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Audio Sound Quality and Dacs resolution and cd quality

Andrew Podmore

Andrew Podmore

Pod
Hello all,
whilst watching a video by Phil at Cheshire audio, (he prefers spinning discs to streaming) - it got me thinking to a recent experience.
listening to a Karen Carpenter song through my karik 3, I noticed if not just the drum rolls, ( she was a great drummer ) but then later, just the whole track blowing me away, comparing this to the same recording, same cd ripped to my streamer via Roon, just not even in the same league.
did some investigations and by feeding my streamer up to a linn Numerik - wow, the recording was now sounding just as superb as
from the karik 3 outputs, it turned out to be the SMSL DAC the streamer was connected to Previously.
a change has taken place and now the Roon based streamer is connected to a much older Numerik DAC via a digital processor that feeds it at a max of 48 kHz and the ripped carpenters cd is sounding very much like the karik, in other words, brilliant,
so, it seems that with cd quality source material I tracked things down to the DAC, a Chinese smsl su9 hi resolution DAC.
So we have at least with cd 16/44 material the 90s DAC is by far more convincing, musically.
There are a great deal of Chinese dacs out there these days, lots of kit, ever solo, gustard, smsl, just to name three brands, getting lots of attention on you tube etc, and online reviews, from the likes of Darko etc, and admittedly the smsl is a 400 quid product, but if a musical product, a DAC, from linn, from the 90s can out perform this, well it can’t all be about DAC chipsets and s/n ratio etc can it? It’s got to be more about the holistic whole of the product? What comes out of the phono sockets / XLR’s at the end of the day…
the rest of the system is klouts and active kabers, so revealing of source, I used to work in hifi shops in the 90s and then went on to spend 15 years in pro audio & lighting sales.

Can you relate? do any other PFM members have other similar experiences and stories to tell?
 
Andrew Podmore said:
Hello all,
whilst watching a video by Phil at Cheshire audio, (he prefers spinning discs to streaming) - it got me thinking to a recent experience.
listening to a Karen Carpenter song through my karik 3, I noticed if not just the drum rolls, ( she was a great drummer ) but then later, just the whole track blowing me away, comparing this to the same recording, same cd ripped to my streamer via Roon, just not even in the same league.
did some investigations and by feeding my streamer up to a linn Numerik - wow, the recording was now sounding just as superb as
from the karik 3 outputs, it turned out to be the SMSL DAC the streamer was connected to Previously.
a change has taken place and now the Roon based streamer is connected to a much older Numerik DAC via a digital processor that feeds it at a max of 48 kHz and the ripped carpenters cd is sounding very much like the karik, in other words, brilliant,
so, it seems that with cd quality source material I tracked things down to the DAC, a Chinese smsl su9 hi resolution DAC.
So we have at least with cd 16/44 material the 90s DAC is by far more convincing, musically.
There are a great deal of Chinese dacs out there these days, lots of kit, ever solo, gustard, smsl, just to name three brands, getting lots of attention on you tube etc, and online reviews, from the likes of Darko etc, and admittedly the smsl is a 400 quid product, but if a musical product, a DAC, from linn, from the 90s can out perform this, well it can’t all be about DAC chipsets and s/n ratio etc can it? It’s got to be more about the holistic whole of the product? What comes out of the phono sockets / XLR’s at the end of the day…
the rest of the system is klouts and active kabers, so revealing of source, I used to work in hifi shops in the 90s and then went on to spend 15 years in pro audio & lighting sales.

Can you relate? do any other PFM members have other similar experiences and stories to tell?
Click to expand...
I prefer cd's. Sold all my streming/server equipment. I’ve now got two cd sources in my system, DENON DCD-A110 and a recapped Tag Dac20. I buy loads of cd's.
 
There is a lot of praise for 90s DACs out there. Generally they don't have the detail retrieval of more recent ones and obviously don't process higher resolution file formats, but at CD quality many people swear by them. I particularly enjoyed Theta DACs when I tried them. A very bold, thick and powerful sound, not thin or particularly detailed, just loads of weight which can make you smile, hard to find that these days in the new DACs.

I think streamers are the part of the chain that has least affect on the sound IME, but happy to be proven wrong as I haven't heard too many.
 
Never been able to get on with most AKM/ESS DACs which are common in SMSL/Topping etc DACs (though I do understand implementation is everything and there are probably some amazing DACs with those chips). It's subtle but the soundstage is a little flattened, they feel kind of sterile, but the tell tale is that noise of fingers across guitar strings that trebly squeaky/scrapy sound which my ears are sensitive to. On the type of DACs metioned it that string scrape sound is quite edgy. BurrBrown chips not had this problem, nor with a Qutest (FPGA or something?) . Never tried an R2R DAC but they're supposed to sound more "musical" too. It's all super subtle stuff but it does make a difference, you find your shoulders a bit more tensed or relaxed, or you're listening less or more, that kind of thing.
 
Don’t underestimate how much Roon will be ruining the sound. It’s well known for sounding a bit flat.
CD is good, but a good music server can better CD…but it takes money as a computer is possibly the worst idea ever for hifi music playback….there are so many hurdles that need to be overcome, particularly noise wise.
 
halvis said:
There is a lot of praise for 90s DACs out there. Generally they don't have the detail retrieval of more recent ones and obviously don't process higher resolution file formats, but at CD quality many people swear by them. I particularly enjoyed Theta DACs when I tried them. A very bold, thick and powerful sound, not thin or particularly detailed, just loads of weight which can make you smile, hard to find that these days in the new DACs.

I think streamers are the part of the chain that has least affect on the sound IME, but happy to be proven wrong as I haven't heard too many.
Click to expand...
My Tag DAC20 1998 (Audiolab 8000DAX) is possibly my favourite all time DAC. It just sounds so right and bullet proof build quality. I thought it was significantly better than my former Chord Qutest and Bryston BDA2.

It depends on my mood but often find me playing it although my A110 is superior in every way.
 
My pc source, audiolab cdm transport (vintage) and my little fiio m15 dap all sound exactly the same playing the same digital file back through my Chinese dac.

Maybe there's differences I your source material and output level.
 
Eoin said:
Not following what was good and what was not..? 🙏
Click to expand...
cd was sounding far better than same cd ripped to Roon, seems the karik 3 was far better than the Chinese smsl DAC, a numerik proved to be the solution, Roon now sounding great, like the karik. A very large cd collection was ripped to Roon so was wanting it sound great. As you do
 
tuga said:
No. My experience is the opposite of yours. Older DACs and CD players don't sound as good as modern DACs.
Click to expand...
Indeed, also maybe not just modern dacs - but modern dacs that are also better, in this instance that was not the case with a 400 quid modern Chinese DAC, playing cd quality material, despite this particular dacs higher spec.
 
And to confuse the conversation further, modern DACs but with ye olde chips can sound killer. Merason being a case in point. Audio Note are supposed to be excellent (never heard one, really want to).
 
Thetiminator said:
Don’t underestimate how much Roon will be ruining the sound. It’s well known for sounding a bit flat.
CD is good, but a good music server can better CD…but it takes money as a computer is possibly the worst idea ever for hifi music playback….there are so many hurdles that need to be overcome, particularly noise wise.
Click to expand...
In this instance the chain is innuos zenith, usb to a digital processor with a 10mhz clock that then feeds the Numerik via coax at 48 kHz, now, comparing the original cd on the karik to the streamed FLAC copy via Roon is much more consistent with the karik, if not better. Roon is used with all bells and whistles turned off.
 
Columbo said:
Never been able to get on with most AKM/ESS DACs which are common in SMSL/Topping etc DACs (though I do understand implementation is everything and there are probably some amazing DACs with those chips). It's subtle but the soundstage is a little flattened, they feel kind of sterile, but the tell tale is that noise of fingers across guitar strings that trebly squeaky/scrapy sound which my ears are sensitive to. On the type of DACs metioned it that string scrape sound is quite edgy. BurrBrown chips not had this problem, nor with a Qutest (FPGA or something?) . Never tried an R2R DAC but they're supposed to sound more "musical" too. It's all super subtle stuff but it does make a difference, you find your shoulders a bit more tensed or relaxed, or you're listening less or more, that kind of thing.
Click to expand...
Well put, I agree implementation , it really is. On the karik, the Drum roll as it panned from left to right was so convincing that it seemed an actual drum kit was being played between the speakers and same track streamed via the smsl was as flat as a pancake, and this was just the beginning. I suspect that the chipset is part of it, but if a DAC takes data, and puts out music to be amplifed, then surely it’s just as much of a music maker as my LP12 ? I know this much, the dac as a whole product is more than the sum of its parts.
 
Mike1965 said:
I think the jist of it is older dac's are more musically convincing than the perfectly measuring currently produced devices
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Yes, well summarised 😆, I would say I cannot speak for all currently produced devices, in this case just the smsl, hence why I opened up this experience to a wider audience to ask their experiences.
 
Mike1965 said:
I think the jist of it is older dac's are more musically convincing than the perfectly measuring currently produced devices
Click to expand...
That's what I got.

I have listened to my growing music collection via three long-term DACs (and others on shorter audition): a 1983 Philips (CD player), a 2004 Quad (CD player/DAC) and a 2018 ATC (CD player/DAC/preamp). I have CDs (mainly classical) from the early 1980s right up to today, and other digital music sources, including streaming, right up to today. My thoughts, from the PoV of a consumer of digital music only:
  • DACs have technically improved over time but that progress plateaued (from the PoV of my experience) a while ago.
  • Digital music production quality (at least for classical music) has improved a lot since the 1980s. There are some really dynamic, clean and detailed, modern recordings from well-sorted production processes that were not generally available in the 1980s and into the 1990s.
  • Great music has been made by geat musicians throughout the period of the recordings I listen to (at least back to the 1950s).
Disentangling or entagling the quality of music, the quality of sound, and the quality of the combined experience is, to me anyway, not as straightforward as the the OP presents (not a criticism of the OP's experience - just an expression of mine). In general loudspeaker limitations have been the biggest culprit in detracting from my musical enjoyment. DACs have had only minor impact (and no significant impact since the 2004 upgrade).

The biggest pleasure for me is the increasing amount of classical music that combines great musicianship with modern great quality production. I listened yesterday with great pleasure to Astrid Varnay at Bayreuth in 1953, but I do wonder what I would experience if that performance had been recorded and produced today.
 
sq225917 said:
My pc source, audiolab cdm transport (vintage) and my little fiio m15 dap all sound exactly the same playing the same digital file back through my Chinese dac.

Maybe there's differences I your source material and output level.
Click to expand...
the Comparison was between essentially 3 dacs, the one in the karik, the smsl & the Numerik, source material preamp levels and rest of the system remained the same.
 
Well my conclusion is, on the basis that the digital stream coming off the cd in the karik is equivalent to the same cd only ripped to a hard drive and that one would hope for in both cases a low jitter data stream, then over to the DAC, as the only device in the chain to be converting these bits to music it’s my humble opinion that the DAC makes a significant contribution, that’s my experience, is the DAC not in essence the “analogue music generator” in the chain?
I was comparing the same cd, played in the cd player and then ripped and streamed via the chain as described. I am delighted that my cd and indeed cd’s are now sounding great from the innuos as it defeats the point of ripping my large collection of compact discs, when the same discs played on the karik were sounding better, regards Roon used with minimal processing I cannot detect any deterioration in sound quality. Thanks to all for your thoughts and perspectives.
 
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