Well my LPS supplies multiple voltages, two of them adjustable. But what I bought mine for was to run my MAC Mini on 12VDC and my Audiobyte Hydra Bridge with 5VDC also. This avoids me having to use AC for either unit as a power supply.
@grizaudio, thanks for the pointer to the measurement material copied from the Dutch site alpha-audio.net. It certainly is measurements, but without a DAC in the chain to see how it actually affects audio, Iâm not sure what to make of it.
By the way, I see that alpha-audio.net also has an article on âEverything you need to know about streaming audio - Alpha Audio NETâ. Glad to know someone has assembled all we need to know!
As for the description you refuse to elucidate further, Iâm sorry I canât understand it. It struck me as a word salad â that is, raw words tossed together with a bit of oily dressing to make it appear as if real food. (My apologies to all the salad-lovers out there.) I do wonder what relaxed and natural tonality sounds like, and how one might distinguish it from unrelaxed and unnatural tonality â maybe that would be the kinds of noises a theremin makes?
Is the Chord Dave a bad DAC? No. No one would say that. In fact, itâs a reference DAC for a lot of people. It uses a switching power supply slammed up against the digital circuit board and analog output stage.
Switch mode isnât the problem, itâs just a lot harder to design around. Sometimes, yes sometimes, the answer to designing around the problems with switch mode supplies is to go linear. Sometimes, most of the time, the manufacturer passes that expense onto the audiophile*. Same with USB. There are far more horribly implemented USB inputs than there are âcleanâ inputs which is why the âde-crapapifierâ became a thing. But there are a few DACs where these de-crapapifiers do nothing because their USB input is actually good. Also, technology marches on and the holy grail that is the âsolutionâ from 5 years ago may very will have no relevance today. How many of you still use an Audiophilleo?
Iâve said this before and Iâll keep waving this flag⌠The money us audiophiles are pouring into upgraded power supplies, network cables, switches, etc. is because the thing weâre trying to âfixâ is poorly designed (either because itâs designed poorly or designed to hit a price point). So these magic fixes are very dependent on if your gear needs fixing. Some gear just works great out of the box. Other gear expects you, the audiophile, invest in upgraded power supply, network cables, etc. etc. etc.
*and why wouldnât they pass this expense onto the consumer. We live in a world where 80% of listeners cannot tell the difference between 16/44.1 WAV and a MP3(**) copy of the same track. If you were building a product where the power supply was inaudible to 80% of consumers but upgrading that supply increased the cost by 30% what would you do? Most of the world, even the audiophile world, will reject a product on cost and without even listening to it. If a cheaper supply gets a consumer to at least give it a chance⌠thatâs a win. If you want to change this behavior, instead of buying expensive bolt-on aftermarket solutions, just spend the extra money on the well designed product to begin with.
**Audio Quality Quiz Results: You Did Slightly Better Than Guessing Randomly : The Record : NPR
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This is where sites like ASR really come into their own - you get objective measurements that tell you if a piece of equipment has a well-implemented design.
I prefer to buy stuff that measures well, so that I donât have to worry about adding stuff to fix design flaws.
My main DAC is a Topping DX7 Pro. It measures only a whisker or two below the Matrix Audio X-Sabre Pro and the Mola Mola Tambaqui (both of which have now been bested by the Topping D90SE).
The audiophile snobs may look down on my âChi-Fiâ DAC, but thereâs nothing wrong with it that needs fixing.
There are some very âhigh-endâ DACs out there that canât even fully resolve Red Book, yet their owners claim vast improvements and âveils liftedâ by adding so-called âaudiophileâ network switches, LPS to their NUCs, fancy network cables, fancy mains cables etc.etc. If your DAC canât do better than 76dB SINAD, then everything else is lost in its noise floorâŚ
Sure, some like the âflavourâ of a particular piece of kit, but thatâs a matter of taste, not an issue of performance.
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hmmmmmâŚ
The frequency of A4 is 440 hz. If I want to reproduce this perfectly I can just wrap my DAC in filters to this frequency. My analog synth produces a perfect 440 hz waveform and my DAC will now reproduce that with no noise, no distortion, just perfect. However, very few people would consider my synth to be musically superior to the 49th key on a Steinway piano. Well implemented with the goal of seeing a result on a piece of test equipment and emotionally enjoyable to listen to are two very different things. And, at the end of the day, Iâll take the emotionally rewarding path over measurement accuracy.
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I take your point but itâs a poor analogy - a pure 440Hz tone is just that. The 49th key on a Steinway gives a 440Hz fundamental (acoustically amplified by the pianoâs construction) plus a whole load of harmonics and other stuff. Thatâs why synths never sound like pianos.
If you recorded that 49th key being played and played the recording back via my DAC, youâd get back what was recorded (subject to the limitations of the mic, its amplification and the ADC used).
No more, no less. It gets out of the way, which is what all good DACs really should do.
Thereâs enough influence from the speakers and the room without adding unnecessary coloration to the source IMO.
The emotion should come from the music, not alteration of the music by the house âspecial sauceâ colouration inherent in many high-end components IMO.
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Some audiophiles like to argue that they listen to music, not test tones, but if you feed a DAC a pure 1kHz test tone and it generates lots of audible harmonics, itâll do that to your music. If you feed it multiple separate tones simultaneously and it generates lots of audible intermodulation distortion, itâll do that to your music too. If it faithfully reproduces test signals across the board with no weird distortions, artifacts, or undue noise, has good linearity and a benign impedance, then itâll faithfully reconstruct digitised music back to an analogue waveform thatâs a bloody good facsimile of what went into the ADC in the recording studio/live venue.
If a component isnât capable of doing what itâs supposed to effectively, then I donât want to waste my money on it.
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This is never tested because it doesnât work this way. When the DAC is presented with this more complex waveform⌠thatâs why DACs sound different.
I agree, but it works both ways. You want the DAC not to add anything but you also donât want it to remove anything. Itâs a lot easier to design a DAC will heavy filters to make sure it doesnât add anything but the result is often dull, lifeless, digital, harsh, etc. Itâs a lot harder to filter out the added stuff when that added stuff is ânoiseâ (electrical, jitter, whatever) and that noise is really close to the thing you are trying turn into a voltage swing. This excessive filtering is as much coloration as adding âsparkleâ or whatever else a ânoisyâ DAC is doing.
Agreed but some people really like this. Especially if such harmonics were filtered away at the time the ADC or other digital processing / mastering occurred. People love tubes for a reason.
Agreed, and to a large set of the population this will sound horrible.
Understand, Iâm absolutely agreeing with you except for one point. There is no âcorrectâ level of accuracy for the audiophile. Those that want to spend big money chasing noise to âfixâ their DAC might very well be better served with a more accurate DAC (usually at significant cost savings, send me colored DAC please and thank you). There are also others who probably should move towards a more colored DAC to get that magic and sparkle. Sometimes a colored DAC with just a touch of clean-up is exactly the perfect coloration for someone. No one is wrong here. But also, itâs why the âperfect DACâ canât and shouldnât be measured with test tones. It gives a reference for someone who leans one way or another⌠but âbetterâ is ultimately up to the listener. And, in that sense, yes, weâre listening to music.
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Not arguing, but just to point out that the problem with a colored DAC is that it colors everything the same way, which probably isnât what you want. Better to add coloration via custom DSP profiles, back in the Roon Core. That way you can switch the colorations when you want to, like rolling tubes or op amps. If you do it that way, you want an absolutely faithful âtransparentâ DAC (and amp).
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If you want to change the sound you could get a graphic equaliser and stop worrying about getting the highest bit rate as it wonât matter.
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⌠Iâd say to the contrary, actually âŚ
I mainly read posts from users advocating bespoke DACs - which are voiced by extensive listening and component rolling and so forth rather than by using pesky test signals and measuring equipment - that they detest any DSP bit mangling and insist on pure bit perfect transmission in order to extract what the artist and sound engineers intended.
Go figure whoâs wrongâŚ
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And there it is⌠I would rarely respond to a sarcastic post like this, as arguing is totally pointless, and only serves individual ego. No minds will be changed, and whatever I write will be used in counter argument.
At the end of the day measurements tell us a lot, but⌠ultimate validation in my world comes from listening.
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I seem to recall that the title of this thread was " Does Roon require a separate streamer".
While some of the posts of late have been entertaining and educational maybe we could steer our way back to the actual topic?
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No, it does not.
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I am sorry but what they are measuring is not the sum total of what you hear. I had an SMSL m500 which also measures very well and then moved to an audio gd r8mk2 which hasnât been measured but according to ASR is possibly the worst audio company in the world.
It is MILES, WORLDS better. Detail is possibly the closest measure between the two but r8 is better, depth, fullness of soundstage and engagement is not comparable.
If you like ASR fine but I think the exclusions toy will make will cost you in the long run
Nor does it need a separate amp or speakers - seems the ones included in the computer would be good enough for many of the users posting here.
Iâll stick to my âsnake oilâ opticalRendu with itâs âunnecessaryâ LPS (not to mention opticalModule fiber bridge) feeding my âpoorly designedâ Naim DAC/preamp, thank you very muchâŚ
I have never seen any references to speakers and amps not making a difference. I would personally spend as much of my budget as possible on the speakers (if I was starting again-active) then on the amp then on digital.
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Iâm not biting.
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To be fair to ASR, Audio-gdâs claimed measurements bear no resemblance to the actual units as measured by ASR. Audio-gd blatantly lies about its product performance. Thatâs good enough reason to avoid.
The original R8 was measured and it was frankly, terrible.
The Master 7 Singularity was similarly awful.
Maybe the R8 MK2 is to your taste but it doesnât provide a true conversion to analogue from the digital data stream.
Nothing is costing me in the long run - I have a transparent DAC that Iâm happy with.
Donât you need tubes?
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