Fully agree, and that is the sad part. That each of the extremist fractions dances around their own golden calf, one being labelled ´>130dB SINAD´ and the other ´99.99999% OFC copper´. Both believing that it ensures pure sound and the path to audiophile righteousness.
Maybe the whole affair is a good starting point to rethink the general approach to audio reviews and come to some conclusions about which fraction is right about which aspect. I personally think that sound quality assessment of current digital equipment in general is overstated. Maybe it is time to think more about what is really mattering when it comes to sound quality and let everyone listen with the DAC and amplifier of their liking as these are very rarely the true cause of dissatisfaction.
I guess that is a myth. If a manufacturer is facing a review declaring his expensive product to be not worth its price tag, being behind the competition in terms of sound quality, it is understood they are worried.
If there are two “fractions” dancing around something, it’s not those. Both SINAD and copper content can be measured, and I can see the theoretical benefits of both.
The real sad thing here, is that one rogue element thrust a (presumably almost forgotten) two-year old review back into the limelight, and turned this whole thing into a potential public relations disaster. It seems when dCS got a handle on what was going on - to their credit - they moved swiftly to fix it.
The rights and wrongs of GoldenSound’s methodology are a separate (if important) issue. I certainly wouldn’t buy (or not buy) a Bartok or any other five-figure component on the say-so of a YouTube review. The Bartok review in particular stood out for me as it didn’t have any correlation with the broad thrust of other reviews I’d read or watched.
At this kind of price I’d be looking for chilled listening sessions in the dealer’s nicest room, with a nice coffee - and possibly a home loan. (Not easy if your nearest dealer isn’t nine miles away.)
As far as subjective opinions and reviews on products on YouTube (and elsewhere), even if wide of the mark, I can’t see that it would ever be a good idea for a manufacturer to try and silence them.
Stress on ´theoretical´, please. The moment you apply common psychoacoustical theories of audibility thresholds on that matter, you realize the dance behind both.
It is one of the most absurd aspects of hi-fi to me that people claiming to base everything on scientific research become full-scale esoterics when it comes to certain measurements, similar to true esoterics become true believers of specs in some cases like pure copper. It is pretty ironic how similar they are to each other.
Regarding SINAD, I agree you have to draw the line somewhere. As for the copper, it’s not psychoacoustics, it’s just resistance (which you have to take into account for long runs), and you can also draw then line somewhere. But that’s a far cry from treating measurements as irrelevant or claiming fuses are directional. We can find better examples of this dichotomy.
I wholeheartedly agree. In my view, all (measurably) good DACs sound the same. Amplifiers too, with the exception of being driven to their limits and driving real fringe case speakers with ultra-low EPDR.
I own 2 Benchmark AHB2s - they’re often criticised by audiophiles as sounding “boring” or “clinical”. They don’t have a sound - what comes out is what goes in, only amplified. Total neutrality well beyond the limits of human hearing perception. I think the real problem is they’re either not “euphonic” enough, i.e. they don’t alter the sound enough to be “exciting”, or, as I suspect is more often the case, they’re not expensive/bling enough for audiophiles to take seriously.
The “perceived” sound is affected by the expectation bias attached to the price and looks.
Not exactly matching my experience, but maybe we can agree on the conclusion that good DACs sound the same when you solely focus on tonal balance and that differences, if there are any, tend to be rather on the subtle, subjective side, making it futile to base verdicts like ´sounds superior´/´sounds inferior´ on them.
That’s the problem. You cannot. If you try to predict from which level upwards unwanted parts of the signal will become audible, you end up in a labyrinth of side parameters (from spectral analysis of the source material to noise floor in the listening room and so on) making it basically impossible to predict anything. As a matter of judging sound quality, this is a completely useless and misleading measurement, reading anything from that qualifies as hi-fi astrology in my understanding.
The effect is negligible, and you would not measure any differences that hint to audible differences.
Never meant to say that measurements in general are irrelevant. But the wrong measurements interpreted by people who seemingly do not have experience with matching measurements and listening tests is leading to a situation in which the published measurements are useless and in many cases misleading. There is not much difference to people claiming they can hear the direction of the fuse.
I have had DAC’s in the price range from €300 (Now playing, Topping E50 Balanced) to about €30K (Nagra HD DAC + MPS PSU) in my system. And to my ears differences, when fed by good quality transports/streamers, are miniscule.
I doubt the dCS Bartok would seem “too smooth”, or whatever, when given similar circumstances as any other decent DAC.
However, i quite easily identify differences between transports/streamers for some reason. And that pisses me off somewhat as it’s all digital and they are all “bit perfect” and should sound identical… Go figure…
Something that’s often overlooked when auditioning gear is precise level matching. Differences of less than 0.5 dB can give the perception of a change in quality.
Fully agree, and my Simaudio Moon pre allows input level matching down to 0,1dB.
Noone who has listend in my setup has had a differing opinion, than that DACs are much more similar than different.
Hi chaps,
There’s been nothing on topic for 24 hours, so I’m taking that as sign that this discussion has run its course, hence closing this topic now.
If there is a significant newsworthy update on this topic PM me and I’ll get it merged in.