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Post by The Brookmeister on Sept 1, 2019 17:20:25 GMT
A better power supply certainly helps the ones I heard 2500+ SOLD SO FAR 1 sent back! LOL I am looking forward to selling Lindemann now as I just signed up for the brand.
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Post by Clive on Sept 1, 2019 17:28:48 GMT
The Lindemann Bridge benefits from a better power supply too but nowhere near as much as the Qutest does.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2019 19:06:27 GMT
I’ve only owned two.
Audiolab Mdac, which was pretty good (my first steps into hifi).
Vdt1 dac - which I still have. It’s my longest lived hifi component actually.
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Post by tarzan on Jan 23, 2020 12:05:59 GMT
Just bought an Audionote 0.1x dac and it sounds very nice indeed, this feeds a TEAC PDH600 CD player.
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Post by daytona600 on Jan 25, 2020 12:03:25 GMT
Current using an DCS bartok , lottery win would be a MSB forget the names of dozens i did not like
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Post by jandl100 on Jan 25, 2020 12:54:47 GMT
I've no idea what kind of prehistoric DACs are in my ancient Lexicon surround sound processors, but I find them entirely satisfactory. Totally musical and enjoyable. Baffling, really! ... They are brilliant 2 channel preamps as well.
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Post by Slinger on Jan 25, 2020 14:33:03 GMT
I've no idea what kind of prehistoric DACs are in my ancient Lexicon surround sound processors, but I find them entirely satisfactory. Totally musical and enjoyable. Baffling, really! ... They are brilliant 2 channel preamps as well. THIS just says... A/D Conversion: 24-bit Delta-Sigma D/A Conversion: 24-bit Delta-Sigma It does have loads of good stuff about the effects and the setup though.
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Post by Clive on Jan 25, 2020 16:24:09 GMT
Liking or not liking a DAC may not be down to the DAC entirely. The digital feed into the DAC has quite an influence. Now you may say...a good DAC should be immune to jitter and noise...you'd be right hope for this. In practice it's not so simple. Things like galvanic isolation are not not perfect even though some seem to think so. Should all DACs resample and reclock? Or is it reasonable for a DAC to assume that the datastream it will be presented with will not be grossly noisy and jittery? A belt and braces DAC should sound good no matter what but it will cost more. You may however be able to feed such a DAC with a more basic streamer. As ever it's down system matching....sorry to prattle on.
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Post by John on Jan 25, 2020 16:32:35 GMT
I think you have a good point but finding a way to deal with all that stray noise happening seems to be one of the keys to getting the best out of a DAC
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Post by Clive on Jan 25, 2020 17:02:32 GMT
A DAC designer can come at it from a couple of viewpoints.
The source could be say a basic Pi or noisy typical laptop.
1) A simple DAC which doesn't pay much attention to noise and jitter would sound poor.
2) A reclocking / resampling / isolated DAC should sound rather better in this scenario.
Then if the source were a well sorted quiet, low jitter one with a great clock and high quality resampling the two DACs above might sound very similar.
I can't say that one approach is better than the other - it's simply "two ways to skin a cat" - which doesn't sound very nice!
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Post by julesd68 on Jan 25, 2020 18:24:08 GMT
hmm - I've never listened to my DAC without the reclocking unit, would be an interesting experiment if I didn't have so many other things to do with the system first ...
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Post by MartinT on Jan 25, 2020 18:58:54 GMT
I find DACs can sound remarkably different, given the same source feed.
My experience is that reclocking and a very low phase noise master clock within the DAC are both invaluable. The assumption that a good DAC can handle any kind of signal quality will lead you to believe that 'digits are digits' and that will result in you never yielding the full sound quality which can be achieved. The digital signal path is very critical indeed.
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Post by jandl100 on Jan 25, 2020 19:23:05 GMT
... that makes sense ... and then you look at the quite horrendous jitter spectrum measured by John Atkinson of the imo excellent sounding Lexicon MC-1 and you wonder what the hell is it really all about. www.stereophile.com/content/lexicon-mc-1-preamplifiersurround-processor-measurementsJA, way back in 2001 -- "—almost 50 times worse than with the best digital gear I have tested!" It's not just me who is impressed by the sound, the subjective review by Larry Greenhill ends "... it created the best audio and video effects I've experienced in my listening room, and that garners it a Class A rating in "Recommended Components." ". Based on my own experience I remain unconvinced at best of the relevance of technical specs.
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Post by petea on Jan 25, 2020 19:52:45 GMT
I went through an interesting exercise today helping a friend from the village sort out his system. During this he asked about streamers and DACs and so, as an experiment, we took the digital out from his ancient Rotel CD player into my Lab12 DAC1 using a short Chord cable that was lying around (it was the only one I had that wasn't BNC to RCA). What a success that was! We then tried his MacBook Pro to the DAC1 via USB (using a spare AQVox USB cable) which demonstrated just how forgiving and musical that DAC can be, and something I'd never bothered trying before: it really was very good and lacked the harshness etc I expected. I've left it all with them for a few weeks as I only use that DAC occasionally. Now it will be a case of scouring eBay etc to find something they can use in its place and that is a bit more space friendly.
This exercise has encouraged me to reassess my main DACs. At present I use a Lector DAC with the Lector CD transport and a Teddy Pardo DAC with the streamer and music server: for logistical reason I have never fed the CD transport into the TP DAC. I only use the Lab12 occasionally as it can only 'cope' with 96K and I have quite a few 192K files and also it does not fit into the current configuration. However, I purchased a Lector 24/192 DAC a few months back, but as yet haven't put it into service due to Xmas etc and laziness! It should be a direct swap though for the other Lector and even uses the same PSU and so I'll go and get it from where it is still in its box at work and give it a go. Today has provided a useful nudge.
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Post by MartinT on Jan 25, 2020 23:03:01 GMT
Sounds like a plan, Pete. Shame the Lab12 only goes to 96k but I thought your (previous) Lector sounded pretty good.
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Post by The Brookmeister on Jan 25, 2020 23:39:52 GMT
Sounds like a plan, Pete. Shame the Lab12 only goes to 96k but I thought your (previous) Lector sounded pretty good. Are you convincing yourself that anything above 96K sounds better file wise chief? One of the best DAC's I have ever heard is 16 bit and proudly so.
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Post by MartinT on Jan 25, 2020 23:50:22 GMT
No, not always. In fact there are 24/192 streams that don't sound any better than lower resolution streams, it all depends on how the original digital master was derived.
I was more thinking of general compatibility and 24/192 means you can play any stream from Qobuz or Tidal without having to downsample.
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Post by petea on Jan 26, 2020 9:23:38 GMT
Sounds like a plan, Pete. Shame the Lab12 only goes to 96k but I thought your (previous) Lector sounded pretty good. It does. So good in fact that I am reluctant to swap it out. However, it is dedicated to 16/22.4 and so I have to process my streamer and server another way, but if I put the 24/192 Lector in its place that could, in theory, handle everything. I suspect that Lector have 'voiced' the analogue stage in a similar way to their other DACs and so this might be a good solution - I'll find out! As to 192K vs 96K, I have never made the comparison in my system and doubt it is significant on its own, it's just that I have a number of 192K files that at present I can only process through the TP and Lector DACs. www.lector-audio.com/S-192.htm
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Post by MartinT on Jan 26, 2020 10:39:40 GMT
doubt it is significant on its own, it's just that I have a number of 192K files that at present I can only process through the Lector. In my opinion, nowhere near as significant as recording and mastering quality.
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Post by mad4it on Feb 23, 2020 19:46:07 GMT
Love my current DAC - Aqua La Scala Optologic....it's a head flipper for sure. Just makes you want to thow all your music at it....worst DAC...my Oppo 105...but tbf, it's a blu ray player first.
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