DAC Bake-off III: Electric Boogaloo (Midlands) Oct 11th, 2014

[Whaleblue]

Chris, nicely captured summary of the day.

Regards vinyl. It's well understood that differences in mastering, particularly in dynamic range laid down on vinyl over CD, can make a big difference. But now I've spent a couple of years back listening to vinyl I don't think that's all of it. It may be that vinyl is less accurate due to format limitations, or it may be that it is more accurate (despite them). I really don't know, but whatever it is I generally prefer the sound. I believe vinyl is considered rolled off in the treble, and some NOS DACs which also exhibit this behaviour are often preferred by lovers of vinyl. Is this just a "trick"?

Out of interest, do the MDACs and the Mirus all measure perfectly flat across the audible FR? I know Steve doesn't feel this matters (and I'm actually inclined to agree, especially in the lower registers), but I'm just wondering!

 

[Purité Audio]

A dac is a digital to analogue converter, it should have a completely flat frequency response.
NOS designs do have more distortion and a rolled off treble response that is part of their design, not a trick just their design.
Technically vinyl has disadvantages, intermodulation , tracking and tracing distortion, limited dynamic range ,but a good recording sounds great in both formats.
Keith.

 

[Steven Toy]

Nice to read your oservations about differences between DACs! Well done.

The comments that I find the most interesting are the ones relating to the MDAC (bare, Toy, Fusion) as I have ordered an MDAC2. There seems to be some consensus that the Fusion has the better separation = "air" of the three MDACs. That is noted.

That the Mirus comes across as even better than the Fusioned MDAC probably comes as no surprise given their respective price points.

Peter

I'm hoping that MDAC2 will be more dynamic like the Mirus but retain the MDAC L3 quality of reproducing harmony and texture very well.

 

[ItemAudio]

Within the time available and the nature of swapping involved, I am unable to define any difference between transports & inputs... with the exception of one brief period of using (what I will describe as) a remote spdif input into the Mirus. Which, it would appear, didn’t sound nice at all. An upsetting and most unlikely observation based on my expectation bias. However without further comparison I would be unable to make any claims as to what I had heard.

Mea culpa: the brevity of this spell was a function of me rushing over and silencing the DAC. At that point we were listening to a basic T1 via the Audiophilleo converter attached cable-free to the Mirus via a BNC/BNC converter.

On the one hand, this was embarrassing. For products we make and/or sell to sound so bad vs the Rega as an SPDIF source was unexpected - I've not heard a computer sound that awful versus a CD player since 2007!

On the other, it was a surprisingly unambiguous vindication of what I always say - that you can get the bits 'right' and it still be wrong. Very wrong, in this case. In fact, in future I may deploy that setup exactly to demonstrate the gap between different bit-perfect sources . . .

In the light of impressive auditions before and after this one using the T1 and Audiophilleo 2 and good digital cables, the culprit appeared to be direct attachment to the Mirus. In hindsight, it was a shockingly clear demonstration of the danger of installing a master clock (even one as good as the AP2) in the wrong place - here, I suspect, right in the barrel muzzle of RF noise firing from the rear of the Mirus. Those using motherboard SPDIF output take note . . .

Simply unplugging the USB cable from the AP2 and inserting it into the DAC gave us arguably the best sound of the day.

You live and learn.

 

[BrianPK]

Thanks ChrisPa for a very interesting and insightful review.
I'm really looking forward to my MDAC L3 but as I'm at the bottom of the list I won't see it till the late spring probably.
I'll just have to be patient.

Quote for the day... "Patience is a minor form of despair ,disguised as a virtue" Ambrose Bierce.