edwardthern wrote: > Here is an excerpt from a review which compares 3 dacs made by the same > company in question "Audiogd". Notice the reviewer mentions the > different sound signatures from the different dacs which all share the > same topology and analogue stage but use a different dac chip. > > *\"THE SABRE32 CHIP RANGE OF DAC'S PROVIDE THE SAME LEVEL OF SOUND > QUALITY WITH A DIFFERENT SOUND SIGNATURE THAN THE PCM1704UK OR WOLFSON > WITH A MORE ENERGETIC, DYNAMIC AND EXCITING SOUND WHICH MAY SUIT A LOT > OF PEOPLE BETTER THAN THE DARKER MORE LAID BACK SOUND OF ITS WOLFSON OR > PCM1704 RIVALS.\"* > > http://www.head-fi.org/t/572385/review-audio-gd-nfb-7
But that's a sighted review ( with no measurements either ) a typical end user testimonial ? It's does not provide any information , because the flawed method of testing without catering for normal human perceptive biaseses ? Was it even level matching ( a basicrequirement ). And is this choice of implementations the best one for these 2 DAC and what is the Cyrus equipped with ? And reading audio gd homepage about the products is full of audiophile jargon and weird design decisions ? Makes me wonder . http://audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/NFB732/NFB7.32EN_Tech.htm And actually no measurement does this guys really do measurements to verify design depictions ? It looks like cargo cult tech to me ? So in this case maybe there was an audible difference ? But we can't know based on a sighted testimony. No of these DAC chips are bad real differences if the implementation if correctly done would be far beyond us like more than -110 dB below output . But I still wonder . But is the audio gd product a good example ? I'm still wondering? This kind of "review" makes me wonder a lot . Please note that quoting of sighted testimonials does not really prove your point . . A sighted testing is just a story about what the tester "heard" and experienced while using the products ,can be interesting on its own . What he's really testing is his own biases . In this test it was clear that he had read up about the stuff and had clear expectations about what he was about to hear . You can't test for subtle things this way where the influences of any kind of bias is magnitudes larger that what's tested . A final thought what do ESS themself thinks is the current reference design using thier chips ? Do they have an example/reference implementation ? That's how they usually do it as you can't gauge the all the chip performance quirks without having it in circuit so they usually build a DAC themselfs to test thier own chip and implementation is big so it's a factor how hard it is to use for a product designer . And this is actually a general case . If things have flat frequency response and noise and distortion is down by -110 your are not going to hear differences with correct testing methods . It can be a DAC and op amp a anything , the character and source of distortion does not matter as it so unimaginable small levels of it in a good design . Is not the audiolab DAC series a good representation of what you do with an ESS chip . -------------------------------------------------------------------- Main hifi: Touch + CIA PS +MeridianG68J MeridianHD621 MeridianG98DH 2 x MeridianDSP5200 MeridianDSP5200HC 2 xMeridianDSP3100 +Rel Stadium 3 sub. Bedroom/Office: Boom Kitchen: Touch + powered Fostex PM0.4 Misc use: Radio (with battery) iPad1 with iPengHD & SqueezePad (spares Touch, SB3, reciever ,controller ) server HP proliant micro server N36L with ClearOS Linux http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mnyb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4143 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106575 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
