphasis of different parts of the audio spectrum came in line, then all recordings sounded better and the outliers did not sound shrill or annoying. You could still tell they were bad recordings, but they were not offensive.

Pursuing the high end has an nearly endless learning curve. Thirty years in I was nearly clueless after thousands of hours of learning. Now at fifty years… I hear levels of nuance I was completely clueless of twenty years ago. For instance… this subject… I completely understand… it is a subtle but really important parameter in realistic sound.

Acoustic cannot replace bad gear... It is trivial fact...

But the best gear in the world will not be so great in a bad room, this is less trivial fact...

And the room acoustic can be design to compensate in some way to some degree for some design limitation or accentuated qualities of the gear... A room acoustic can be tailored made to a specific system ... This is a way much less known fact...

And acoustic can be low cost and very good even if not perfect ...No one know that save those who had accomplish it...

 

This post has gone off of the rails!! The OP wanted to know, "Which DACs are known to be sweet/rich/relaxed?" We have debated nuclear physics and acoustical engineers for room treatments. If you treat your room, your system will still not "warm-up"! If you have an extremely bright pair of speakers, their brightness will be amplified by creating a perfect acoustical chamber since you truly hear what the drivers deliver. We all spend far more than we should on equipment to recreate a jazz club in our living room. How many jazz clubs are acoustically treated by engineers?? I love the interaction of tables, chairs, glasses, etc., on sound quality. That's what makes the music real!!

Aries Cerat DAC or Audio Note, AN being much warmer. End game and call it quits for the next 7-10 years. Or, spend $200 K (in this crazy economy) and build a custom room designed by engineers and still question, "Which DACs are known to be sweet/rich/relaxed?" because my room is so perfect!!!

Best of luck on your journey! BTW, great system!! 

@robert1976 If 95% of the recordings sound fine, you are seeking a solution for the 5% that don’t. A solution that makes those 5% sound fine may adversely affect your satisfaction with the other 95%. I reiterate my view that a software or hardware approach to reducing treble energy for specific albums is a safe approach.

Acoustic treatments may help reduce the excess brightness and hash from those 5%, but they might unacceptably dampen the sound of the other 95%. Either try treatments that can be returned or consider hiring a capable acoustic engineer who knows how to treat a room.

I would also consider some of the highly cost effective, simple suggestions made by others - get a better Ethernet switch; try different Ethernet cables. Those, in particular, can make a very audible difference, but again those solutions affect everything, not just the objectionable 5%.

Good luck.

I would like to give you advice that is outside of the expensive solutions. I too have been chasing the perfection of music from a digital source and purchase an Uptone Audio EtherRegen switch lowered the noise floor but kept reading positive reports of almost eliminating digital noise by converting ethernet signals, that carry digital noise, to optical through a converter product like the Sonore Optical Module. It has been sold out for a while so the owner of Uptone Audio recommended the $20 TP-Link module. I took his recommendation and bought the module, 2 SPF units, and a fiber cable for $75. After installing it with a linear power supply, the noise floor is non existent and any digital harshness has disappeared making me wonder how much better the Sonore Optical Module would be with Finisar SPF modules. Pretty cheap experiment!

i find this kind of decadence depressing

Buying some high end server to stream Roon over Ethernet is a huge waste. If your DAC has a streamer built in, that already solves any problems a server may create.

I agree 100% that room treatments is your next step in trial and error. If you have such a huge budget you ought to be able to do this quite attractively.

Focal speakers are bright by nature. They may not be your cup of tea for rock.

Audio Note 

@cleeds

I am still waiting for your answer to why you are attacking a hobbyist on a hobby forum for calling out a supplier making a post on a hobby forum that included dubious claims. You are doing this to the detriment and misdirection of this topic. You have now made 3 distracting posts. I am sorry you are offended but I won't apologize for calling out dubious claims from a supplier on a hobby forum. Now please stop wrecking the ops thread.

 

 

I heartily second ghdprentice's recommendation of the Audio Research CD9 SE. I've owned mine for several years, and have not heard any digital source in my system that equals its liquidity and the dimensionality of recorded space and images. I bought mine used; either new or used, you can get the sound you want at a price well below your ceiing.

@cleeds why are you protecting a Supplier, not a hobbyist on a forum you called a hobbyist who is making unsupported dubious claims again to the detriment of this thread????  I did not ask a hobbyist for anything. I asked a supplier. 

@cleeds 

 

Why are you protecting a supplier from obvious dubious claims to the detriment of the thread? That is political behavior not rational behavior.

Robert1976

 

per my previous response

make sure you do the easy stuff, first 

tonal balance is a big thing and easy to do with Roon dsp

so, is converting files to dsd , in roon

i tried playback design dac in my system and was astounded how sweet that was ,but expensive

then, I tried dsd conversation with Chord dac, dsd is the way to go for rock albums of 80’s 

 

jeff

In my experience - the transport is where it’s at - DAC comes second. With a better transport comes a better sound and edginess becomes less and less. My guess is that your DAC has much much more potential.

In my very recent experience I connected (or a competent dealer did) my cheap and somewhat edgy Metrum Octave DAC into a Grimm Audio MU1 digital front end - this totally transformed the Metrum for the better.

In a similar fashion I also fronted my DAC with a dCS Network Bridge which again took the edginess of my DAC (in fact DACs - I also have an AN 0.1x).

If I were in your shoes - I would certainly - without doubt - upgrade your transport and not your DAC.

Or, just go buy a dCS Rossini APEX (DAC and streamer) and be done with it! That thing sounds stunning.

 

 

 

Frozen1976

you said a mouthful

I’ve fought the rock issue of brightness since I had Thiel Speakers ,very revealing , and metal tweeters

The more revealing your speakers with all solid state, especially , the rock becomes tough to accept.

You have a “wow” setup ,with the focal evo’s, especially revealing 

Anyway, I’m especially happy now with tonal balance for old rock.

my top rock album brightness reducers: 

1) run Roon and convert to DSD files,vs pcm

2) went to CJ ET3 preamp ,and rolled tube 

3) Used pre to amp IC to Cardas Parsec 

4)Adjust sub woofer to BBC bump at 100 hz with 6-9 db bump (100-250 hz warms up tonal balance - can do in Roon esp)

 

good luck

 

jeff

 

Keep deflecting. Inquiring minds want to know: why do you keep coming back here? 13 times is a bit too much. What’s your purpose in life?

 

And I am hijacking the thread? 😂. You are hijacking every single thread here. And it’s clear you will continue to do it until it becomes completely a PITA for anyone to post any impressions here, without you “debunking “ it. Which is in fact, your ultimate goal of what you are doing here. And dude! 13 times?!

Everyone knows you are a raging racist @thyname and I am sue they don't appreciate their thread being hijacked for your psychotic episodes.

 

 

@invalid :

I know that's who you are, there are to many parallels.

That’s just one of the previous usernames of this sick dude. Since he mentioned me by name, unprovoked, here is the full list of all his usernames he has used here in the past, all banned (I am sure I am missing some):

 

thynamesinnervoice

 

cindyment

 

snratio

 

yesiamjohn

 

sugabooger

 

dletch2

 

audio2design

 

dannad

 

roberttdid 

 

heaudio123

 

audiozenology

 

atdavid

 

I have many many dacs, and as others have mentioned. In your price range it would be tough to beat the dCS offerings. I have both the Bartok and a Rossini+Clock and they are miles better than anything else I have tried. Smooth, detailed, never bright or harsh, and have several filters to fine tune. 

That must make you thyname on/off drugs. Weird people.

I know that's who you are, there are to many parallels.

@invalid, for one I am not the illustrious Cin Dyment, though I do admire his ability to take up firm residence in so many heads. Quite a skill. Two, it is a valid point in the discussion, because we are talking physics and a poster has made significant but at this point unsupportable claims. I consider it relevant to the other posters to know that I am not just spouting off, but am extremely familiar with material properties as it applies to their usage in electrical and other applications. Considering I was able to read a marketing blurb on Silversmith's website and correctly estimate a very high resistance cable, something virtually everyone else in the audio world seems to have missed, I would say I bring a skilled perspective to this discussion. However, out of respect for the op, other than to say don't trust claims that do not come with supporting documentation, I am done on Teo_Audio's cables. For you @invalid a natural response is to question suppliers claims when not supported with documentation, not to attack the person pointing that out. I expect that on a political discussion forum, not an audio forum.

It's kind of tasteless to keep throwing your credentials out there, I've heard this from you several times now on this forum and another forum where you use the name CinDyment.

You need this: 

 

So no name, and there are many many "top people" at TI. Their CTO is Ahmad Bahai. I don't know him personally, but I have met Kyle Flessner, who would probably reach out to Ahmad who could find out if anyone has even heard of you. They make not take it kindly if the report is not factual though.

So, as expected, not one test report, not one measurement, nothing 3rd party.

I don't have any desire to relate to someone who I feel is misleading. The patent communicates nothing about accomplishment (but does reveal a need to transition to a traditional material for connections, negating even some of the most basic claims). Patents are just that, patents. They are no guarantee of any performance criteria. You, the manufacturer are responsible for that.

So I will implore you again, if your claims are valid, then you should have readily available test reports, 3rd party test results, or other repeatable documentation that supports your very significant claims of superiority. If not, I have to assume they are just that, claims, with no foundation of basis to consider them valid.

You have made significant claims in your post, that is effectively an advertisement. Chastising someone who is asking you to back up your claims and making that a character fault on their part .... I will leave the conclusions on that to others.

I still say if you want to spend money your best investment would be a Trinnov, it could replace the DAC and preamp.  Why try to EQ with a DAC or wires buy a device designed for the purpose. 

Have you read and understood the patent?

Do you understand what it implies, and is not being used in the world of audio?

There is enough information in the post that if you are determined you can find that person mentioned.

BTW, it comes across as a hater, no matter how much you use it try to hide behind being a ’skeptic’. Your demeanor is deeply offensive to all around (on the subjective side, anyway. Maybe you make some others happy. Who knows). You make situations worse, not better. More antagonistic, not less. And this is not the place for that. In person, you skepticism may be no problem at all. But this is the written word, which is an entirely different format and human relational avenue.

Grow some humanity and humility and use it in the face of (your own) personal perceptions of adversity on this forum. Be a human. Wind it down, not up.

If we were in person, I might relate more to you. Depends on what you look like, to me, in person. My experience in that sort of thing is the people go out and aggrandize themselve off of what I explain to them, and grab the brass ring in their field or invention or whatnot. I'm really tired of that, so if you want more, figure it out yourself.

Everything you have here has the electrical signal (we call it ’electrical’, which is a huge misnomer, it’s obscenely pidgin and incomplete), and all of it has to deal with the problems of how a signal in a delta state has to work with the ’wire’. Which is inordinate complex when we look at the quantum aspects of electron transfer.

 

(FYI the basic Liquid metal cables were tested at the highest levels of the TI (Texas Instruments) technical campus, and found to be notably anomalous in expected electrical norms. This, from their top man, who has an IQ of 196)

Oh please, do share with us his name? I would not hesitate to call him. I have enough cred in semiconductor device physics and processing to cold call most people without shame.

Most of the time I don’t like to credential drop. This is not one of them. I have a PhD in solid state physics (which is not the same as solid state devices). I have worked in the semiconductor industry on device physics and materials processing, and now in batteries.

I am going to go out on a limb and guess you have absolutely no published results, no publishable tests, no 3rd party testing of any sort that you can share that verifies your claims of superiority in the conduction of signals for audio purposes. I would actually be pleasantly surprised if you proved me wrong, but I don’t have high expectations.

I am not a hater. I am a highly qualified skeptic. There is nothing you have stated that eludes being validated through any number of measurements. To that conclusive end, I expect you to be able to supply those measurements. That is not too much to ask, nor is there any proprietary reason that a measurement cannot be shared. I am not asking for construction or material details.

 

A very rare chance to commit to an objective test in a subjective reality:

Everything you have here has the electrical signal (we call it ’electrical’, which is a huge misnomer, it’s obscenely pidgin and incomplete), and all of it has to deal with the problems of how a signal in a delta state has to work with the ’wire’. Which is inordinate complex when we look at the quantum aspects of electron transfer.

Everyone is looking for the better, cleaner, more detailed and sweeter and I can assure you that a lot of that ’final frontier’ of elusiveness is contained in the errors encountered when trying to use wire for electrical signal transfer.

Liquid metal cables were created to get rid of the majority of the major problems in using wire for high end audio attempts. To get rid of the inherent problems in using wire for signal transfer.

It is the only place in the world, the only way in the world.. to sidestep this wire problem while still remaining in the electrical realm. To try them out is to be a fish in the water, who finally, for the first time it it’s life, understands what water is. To finally form a perspective that shows and illustrates what water --- is.

This is due to the electrical signal being handled totally different than it is with wire. I’d love to lay it out in fine detail, but we get haters if we explain.. and we get haters if we don’t. Ignorance screams it’s presence, if we have the sense of mind to understand what such noise is actually about.

Since the information is obvious at the high end and cutting edge physics level, and not quite known at all... at the high and audio level... and not well understood in the high technology level, we explain nothing. Nothing at all.

The information and the lore and the look down the road ---is far too valuable for that.

So, if you run into the ’noise over signal’ problem that all high and audio attempts eventually run into, you’ll find yourself in front of true fundamentals, and a huge fundamental, not well recognized, is that conductive elements (periodic table) are a good item to use in electrical signal transfer, but upon deeper reflection and deeper looks, problems arise. Limitations arise.

Problems that are inherent in the medium of the device itself (wire made of elements and alloys), and only some other tactic or method or medium that commits to a different transfer method will get this issue objectively clarified and separated out.

The liquid metal audio cables provide that avenue for the first time ever and probably the only time ever.

When the OP gets to the area that they are in .. they are really engaging in hard limits, true ceilings, and getting further down the road involves questioning all fundamentals, in total re-assessment.

(FYI the basic Liquid metal cables were tested at the highest levels of the TI (Texas Instruments) technical campus, and found to be notably anomalous in expected electrical norms. This, from their top man, who has an IQ of 196)

Some may call this an unwarranted advertisement, but no, I’d call it a wake up call.

We are a very small company who does not sell a lot of product. but.. we were told quite clearly (by a major cable manufacturer), in 2009, that we scare the hell out of all the top cable manufacturers. Too bad that never came to fruition. I guess they all gave their customers too much credit and they attacked too hard, for us to become the technical and quality threat that we really are. They were seriously worried that we’d take a good chunk of their sales away from them. All of them were worried (as we were told), as we are the holders of ’the next level’ of audio cables. (*)

It’s my personal fault, really. I wanted audio to be better, so I went after questioning the fundamentals, the real fundamentals. So we changed the full on physics fundamentals in use, in electron transfer, in high end audio.

It only changes a few percentage points of articulation of fine detail but we’ve all got the other 98% and this changes the 2% you want changed, which was previously out of reach and not known in it’s character or nature, as the fish could not and cannot realize or know of the water it is in....

Which makes it a really big deal when the chase, the attempt... is aiming at the impossibility of perfection.

 

(*) why are we not as successful as we might be? well, it’s simple. we’re the first, the orignal and the only. And acceptance, and understanding, takes time. and there has to be more than one provider, there has to be multiples in the market, for a thing to go forward. there must be market presence. THEN it can take off. So, even if we are the best in the field, where all the orignal innovations and incremental advances in the technology involved -are created whole cloth by us...there is, in the market record...scant chance that we’d ever succeed. When the patents expire and more players get involved, it might have a chance. But none will likely approach or make it to our lore and application level, as the original thinking involved in the core innovation speaks of deeper knowledge than that of the dilettante.

Cutting edge is cutting edge and in that definition and reality, very few people make it there. Eg, how many climb Everest, even though billions know it’s name and image, and billions have an opinion?

Who you gonna trust, the noise or the signal?

— My room is large and not heavily treated. Playing music loud will overload the room: at 80dB the reflections make up, say, only 15% of what reaches my ear. At 90dB that could be 30 or 40% (numbers here are for the sake of example).

@robert1976 I always like a good problem. When I first read this, my first thought was "sound does not work that way". It is a saying with audiophiles, but unless your walls are falling down, you are not going to physically overload a room. I am not an acoustic engineer, but I am a physicist, so I get the basics.

Then I remembered loudness contours. Cymbals have a lot of energy at high frequency, 3 - 10KHz. Look at the chart below. At 80db (1KHz), 10KHz has to be 10db louder to sound as loud. At 100, it only needs to be 4-5 db louder to sound the same. I have to expect that is what you are experiencing.

I had this link from when I was looking at acoustics before hiring someone. A lot of materials like glass, some wood floors, drywall (plasterboard) reflect more at high frequencies.

It sounds like volume and your room are combining to make you unhappy. I don't have a solution, but the high quality equalizer that can be switched in and out may be best. Perhaps it is not the room that is overloading, it is your ears at higher frequencies? Any experts on hearing out there?  I know when I am at concerts, if the room is reflective it is grating.

 

 

OP,

”When a system is highly resolving, it will expose recordings that are bright and harsh. It’s actually a good thing.”

Well, it depends. Highly resolving can mean highlighted details… with it typically come a harshness and noise. The noise is not the kind you hear directly it just is pressure on your ears (higher noise floor). But the accentuated details cover the details in the bass and is frequently accompanied by a loss of rhythm and pace… the musicality / emotional connection.

I struggled with this for years until I was able to walk the very tight line of keeping the details (but not unrealistically emphasized) and midrange bloom and musicality. Over time one after another of my components became tubed. Now my system is really emotionally compelling, has no hint of sharpness, and has all the details with the correct emphasis. All albums generally sound there best.

 

In my opinion your comment highlights a problem that needs to be solved not a necessary consequence.

 

 

@tobes The OP has a top class system, I doubt he wants to go from a DAC with ~22 bit resolution to one with ~10 bit resolution.

Most of high end or even lower end DAC could process 24-32 bit rate up to 768 khz signal depending upon the input, AND the DSD playback support up to 512 times the CD sample rates (> 22 mHz). You do not need to spend 25k-40k to have a hi-rez processing DAC.  Although the differences between bit depths are inaudible and not really worth the hype, the system OP has may be revealing enough to discern those differences.  In addition, I guess OP has already spend that much money on the rest of the system, the DAC musst fit in the same scale. You do not normally hear someone having a pair of $150k loudspeaker paired with $2k DAC, right?