What would be important criteria for your purchase of a new DAC?

[AudioDoctor]

Would you demand it have Quad Rate DSD?  Would you want it to decode MQA?  Both?  What about DXD?  I've been reading a lot today about DXD and DSD and it seems the DXD sounds better, but is a significantly bigger file.  Would any of this matter at all or would you only be interested in redbook and sound?  I don't think any of my devices can output or accept more than DSD128 right now, so I have no files bigger than that, nor do I have any DXD which I believe is just PCM but I think all my devices can output and accept that.

[jabbr]

5 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

Would you demand it have Quad Rate DSD?  Would you want it to decode MQA?  Both?  What about DXD?  I've been reading a lot today about DXD and DSD and it seems the DXD sounds better, but is a significantly bigger file.  Would any of this matter at all or would you only be interested in redbook and sound?  I don't think any of my devices can output or accept more than DSD128 right now, so I have no files bigger than that, nor do I have any DXD which I believe is just PCM but I think all my devices can output and accept that.

 

So first determine if you are looking for R2R/PCM or DSD or both  At some point the "sound" of the DAC predominates. That said if you are looking for DSD, then DSD256 is probably a minimum and DSD512 capability is preferable. Don't worry about the file size as HQPlayer etc can be used to convert/upsample and send. Similarly for PCM.

 

I think "DXD" is essentially 24-bit/352.8 kHz PCM and again, easy to get with upsampling or conversion from DSD.

 

My personal opinion is that once you get into the high resolution upsampled range, that the analog electronics/implementation predominates.

[witchdoctor]

I want a dac that has an hdmi port and does MQA and priced below $500

[Norton]

I am looking for a new DAC.

 

For me, the most important criteria is "simply" that that it sounds significantly better than what I have already and compared to anything else in its price bracket.  By sounds better I mean in terms of both transparency and solidity/"three-dimensionality" of sound and first and foremost with RBCD. From my listening so far, DAVE really delivers on this...at a price.  Experience to date suggests that this is a rare combination of characteristics - mostly, DACs I've listened to either offer  a very detailed and transparent, yet "thin" sound or alternatively a big, solid but somewhat veiled sound. 

 

Once a DAC meets the above criteria then both DSDx4 and DXD would be relatively important to me, not least for replay of excellent HDTT transfers.  However, after a burst of initial zealotry  for DSD, I'm much more of the view nowadays that individual recording quality is more important than simply going for  "big number" formats and that some of the best SQ comes simply from bi-perfect RBCD , although I am quite taken with 24/352 at the moment.     

 

Preamp, headphone, MQA not important at all to me.        

[Dr Tone]

1) It needs to play high bit rate PCM and at least double rate DSD.

2) It needs to sound spectacular and not cost more than 10k CAD.

 

@Norton give that Resonessence a demo it's half the price of the Dave and I think you would like it based on your sound quality requirements.

[blownsi]

Maybe I'm taking this too literal but the most important thing to me would be the listening test. DSD, MQA, etc do not really matter if you do not like it's sonic character.

[Jud]

9 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

Would you demand it have Quad Rate DSD?  Would you want it to decode MQA?  Both?  What about DXD?  I've been reading a lot today about DXD and DSD and it seems the DXD sounds better, but is a significantly bigger file.  Would any of this matter at all or would you only be interested in redbook and sound?  I don't think any of my devices can output or accept more than DSD128 right now, so I have no files bigger than that, nor do I have any DXD which I believe is just PCM but I think all my devices can output and accept that.

 

DXD is PCM at 352.8 or 384KHz rates.

 

When you say "it seems the DXD sounds better," this is an area rife with confuson.  The following will hopefully provide some clarity for a typical DAC:

 

1. Feeding DXD to a DAC that will accept it bypasses the DAC's internal PCM upsampling/filtering.  The DAC then employs its internal sigma-delta modulation.  Sending DSD to the DAC bypasses the internal sigma-delta modulation as well.

 

2. Regarding DSD: It's helpful to think of the DSD bitstream as being divided into a "signal" part and a "noise" part.  "Noise shaping" is used to try to push this noise as far into the ultrasonic region as possible, so the final analog reconstruction filter in the DAC will remove as much as possible of the noise in the process of the conversion to analog (music).  As you move up in rate from DSD64 to DSD128, 256, and 512, the noise is pushed progressively higher into the ultrasonic range, so the final filtering is then progressively more effective at removing it.

 

So what someone is saying when they say they prefer DXD to DSD is some combination of these two things: (a) they prefer the DAC's internal sigma-delta modulation to whatever sigma-delta modulator was used to produce the DSD; and (b) they may be listening to DSD64 that is just passed through to the final filter, while when it's fed with PCM (including DXD) the DAC's internal modulator may be outputting the equivalent, in terms of noise, of DSD128 or DSD256.  (I say "the equivalent" because some internal DAC modulators don't output DSD but a hybrid multibit high-rate format.)

 

* * * *

 

What I personally would look for in a new DAC is the ability to *accept* as many PCM and DSD resolutions as possible.  This leaves me as the user free to use software upsampling and modulators (relatively cheap and quite possibly better than what the DAC does internally).  You may still want to spend money for the other aspects of the DAC, parts quality and analog design.  How much you might like to spend is up to you.  I can tell you I'm very happy with the sound I'm getting from my DAC (see sig) feeding it with software-upsampled DSD256.  It cost me $375 on sale.

[HamDog]

#1 on my list:  Multichannel capable via USB interface.

 

[semente]

• USB w/ galvanic isolation

• PCM input 352.8/384KHz or 705.6/768KHz if possible

• DSD128?

• Non-Oversampling

• Filterless (digital)

• High performance analogue stage and LPSU

 

 

[mrvco]

The difference between DxD and DSD128 on my Eastern Electric DAC has always been a wash to my ears (up-converted via HQP).

 

So far I prefer DxD to DSD256 on my (still new) MyTek Brooklyn (I haven't tried DSD128 yet).

 

The big issue for me with MQA right now is that it's all or nothing, minimum phase filter only and no up-conversion allowed.  I haven't found an MQA stream yet on Tidal to be worth the hassle of switching from HQP to Roon Ready mode on my µR, switching zones in Roon and finally enabling MQA on the Brooklyn when compared to simply up-converting the stream to DxD.

 

Once Roon implements software unfolding to 24/96, then all the downstream dependencies and limitations go away and you get 99.????% of the benefits of Hi-Res when MQA is present.  I can't claim to be able to hear a difference between a 24/192 file and the 24/96 down-convert of the same file, so I'm not concerned about unfolds beyond 24/96.

 

So my must-haves over and above sounding good to my ear in my system would be DxD, a solid USB implementation and an analog volume control (or at least enough juice to work in a passive pre setup).

[Ralf11]

well, I guess the SQ of any particular interface is not based on replies in another thread -- so, it should accept/output, and do well with, common interfaces I would use (USB, Toslink, HDMI...)

 

it should be cheap

 

it should have high SQ (~~2,000 Redbook CDs ripped into iTunes; 12-20 SACDs; no ultra-res downloads (yet))

 

and it should hopefully be built into a nice universal disc player to reduce the clutter of boxes on my inherited Danish Modern HiFi console...

 

I'm a Dreamer, not a Streamer...

[Panelhead]

  I went for multi-channel with Thunderbolt. Was 475.00 delivered. AKM chips.

  Would love to try one with the 9038Pro chips. They seem to be SOTA.

[mordante]

PCM 24/192

Multiple inputs, at least toshlink, USB and Coax or AES/ebu

Less then 2k euro

no volume controle

no headphone output

no fancy display

preferable multibit

 

Don't care about DSD, DXD etc

[harmonica2]

On 5/10/2017 at 5:46 AM, witchdoctor said:

I want a dac that has an hdmi port and does MQA and priced below $500

I was yearning for a DAC with HDMI as well because I have an audio/video combo 2.1 system.  This is a seriously limiting factor because only NAD offers "affordable" DACs with HDMI.  Then I bought a nice Octava HDMI/toslink switch, and all my inputs are now reduced to one toslink.  So my new requirement for a new DAC is ONE toslink input.  This really opens up the possibilities!  And yes, MQA would be nice.

[pkane2001]

• USB DSD256/512 native
• I2S input
• Digital volume control with remote
• Balanced analog output
• Excellent LPS

 

[skatbelt]

On 5/12/2017 at 10:17 PM, pkane2001 said:

• USB DSD256/512 native
• I2S input
• Digital volume control with remote
• Balanced analog output
• Excellent LPS

 

 

Good digital volume control I can understand if you want to bypass a pre-amp. Your other criteria are text book nonsense... So, my only criterium would be: musicality!

[Ralf11]

• I2S input seems to have a lot of advantages - maybe your thought is that the advantages are not important in the real world?

[Ralf11]

Thunderbolt using USB-C might be useful, esp. in the future.

The claims I've seen for it include:

1. it is streaming (not packetized)

2. runs as close to the CPU core as possible

3. is simpler than others

4. is very fast with low latency

 

I don't know if the above is correct or just a bunch of alternative facts...

[pkane2001]

1 hour ago, skatbelt said:

 

Good digital volume control I can understand if you want to bypass a pre-amp. Your other criteria are text book nonsense... So, my only criterium would be: musicality!

Wow. Seriously? I guess I've been going about it all wrong. What's nonsensical about these, please explain? And yes, I don't have or want a pre-amp in my system. Eliminated it about 20 years ago, when digital volume controls first became available on quality DACs.

[AudioDoctor]

51 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Thunderbolt using USB-C might be useful, esp. in the future.

The claims I've seen for it include:

1. it is streaming (not packetized)

2. runs as close to the CPU core as possible

3. is simpler than others

4. is very fast with low latency

 

I don't know if the above is correct or just a bunch of alternative facts...

 

 

That will probably take 20 years...

[AudioDoctor]

1 hour ago, skatbelt said:

 

Good digital volume control I can understand if you want to bypass a pre-amp. Your other criteria are text book nonsense... So, my only criterium would be: musicality!

 

 

What is nonsense about that, they seem perfectly reasonable to me?

[Dr Tone]

I would have thought support for all owned file types and sounds way better than what I had before would be everyone's 1 & 2 priorities.

 

Somewhere along the way, specs have become a priority as if specs make a dac sound good or something?

[pkane2001]

2 hours ago, skatbelt said:

So, my only criterium would be: musicality!

 

36 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:

sounds way better than what I had before would be everyone's 1 & 2 priorities.

 

These criteria add nothing to the discussion that one couldn't derive from just reading the name of this website. 'Audiophile'  already implies these. We are all here pursuing better sound and better musicality. These are a given.

 

What is of real interest to me and to most audiophiles is not what it is we are trying to achieve, but how. That's what the original question was about, and that's what I attempted to answer from my point of view.

[One and a half]

What's important in the next Dac....

 

- Clock input to sync the source to the DAC

- Galvanic isolation on USB, optional for AES3 

- Port vacancy for I2S  until there's an agreement on the pin configuration 

- DSD, well if 512 is that great, go for 1024 for the future

- Small footprint,  no 17 or 19in frames

- Loop through for external room correction software or daisy chain another DAC 

 

Volume control optional,  for those with deep pockets to replace blown tweeters, not for me.

[Dr Tone]

2 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

What is of real interest to me and to most audiophiles is not what it is we are trying to achieve, but how. That's what the original question was about, and that's what I attempted to answer from my point of view.

 

Since the OP asked about what to look for in a DAC, I thought maybe we would see more points (some similar to yours) and reasons why related to DAC design like:

 

Balanced/true dual mono design.

Output stage methodology.

FPGA and/or DAC(s) chip.

Specific filtering, oversampling, NOS etc

Clocking, Isolation and power etc

 

Instead the thread seems to have just deviated in the direction of most other threads on this site, the latest and greatest buzz words on how to get input into the DAC.  Everyone might as well just say "it needs to let me pump the highest DSD rate available into it via HQPlayer".

 

PS) I love HQPlayer as much as the next guy.