End Game Digital (2023)

[John Phillips]

Okay. So can you explain the relevance (primarily to the designer) of this: ‘Master USB device operating up to 384 kHz’? I’m a little confused as to why it matters with the 1541.

Yes as @chartz writes, a TDA1541a chip will only convert 16 bits of Qobuz' 24. I assume the DAC does the truncation properly.

I have briefly perused the data sheet and AFAICS it is designed to work with the usual separate oversampling filter chips to enable a complete DAC to handle sample rates up to 384 kHz. So it looks like it can can convert Qobuz' 96 kHz in oversampling mode. In non-oversampling mode? I don't know.

 

[Alex S]

Dave, makes sense. Here’s what Mr Audial has to say about 384kHz and the TDA 1541A chip: https://www.audialonline.com/blog/another-story-about-tda1541a-384-khz/ Anyway, his dac sounds better with hi-res files than the Chord 2Qute with a fancy power supply in my system.

 

[tuga]

I’ll be curious to see if this is right, but AIUI it means that you can feed the DAC 384kHz, and the DAC won’t decide it doesn’t understand what it’s being fed and just produce distortion or silence or whatever else it might do when fed an out of spec signal. But the 384kHz signal will be processed as whatever multiple of 44.1 or 48kHz the chip maxes out at. I think this is 192kHz for the 1541 so it’d be kind of like a screen displaying every other frame of a 384fps video signal.

The TDA1541 seems to accept 384kHz (as per this datasheet) but 8 of the 24-bits will just get truncated and that'll generate distortion.

 

[Alex S]

Did you read the link above your post?

 

[tuga]

Dave, makes sense. Here’s what Mr Audial has to say about 384kHz and the TDA 1541A chip: https://www.audialonline.com/blog/another-story-about-tda1541a-384-khz/ Anyway, his dac sounds better with hi-res files than the Chord 2Qute with a fancy power supply in my system.

Not Oversampling is less of a problem if the DAC's fed high sample-rate files.

But NOS DACs are great if you feed them oversampled/filtered Redbook, better still DSD if they will take it.




Edit: the graph from your link illustrates why high rates are better but still the DAC cannot reconstruct the original waveform:

tda1541 - 20kHz @ 384k
(I wonder why he used 10bit res here and not 12bit, perhaps to make it look nicer)

tda1541a 20k @ 44.1k

 

[chartz]

My elderly Quad 67 CD player still works fine although it sounds pretty dire using its analogue out but is fine through its digital out.

That is odd because my lesser CD66 doesn’t sound like that at all. Time for maintenance?
Same with your old Quad amps perhaps?

As regards the graphs above, yes you really need the upsampling chip. NOS is an aberration and a denial of Philips’s best efforts (their end game was Bitstream). Unless you like that kind of distortion, because that’s what you hear.

 

[Alex S]

It’s interesting, I’m absolutely happy to explore more up to date technologies which is why I started the thread with dCS and DAVE. I can though say that so far, uses of the 1541 chip - Naim CDI & CDS, Audial - have provided my favourite digital replay.

 

[camverton]

That is odd because my lesser CD66 doesn’t sound like that at all. Time for maintenance?
Same with your old Quad amps perhaps?

As regards the graphs above, yes you really need the upsampling chip. NOS is an aberration and a denial of Philips’s best efforts (their end game was Bitstream). Unless you like that kind of distortion, because that’s what you hear.

Good point, they possibly need a service. I also had a Quad 66 CD player and if memory serves me they didn’t sound any different. When I say it sounded pretty dire that is compared to what I have now, at the time it sounded pretty good, and that is why I think things have progressed, albeit with the proviso that a service might be required although the Quad 67 has had relatively little use.

 

[tuga]

It’s interesting, I’m absolutely happy to explore more up to date technologies which is why I started the thread with dCS and DAVE. I can though say that so far, uses of the 1541 chip - Naim CDI & CDS, Audial - have provided my favourite digital replay.

The unfortunate reality is that it's almost impossible to know why you prefer the Audial. Is it the D/A chip, NOS, the analogue stage?
You could at least try to feed it upsampled/filtered Redbook to see how it performs, but that's the best you can do really. I know that all the DACs I've had in the past 8 1/2 years, whether NOS or OS, have sounded better when fed upsampled/filtered Redbook.

 

[Dave H.]

Dave, makes sense. Here’s what Mr Audial has to say about 384kHz and the TDA 1541A chip: https://www.audialonline.com/blog/another-story-about-tda1541a-384-khz/ Anyway, his dac sounds better with hi-res files than the Chord 2Qute with a fancy power supply in my system.

I similarly found that my ancient tech 1543 DAC had something that more up to date DACs (including a Qutest) didn’t, for my tastes at least, when I tried a few a little while back.

I’ll have to keep an eye out for an Audial coming up for sale. A little rich for me to take a blind leap, but if one comes up used in the UK at a reasonable price it’d be good to try one out if possible.

 

[Alex S]

My S4 might, since the connectivity of the S5 would help me. Not sure where you are but you could try it - I’ve lent a lot of stuff to other pfm-ers with no obligation (most of it not for sale anyway). We can move to PM if it’s of interest.

The S4 is BNC Coax and USB in only, mine is RCA out only, transformer and/or capacitor coupled.

 

[camverton]

Was it a Harmoni Mundi recording? They mic too close for my taste, and that also adds to the edginess.

interesting thought. I’ve had a look at my history but can’t remember which quartet I was listening to at the time. I don’t think any of them were on Harmoni Mundi though. The point is that with one DAC it was ouch and a face screw and with the other exciting and natural. I did do some comparative measuring in REW at the listening position and no difference to speak of. Perhaps a violin shows the advantage of upscaling and its (alleged for some) improvements to timing and transients.

 

[chartz]

You know, many instruments can sound harsh, I know violins and brass can. Is it that analogue in fact softens proceedings and digital with too close mics reveal what’s really going on? Have you already heard a trumpet near you? Drums? A violin? There is no ‘digital’ sound.

 

[Alex S]

Another reason why HiFi systems can’t sound like live music, and shouldn’t.

 

[Fergus]

Live music?

Tell @tuga that!

 

[Alex S]

Before the barrage, I'll elaborate slightly: my system is pretty fast and dynamic (crossover-less, efficient speakers), my mate's top end Naim system, Dave/M-scaler, big PMCs is pretty fast and dynamic, the ATC 100 & 50 systems I've heard are pretty fast and dynamic and go very loud without distortion. Do any of them sound like trumpets, drums or violins six feet away in the room? No.

 

[Purité Audio]

A hi-fi can only aspire to reproduce the file, with a decent recording and really full-range loudspeakers one can get pretty close.
Keith

 

[darrenyeats]

interesting thought. I’ve had a look at my history but can’t remember which quartet I was listening to at the time. I don’t think any of them were on Harmoni Mundi though. The point is that with one DAC it was ouch and a face screw and with the other exciting and natural. I did do some comparative measuring in REW at the listening position and no difference to speak of. Perhaps a violin shows the advantage of upscaling and its (alleged for some) improvements to timing and transients.

IMO Benchmark DAC1 better with ALPS potentiometer bypassed and using digital volume control in transport, better with XLR (more linearity than RCA in this design), better with XLR output attenuators at 0dB, better with hi res (or computer upsampling for 16/44). Lot of hoops to jump through but then it sounds good.

 

[camverton]

IMO Benchmark DAC1 better with ALPS potentiometer bypassed and using digital volume control in transport, better with XLR (more linearity than RCA in this design), better with XLR output attenuators at 0dB, better with hi res (or computer upsampling for 16/44). Lot of hoops to jump through but then it sounds good.

Yes, there is plenty to configure. I was using XLR, calibrated (ie without volume control) -10dB.

 

[camverton]

You know, many instruments can sound harsh, I know violins and brass can. Is it that analogue in fact softens proceedings and digital with too close mics reveal what’s really going on? Have you already heard a trumpet near you? Drums? A violin? There is no ‘digital’ sound.

Yes I have. I among many many thought that digital was a done deal, turned out that turning digital into analogue wasn’t quite as simple as we believed and the devil is in the detail so to speak. I was talking about a recording of top flight quartets who know how to take the music of Shostakovich to the edge. One DAC reproduced that, the other took it over the edge. It had been a bug bear for me, over the years, that my hifi hadn’t been able to reproduce violins as we hear them in the concert hall. Thankfully I can now do that, not by softening, ameliorating the sound but reproducing it in all its glory.