advertisement


Audio Note DAC 4 or 5. Just how good R they?

You could certainly look at it like that. But what I meant was that a solid coupling device such as bearing balls and cups worked better in my experience than a soft isolation device such as sorbothane.

also the DAC 2 was left on the floor at first. But when I moved it to a solid rack with good isolation, there was a marked improvement
 
xtinct1 said:
I’ve heard ANK kit DACs do not compare favourably to Audio Note DACs. I’ll have a read about the Weiss DAC though.

I’ve also read that low impedance pre amplifiers don’t work so well with the Audio Note DACs. But my Naim NAC 52 works very well as it’s a 100k ohm input impedance.

Initially, I suspected my DAC 2 was not suitable with my pre for this reason but I later realised it was because I had it sat on sorbothane feet. When I plonked it on a solid surface the difference was astonishing. Much better timing and deeper fuller sound. Isolation and solid hifi racks are essential for good performance from any component.
Click to expand...

Have you had any problems with the high output level of the AN DAC, and the high sensitivity of the line inputs on the 52 (in terms of usable range on the volume control, channel balance issues etc.)?
 
I wouldn’t say I’ve had any problems no. The very low volume level imbalance of the Naim amplifiers is a known thing. But I am talking about a very low level on the volume.

The Audio Note partners very well with the Naim amplification in my experience.
 
Not sure if this thread is still live, but I am a fortunate owner of both the Audio Note DAC 5 Signature and DAC 5 Special. Do let me know if you have any specific questions and I can try to chime in a bit.
 
PatrickC said:
Not sure if this thread is still live, but I am a fortunate owner of both the Audio Note DAC 5 Signature and DAC 5 Special. Do let me know if you have any specific questions and I can try to chime in a bit.
Click to expand...
Hi Patrick, I would love to hear your thoughts on the DAC5. I’ve recently seen a few up for sale and I’m wondering whether it’s worth selling my turntable and other components to finally pluck this piece of kit. My hifi journey has taught me that the source and the pre-amp are the most vital parts of the hifi chain when it comes to the communication of the music as it’s probably heard live.
 
OldSkool said:
Whilst I've never heard an Audionote DAC the clue to the units perceived greatness are indeed in the measurements and alluded to in the article...

The lack of a filter, either analog or digital, means that ultrasonic image energy—the "negative frequencies" to which I refer in the title of my Richard M. Heyser Memorial Lecture to the Audio Engineering Society in October 2011, "Where Did the Negative Frequencies Go?"—is present to its full extent in the DAC's output, which in turn means that its time-domain reproduction is optimal. Fig.2, for example, shows the impulse response of the CD-4.1x; it is indeed a perfect, if inverted, impulse.

Perfect time domain response... there you have it!
Click to expand...

Most insightful reply!

The philosophy of AN is based on a simple assumption: preserve as much of the original input signal as possible.
In doing so, some 'junk' reaches the output connectors, resulting in mediocre measurement data.

The common misconception is "if it measures well, it should be good", but there is much more to it.
Oversampling and subsequent filtering introduce their own artefacts into the signal.
Set-up time, rise time and fall of the full scale range, LSB (Least Significant Bit), offset and gain, glitch energy are related to the time domain.
A NOS DAC exhibits no ringing and the transient nature of the music is preserved, resulting in 'naturalness' that - if implemented correctly, compensates for the lack of technical specifications.

...coming from a Topping owner.
 
ARX said:
Set-up time, rise time and fall of the full scale range, LSB (Least Significant Bit), offset and gain, glitch energy are related to the time domain.
Click to expand...

Did you make that up?

Up/over-sampling improves the effectiveness of the brick-wall filter (indispensable to correctly reconstruct the original signal and avoid aliasing), reduces jitter (by 3 dB for every doubling of the sampling rate) and improves S/N ratio.What's not to like?
 
tuga said:
Did you make that up?

Up/over-sampling improves the effectiveness of the brick-wall filter (indispensable to correctly reconstruct the original signal and avoid aliasing), reduces jitter (by 3 dB for every doubling of the sampling rate) and improves S/N ratio.What's not to like?
Click to expand...

Maybe the sound up/oversampling produces compared to NOS?
 
tuga said:
I'm sure you're right. There's no accounting for taste.
Click to expand...

The real test is if NOS sounds more realistic than up/oversampling, and there is an awful lot of people who think it is, hence why it has a following...
 
G T Audio said:
According to the graph it is still well within the -3dB points at 20Hz and 20KHz. Actually at 20Hz its about 0.85dB down (red & blue traces) and about -1dB down (cyan & magenta traces) which is well within audio limits.
Click to expand...

A 3dB variance between 20 and 20k can be considered good in speakers, on a CD player it's pathetic. A cheap smartphone will measure better.
 
G T Audio said:
The real test is if NOS sounds more realistic than up/oversampling, and there is an awful lot of people who think it is, hence why it has a following...
Click to expand...

Albeit a tiny one. I have actually been there some 15 years ago.
 
tuga said:
A 3dB variance between 20 and 20k can be considered good in speakers, on a CD player it's pathetic. A cheap smartphone will measures better.
Click to expand...

Exactly! The limitations are not so much at the equipment end but with the speakers...
 
G T Audio said:
Exactly! The limitations are not so much at the equipment end but at the speakers...
Click to expand...

Do you think it is best to keep the signal as pristine as possible until it is transduced by the speakers, or would you rather wreck it straight out of the CD?

By your logic speakers are limited so the quality of the equipment upstream (CD player, turntable, amplifier) doesn't matter because of the speaker bottleneck.
 
Purité Audio said:
‘preserve as much as the original input signal’ with a classic NOS dac, that is genuinely amusing.
Keith
Click to expand...

With a NOS DAC the signal is just decoded with nothing added or changed, unlike with up/oversampling. It is acknowledged by a number of companies (many high-end) that there is less harm done to the signal without an output filter and without up/oversampling, than with. The proof will be in listening of the two versions and some DACs will allow you to do this to see which version you prefer the sound of...
 
tuga said:
Do you think it is best to keep the signal as pristine as possible until it is transduced by the speakers, or would you rather wreck it straight out of the CD?

By your logic speakers are limited so the quality of the equipment upstream (CD player, turntable, amplifier) doesn't matter because of the speaker bottleneck.
Click to expand...

No! That is not what I am saying, and you are not wrecking the signal from the CD. Ask yourself why so many manufacturers make NOS DACs? If the sound was shit no one would buy them. Trouble is people focus on the wrong things in audio instead of focusing on the things that do actually matter to get great audio sound.
 
Audio Note do like to charge a lot of money for out of date tech. This seems to be their business model, a cunning plan.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top