The HiFi Five Episode 30: DACs and Digital Playback

The owners of MSB and veteran reviewers tackle some of the biggest -- and most divisive -- questions in digital audio:

Guests:

Daniel Francis -- Co-owner and Industrial Designer of MSB Technology

Jonathan Gullman -- Co-owner and CEO of MSB Technology

Doug Schneider -- Founder of SoundStage!

Steven Stone -- Senior Reviewer, The Absolute Sound

Topics:

Why are some experienced audiophiles still obsessed with “obsolete” DAC chips from the 1990s?  Are vintage multi-bit designs hearing something modern DACs miss?

Non-oversampling and filterless DACs:  More natural and analog -- or technically compromised nostalgia?

Can measurements really tell us what a DAC will sound like?  Which specs matter, which are marketing, and how do you know the measurements themselves are trustworthy?

How should an audiophile’s digital budget be split between DAC and streamer?

USB, I²S, co-axial, XDMI, etc. do digital interfaces actually sound different?   If the bits are the same, what exactly are listeners hearing?

If live music includes ambient noise, why are DAC companies obsessed with “blacker backgrounds” and vanishingly low noise floors?  Does technical silence really sound more believable?

Where should the clock be located?

Have we nearly reached the end of meaningful DAC progress?  Are today’s flagship DACs approaching the ceiling -- or are major breakthroughs still coming?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the 30th episode of the High Five Five. I'm Ron Resnick. Please like this video and subscribe to the channel. Tonight's guest, Daniel Francis, is co-owner and industrial designer at MSB Technology. Jonathan Goleman is co-owner and CEO of MSB Technology. Doug Schneider is the founder of SoundStates, the world's largest group of audio and music websites. And Steven Stone is a decades-long professional writer and veteran in the audio industry and a senior reviewer at the Absolute Sound. Welcome, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Hey.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Question number one. How should audiophile go about selecting a DAC? Whether a beginner or an experienced person perhaps never purchased a DAC before, there is a bewildering array of DAC options, a bewildering array of technical explanations for what matters. How should give us two or three, three or four steps for how somebody should go about selecting a DAC? Doug.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Oh, starting with me.

unknown 0:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Okay, I'll sound like a salesman a bit. I would establish some sort of budget. You know, when you walk into a store and say, how much do you want to spend? I would establish some sort of budget because they range from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. I would get something with the necessary inputs that you need. I would figure out what you need for inputs. Do you need HDMI art? Do you need SP diff? Do you need USB? I would look for the inputs. I would look for certain parameters. Technically, we're going to get into them later, such as low noise and low distortion, and mostly the filter type in that regard of what it has. I would look for something we're going to talk about that the filter doesn't clip. That to me is a big deal. And then for me personally, I would look up what I call the real DAC makers. For me, a real DAC maker is a company that really doesn't do just an off-the-shelf. And I mean that by you can get like demo boards from chip companies and stuff, and some DACs on the market are nothing more than a demo board and a power supply attached. Someone who really has expertise in building a DAC at regardless of the price point, I would look for that.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Daniel and Jonathan.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

So I would start my DAC buying journey by finding first a good company with good people. Kind of piggybacking off of what Doug is talking about is like finding real people who are actually making the product that you want to support. Because as consumers, you are voting for who gets to make the future of DAX. And so I think finding the people who are making it and what they stand for and how they manufacture is a really important first step. And then following that step would be to find a group that has a good community. Because, you know, this is a hobby for all of us. This is something that we enjoy doing. And I think it's essential and it'll result in the best experience if you love your products. If you love the people who also have this product, you share these experiences with, you communicate with, and you can identify with. And I think, you know, it's kind of like looking at the story of a product is the story is crafted by the company and the community both. And I think for me, that's when I'm shopping for products, especially luxury goods, like audio, like you know, a variety of audio gear. I think it's really essential to care about how the thing is made and who's making it.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

Stephen? Well, I think the first thing I always ask is what are someone's requirements? What are they using as an input source? Are they using Bluetooth from their phone? Are they using CDs? And that sort of dictates what sort of DAC I might point them towards. I'm also looking at what is going to make the device work for them in as seamless a manner as possible so that they're not required major lifestyle changes to generate their music. In terms of price, obviously, I I want to find out what their price point is. Because I think DAX have gotten very much like the automobile industry with the old saying was there's a there's an ass for every seat. I think in terms of DAX now, there's basically ears for every kind of DAC out there. And we have everything. I think there are great $200 DACs out there, I think there are excellent $200,000 DACs out there, but they're obviously for different clientele. I think one of the things that we do is we talk about the audiophile industry, and it's not a huge industry, it's a bunch of little industries that overlap at certain points. And depending on your price point, you're you could be into high performance or high-end, or you can be into basically the equivalent of what when I was young would be a Lafayette or Allied stereo, which produced music at a certain level. Obviously, what we have now for entry levels far higher than that, which is nice because that encourages more people to listen to music.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

I have a very simple answer on this one. I like it when people are able to audition components in their own homes and their own systems. I would suggest people try a couple of solid state decks, a couple of tube decks. I personally wouldn't focus so much on the underlying technical uh details of the DAX. I would focus on what in your system connects you most emotionally to the music you love, what sounds best to you in whatever is your subjective definition of best. Question two. Question two. What are the sonic trade-offs between discrete resistor ladder DAX and Delta Sigma decks? Jonathan and Daniel.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Yeah, so when it comes to that, the first thing you need to define is what a discrete resistor ladder DAC is. Um most people think ladder decks are R2R. And yes, all R2R DACs are ladder DACs, but not all ladder DACs are R2R DACs. So you have to do that, distinguishate, uh, distinguish that as well. Um an R2R deck is the most basic of basic ladder DACs you can get. Um we haven't used those, I don't think, ever. Um, we don't go into exactly what you know we do. Most people in our industry do something a little more advanced than a basic R2R DAC. But you know, the the trade-offs is we just believe that you know the ladder DAC gives you a more natural sound, a more believable sound, um, just more realistic. Uh and it really comes down to the technology. I mean, in the early days, all DACs were ladder DACs. Delta Sigma came out. The reason why it took off and took over the industry is they were the most affordable. Um, they measure great, they're really cheap to produce. I mean, you have one in every cell phone out there, iPods, etc. But you know, they were driven by uh first measure performance and cost. So, you know, we stick with Ladder DAX because we, you know, you know, I personally believe they are fundamentally better sounding.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah. And to piggyback off of that, um, there are great sounding Delta Sigma DAX. I don't want to come across as saying that Ladder DAC is the only way, but like it's just something that we've specialized in. And in in a certain way, it can deliver really great results, but it's not like a unilaterally, you know, one either-or situation that we're gonna come across.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Yeah, for sure. Some Delta Sigma DAX will definitely sound better than some Ladder DAX. So it's you can't just say this technology is superior, it's it really depends on how it's implemented.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

As is often the case, the implementation trumps the theory. Yes. Yeah. Stephen.

SPEAKER_04 7:46

Yeah, the implementation definitely trumps the theory. I mean, there's at a certain point, there are other elements besides the DAC technology that are going to influence the sound to a greater extent than that DAC technology will. Like the analog stages in 99.9% of DACs out there have more effect than their digital sections, in my humble opinion. So, yeah, um, trying to go, oh, it's gotta be this way. You're taking a very complicated and complex interaction. I mean, DACs are one of the only uh electronics that combine both analog and digital into one system, so it requires a manufacturer to be able to be adept at both kinds of technologies which are not mutually interchangeable. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Doug, what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Yeah, I was glad that Jonathan defined that because many people are confused these days. They think an R2R DAC is the only type of ladder DAC. A ladder DAC isn't just an R2R DAC, and I learned when I was at MSV a few months ago that they don't make R2R DAC. They do something else, but it's a ladder type topology. And then there are Delta Sigma DACs, and then there are also single bit DACs, right? And that came out. And I don't know what Jonathan, would we put um single bit under Delta Sigma or no?

SPEAKER_03 9:12

Uh I mean, it's definitely not under ladder DAC.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

It's definitely not so, but I think what's important for people to understand if you want to talk about R2R and why they're very tricky, is what the R2R means. And if somebody listens to me, they might really think I know what I'm talking about, but sometimes I don't, and I invite the MSB guys if I make a mistake. But I but digital is my last frontier to try to understand. But the R2R means you have a resistor, and then you have a double the value resistor, and then you have double again and double again, and you build a ladder of double the value resistors each time. And the problem with a ladder DAC is tolerance of the lowest rung of the ladder compared to the highest rung of the ladder. And in the 80s, they had huge problems with linearity of ladder DACs, they were straying at the least significant bits, right? Compared to the most significant. And it's very difficult, even today, to make a ladder DAC linear so that the lowest bits are exact proportion as they should be to the highest bits. Did I get that right, Jonathan, Daniel? Yep. Okay. And so that is a big thing. So there is a sonic trade-off with many ladder DACs today, and that's high distortion, low linearity compared to a Delta Sigma DAC, if that's the question. And I think what MSB, when I was talking to them there, they tried to eliminate that linearity problem with not an R2R, but another type of ladder topology. Correct? Yep. So that's the difficulty in the ladder DAC thing that's prevalent today. They have usually poor linearity and it shows up in measurements.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

My friend uh Phil Restler has a Bracasti DAC, which has on board a Sigma Delta and a R2R. And he sat me down for the demo, and I consistently preferred the R2R. I just find that in general, something more natural with the R2R. Um, I'm sure there are uh great DACs that are not that I would also enjoy. But in that very interesting comparison, because it's one device that has both of these things, I consistently preferred the um R2R, just seemed to touch more.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

And an interesting thing about Bracasty is that is a company that that knows what it's doing. So they would have done good implementations of both.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Issue number three. Why do some listeners still prefer vintage multi-bit DAC chips like the Philips TDA 1543 and the old Burr Brown? What do you think they are hearing, Steven?

SPEAKER_04 11:42

Do you have a pair of shoes that you really like that are really, really old and really, really comfortable? That's kind of what those DAC chips are like. Also, from a designer point of view, a designers had years and years to perfect and work on those chips and figure out exactly what they do well and what they do less well, to basically build an implementation around them that is sonically acceptable to human ears. That's my take on that.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

MSB gentlemen, do you have any idea what people are still enjoying about those new old stock type chips?

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Yeah, I mean, first the the non-oversampling DACs. The DAC chip basically like those don't have digital filters integrated in the chip. You can get DAC chips that have no digital filtering integrated when you do external digital filtering. So just because they're using that chip doesn't mean they don't have a digital filter in front of it. Um, I I guess I'll go into this more in question five. There I see them as kind of related. The problem, in my opinion, with non-oversampling DAX really comes down to, you know, characteristics that while some people might enjoy it, you know, as he was saying, like a pair of comfortable shoes, they're worn out and they're comfortable, but you're never going to get rid of them. Uh, it really comes down to the fact that, you know, in my opinion, the biggest issue with them is they have like phase issues. Um, but yeah, I'll go into more on that when we get to the next question.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Doug, I think um uh SW1X, ABIS, uh some of the audio note DACs use these um uh vintage multi-bit chips. What do you think they're hearing?

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Yeah, so there's two things, and I'm glad you put those guys first because I agree that there's a nostalgic component to it. There's just a likability. And then what Jonathan said, those chips don't necessarily have digital filtering. And if they don't have digital filtering, then it's it's a totally different ballgame because you've got many other things going on beyond the chips themselves, okay, about what's happening with the signal. But if you if you implement those chips, and I've talked to some old digital designers who said, you know, in their day, those were great chips. And some people do drag out old DACs and players with those chips, and the performance is very respectable. It's not state of the art, it's very respectable. And so somebody goes and uses it in a competent way today. Um they can produce something respectable, and somebody might say, Oh, that sounds great. But like Jonathan said, the filtering has got to come into the equation. We do have to talk about these non-oversampling filterless DACs, which I think are a really bad idea.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

Yeah, just real quick in regards to the Philips chip. I actually have a drawer full of them because back in the very early days of MSB, we used one of these, you know, cult-like following DAC chips. Uh, I have one that works in my office right now. Um they were great then. They don't hold a candle to what we have now. Would you agree that somebody could make a respectable DAC with them? Respectable. They could make a DAC, yeah, and enjoy it and very much enjoy. But you know, it's going to be heavily influenced by everything around it. If you have digital filtering or if you don't, you know, your analog stage and the filtering and the analog stage. Um, yeah, always comes down to the implementation. The implementation of it. We could make it sound very different than anybody else, depending on the implementation.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

So issue number four. What are the tactical and sonic trade-offs of non-oversampling architecture on the input side and filterless on the output side of different DAC architectures? Jonathan.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Okay. Um sorry, it seems we have questions in a different order. So, yes, uh the trade-offs. So basically, if you have a non-oversampling DAC with no digital filtering beforehand, um, you're gonna end up with two issues. The first issue, and what everybody first thinks about, is um, you know, when you play it back with no digital filter, everything that's in the audible band is gonna be repeated in the out-of-band. So your image will be duplicated, you know, it'll come to Nyquist, and then the image will be duplicated after that in the high out-of-band spec. Um, you can argue that you know that's automatically filtered out with the speakers and by the amps. And if the amps and speakers don't care about playing the out-of-band noise, then that's not much of an issue. The bigger issue when it comes to that type of DAC design, in my opinion, is uh the phase error that I was mentioning earlier. When you sample uh, you know, the best example of this phase error issue is play a square wave. If you're playing a square wave through an ADC, it's going to sample it at the rate of the ADC. When you use a non-oversampling DAC with no digital filter, it's going to do the square wave transitions tied to the sample rate. The primary purpose of a digital filter isn't to filter out the out-of-band noise, it's to recreate the original phase. It's think of it more as like a phase recreation filter. Because if you are playing back a square wave with no filtering on the digital side, not trying to recreate the phase of the original recording, where that square wave transition happens can be off by up to two samples. Because you know, if it's sampled, you know, a half a millisecond after and before the ADC pulls it, it will be recreated, shifted. So basically, think of your analog output square wave, it'll look like jitter. You know, the the width of the square will vary by up to two samples with each each pulse. And you know, in the digital domain, we would call that jitter. In the analog domain, that's a phase error. And phase is what people are most sensitive to. I mean, it's how you can tell left, right, up, down is your ears are really, really good at detecting phase. It's probably our most sensitive sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Stephen, what do you think?

SPEAKER_04 18:02

I don't have much to add about that. I I'm not a big fan of that sort of minimalist design. Um, for me, it lacks flexibility from a usability point of view. I'm I'm a music first guy. I've got all kinds of different digital formats and analog formats. And when it comes to a deck, I expected to be able to play them all in their native state. And if I wish to upsample them because they were recorded maybe at 32 or on an early MP3, I'd like to have that option. Doug?

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Yeah, I'm glad that um Jonathan hit on all those things. Uh, you also get, correct me if I'm wrong, Jonathan, again, you get a frequency response droop um when you're doing non-oversampling, that more than 3 dB by 20 kilohertz. So you get phasers, you get a frequency response droop, and you get auto-band noise. And, you know, I read one review, I won't say the magazine, but it was obviously someone who didn't understand, and they said, you know, the reason that um non-oversampling filterless acts are so good is because they're pure. They don't mess with the digital signal. Well, you have to mess with the digital signal. You don't filter it, you're gonna get out-of-band noise. You're gonna get the frequency response truth, you're gonna get the phase problems Jonathan was talking about. You have to scrunch it into the signal it's supposed to be. And that's what your digital filter does. It's a digital reconstruction filter. If you don't care about faithful reproduction, if you care, don't care about all kinds of noise out in the band, and you don't care about your frequency response, and you don't care about your phase, in other words, you don't care about accuracy, sure go for one. But they're a really bad idea. And the fact that they've kind of got a foothold with among among many people who say, oh, they're more natural sounding, well, you're hearing a lot of distortion, is what you're hearing, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Is that high frequency droop why some people might feel they sound a touch more natural or a touch smoother?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Sure. Roll off a tweeter. Many people roll off the tweeter on their speakers, they say, oh, that sounds smoother, um, less sharp, less this, this, that, but it's not accurate.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Issue five. What measurements of DAT technical characteristics should hobbyists care about? How can a consumer have confidence that a manufacturer is performing a measurement correctly, measurement verification, and that a manufacturer is actually measuring the attribute that he or she is purporting to measure, measurement validity. Uh Jonathan or Daniel?

SPEAKER_03 20:33

Yeah, so I'll answer this. Um, this is probably what I have the most information on. So, first of all, can you trust what a pub manufacturer publishes? Absolutely not. Um, long story short, you can't trust it. Um but secondly, even if the measurements are 100% accurate, the measurements are not what's most important when it comes to listening to and evaluating a DAC. Uh, so like, you know, for I have a few examples written down. Um, first of all, like we've seen some companies publish measurements that defy the law of physics. You know, they exceed what is literally possible in this physical world. But more importantly, um, like uh I'll just use jitter as an example. People try to measure the jitter of a DAC using an audio precision and looking at the tone and it's you know the spurious. You can't do that. If the DAC is of a certain caliber, the jitter of the clock in that DAC is going to be so good that you are not going to see the jitter of the DAC, you're gonna see the jitter of the audio precision. You could take two DACs and put in two wildly different low noise oscillators, and they will measure exactly the same once you get to a certain threshold. Um, now are measurements important? Absolutely. We use measurements through development, through manufacturing, but we We use measurements to prove that our hardware design is correct. You know, if there is a fault with your hardware, you will see it. If there's a fault with your design, it'll show up in a measurement. You know, obviously, there's going to be a minimum threshold for what you would expect a measurement to be, but like you can't determine the overall quality. You can have the exact same DAC. You can change the digital filter in it, you can change the digital algorithms and the processing in it, and the DAC performance will change radically. But the measurement of that DAC does not change at all. Just this last week, we did a firmware change in our one of our products. It measures exactly the same as it did two weeks ago. The sound signature is completely different. You know, we can change the sound of a DAC by making an image feel like it's moving forward or backward, as if the speakers were moved, but the measurements don't change. So, you know, really, you know, measurements are great for verifying your design. Um, they are not the end-all be-all on the quality of a product. For that, you really do have to list them.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah, and going over to um like manufacturer integrity, like knowing how to read technical measurements is a skill in its own. And if you are an honest manufacturer posting honest measurements, you are competing in an industry where dishonest manufacturers will skew results or skew measurements to make their products look better. So, as a consumer, if you're not really technically understanding these measurements and the bandwidth of measurement and all of these other aspects, what it's measured on, what it's being compared to, you're you're really comparing apples to oranges, and you might overlook a really good product based on something that is just really false information. So for us as a company, we've stopped trying to promote measurements because, you know, as you said, Ron, sit down in the chair and listen to products to evaluate their performance. Because looking at a chart of some sort, it's it's such an intangible way to actually evaluate gear. It doesn't make any sense, I think, from this modern market that is so flooded with measurements and so flooded with amazing gear and really bad gear. So it's it's a really hard thing to navigate as a new buyer.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Yeah, and that's the last thing to add to that, like as he was talking about jitter. Everybody's talking about jitter these days, femto clocks, etc. To measure a clock, you actually need a phase noise measurement system. You're not doing it on the analog output, you're not even doing it with a $30,000 oscilloscope. You need a phase noise measurement system. Now, that doesn't give you a jitter number, that gives you a phase noise graph. Depending on how much of that graph you look at, the same oscillator could be one femtosecond of jitter or one picosecond of jitter, depending on the parameters around the measurement. Because like a jitter measurement is a summation of like the area under this curve, and it's how much of the curve are you looking at? So if you see just the number without the parameters around it, it's it's meaningless. It's literally meaningless.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

So when a hobbyist looks at stereophiles' measurements of a digital audio component, is there one measurement you might suggest the hobbyists focus on, or no?

SPEAKER_03 25:24

I mean, you can look at the measurements to make sure that there's not an issue. Again, I'm not gonna name names. There was a measurement of a DAC in stereophile a few years ago that as it approached the zero point, it inverted and it showed up in the measurements. See, that isn't like, oh, a DAC decision. That was a flaw that should have been caught and was left. So, like, that's where measurements like it's to verify that the hardware is working correctly. You know, the frequency response. Is it actually flat or are they rolling it off 6 dB at 20 kilohertz because it's more pleasing? You know, to get rid of the high frequency noise, if you just get rid of it, it's gonna be more pleasing than leaving it. So, you know, is there one measurement to look at? No, I don't think there is.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

In the beginning of your answer, you mentioned that you were you did some change to the design, but the measurement didn't change. What was it then what was the nature of that design change, which sounded better but didn't actually show up in the measurement?

SPEAKER_03 26:22

Um I'm not gonna go into exact details of what it is because we have so many secrets in our digital filtering idea, but it's in the digital processing section. And it's not changing the EQ, it's not noise shaping, it's nothing you would think about. And I'm not gonna go into what it is, but it's literally like if if even if I explained it, like even Daniel has no clue. He I've tried explaining to him or other designer, Dustin's explain it, and it's so far over 99.99% of people's heads that it's not even worth trying to explain it. But no, it's this tiny little thing that had a huge sonic performance that doesn't even apply to anybody else's, like to uh other DAC designs. It's it's all integrated. Yeah, because again, it's the hardware implemented with you know how you implement it before, after, you know, it's not just like, oh, this one design needs this. So um it's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

From a consumer's point of view, there are certain specifications they should pay attention to. Uh in the old days of home theater, THX had something called THX certification, and they were basically minimum standards for gear that can work together in a way to make a successful system. I think, in terms of most electronics, there are certain minimum signal to noise specifications that you can expect to see on a properly engineered product. Like I said, they're they're sort of like the minimum least you can do to show that it's it's a legitimate piece of gear. In terms of inflated um specifications, I really rarely see that because most of specifications can be can be double-checked by companies like ASR so that get I don't think manufacturers can get away with that, and I think they know that. So the idea of distrusting uh specifications or manufacturers listed specifications, you know, you you state the idea of community, and that sort of immediately puts uh a consumer and the product in an adversarial position that I think is not warranted.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Doug, what do you think about measurements of DACs?

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah, I think I think they're important from, and I think this with loudspeakers and all measurements, just to show a level of competence. And what um uh Jonathan had mentioned a certain threshold. He's assuming a level of competence. Now, when you design a filterless non-oversampling DAC, it's kind of like designing a really messy tube amp. It's a lot of fun on the test bench because you start seeing, whoa, there's some real stuff going on here that you don't normally see, and chances are somebody's gonna hear that. But once you get into a competently designed DAC, you're gonna have a lowish noise floor. You're gonna have that. So you look for competence, and when something's really well designed, you might look for, wow, they got that noise floor so low, and that's impressive. It shows engineering premise. Now I will look at the filter type. Uh, obviously, are they rolling it off like Jonathan said? Uh is it flat? Is there some manipulation? Beyond that, um, some listening, and you know, we brought up ASR. 99% of the posts on there are guys who have everything figured out. They know, they know more than the designers know. And actually, I will say this. I did I go to so many companies, many people on those forums are more sure about results from tests than the engineers are. The engineers are like, um, you know, they're really grasping. But I will say this back in the back in the 80s and 90s, there were some real evolutions in CD players and DAX. And I have this recording, I was gonna have it sitting here. Blue Rodeo is Diamond Mind. The ninth track, which was kind of a hidden track, it was 30 seconds of their keyboardist Bob Wiseman banging on a piano lightly at a distance. And I'm pretty sure most people didn't know that ninth track was there, and they thought it was 30 seconds of silence. And in those days, in the late 80s when it was released to the 90s, you couldn't hear it on the CD players. You would turn it up and you would hear the odd bump on the piano. And you turn it up really loud, and okay, there's a bump. But as the DAX got better and better and better in the CD players, you could start hearing sounds between those bumps. And today, everything good, you can hear right through it. So there was some real evolution time, but it took listening to actually hear that. Okay, and if anybody goes and digs out the recording, you got to dig out the original one, not the remaster, because they brought all that stuff up in the remaster that people couldn't hear. But in the original release, it was quite telling, and you went, wow, this this uh player is really resolving. Now that's coming through clearly. So listening is important, but measurements to get a broad overview of what this thing is doing.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Issue six. What percentage?

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Can I point something out, Ron?

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

You didn't tell us what people like about Phillips DAX and Burr Brown's DAX, the vintage stuff.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Uh I only have personal experience with the ABBIS. Um, I've listened to an SWNX in connection with a very extensive uh audition of about nine DAX with a friend. Um I don't know anything other than just uh hearsay that some people somehow find it a touch more analog, a touch more natural. I don't have anything really um insightful to add there. Issue six. What percentage of an audiophile's digital playback budget should be allocated to the DAC, and what percentage of that budget should be allocated to the streamer? Stephen.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

Ah, got me first, huh? Frankly, spending a whole lot of money on a streamer, I I use Raspberry Pis. I I set them up myself. I have the ones with uh Row Pi, I have ones with Diet Pi. I'm not real great with computers, and it was not hard to set them up. Um, and performance has been excellent. I've had $12,000 streamers that I reviewed that sonically I heard no difference with the same deck. Um, the only advantage from a very expensive streamer is you have someone to hold your hand, you have better technical support, you perhaps have a dedicated app that may or may not be as good as Rune or Cobuzz. Usually they're not, at least in my experience, and far more limited. So I believe in putting my money, a lot more money into a DAC than into the streamer. And there are integrated streamers out there. I I keep getting notifications about integrated solutions that for a lot of people are probably a very excellent way to go if they don't want a lot of big boxes in a room or are into a minimalist system. But I like the uh I like having control over my streaming and and using diet using Raspberry Pis. I have a level of control that most people don't with a commercial streamer. And then they open up the commercial streamer, say if it's a Bryson and look inside and find there's a Raspberry Pi inside of it.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Daniel Jonathan, handle it yourself. Go ahead, Steven. Sorry.

SPEAKER_04 33:43

So why not keep that control kind of more in-house, shall we say? Yeah. So that's how I do it.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Daniel Jonathan, how do you advise clients purchasing one of your DACs to allocate their digital budget between DAC and streamer?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Well, so I would definitely put a vote into the more on the DAC than the streamer. Um streamer technology is changing rapidly, constantly. And I think for a lot of listeners, the streamer is the software. It's what the person sits down and interfaces with. So it comes back to the experience, like it is a big part of the experience, right? If you are fiddling around on an app that you hate, it's going to take you out of the experience. Um, so you have like performance of quality and then just the experience of using the product. And with uh streamers, it gets better every year. It's rapidly changing. Um, and a lot of those sources are just computers. And lifetime, like the product life of a computer is a lot shorter than most other electronics, right? It's going to age out quickly and is more prone to failure. So I think it's better to be a little bit more flexible in the source purchasing, maybe purchase something a little bit more affordable that you can change out as technology changes and evolves. Um, and then put more money in on the deck that shapes the characteristic of all the sound very significantly. Um, and then, you know, again, continue to look at streamer technology as it changes moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 35:17

And then just to add on to that, when it comes to deciding to purchase a streamer, the first thing you have to decide is is it just internet streaming services like COBAS, TIDEL, et cetera, you plan on using, or do you have a large library of files? You know, if you don't have local files, you don't need to get a 14 terabyte storage in your server. So, you know, that also comes down to it, how it's organized, because if you're just using one streaming service, you don't necessarily need you know the software that does amazing management of thousands or millions of files.

SPEAKER_04 35:51

Although Rune will do that for you and grow with you. So there are apps that it's nice to have an app that you know well enough that and is doesn't matter what hardware it goes to. Rune doesn't care if it's going to a hundred dollar Raspberry Pi or a $100,000 streamer. It doesn't care. And the and the end user sees the same experience, which is one they're used to and can navigate through easily. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Doug, what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Yeah, I've got strong opinions on this, as always. And I have an IT background, so it's really tough to convince me. As Daniel said, all these streamers are computers. They like to pretend they're not, they're all computers inside running something. Okay. And they want to pretend they have a magical output, that they've implemented their own USB or proprietary BS interface or whatever. If we're talking about the streamer as a functional thing that you use, yeah, you might be able to do something. Let's face it, the room guys know how to do an interface like nobody else. And it was too loose before that. They are like head and shoulders on interfaces. But let's talk about performance. The performance is in the DAC. Okay, and a lot of these people will say, and I'd like to hear Jonathan and Daniel on this, a lot say, oh, well, my special streamer with its low jitter output. Let's talk about a competently designed DAC, something that isolates you from the noise, something that re-clocks a signal perfectly, basically something that does not care what's feeding it. Okay, so from a functional point of view, somebody wants to spend a lot on a streamer, yeah, and if it does amazing things and it's hard to beat Rune on that whole interface, they've done just a beautiful job. Whoever does that, knowing to put the button to show the signal path, knowing the way it merges uh local and stream services and stuff is beautiful. But it's all in the DAC. And if a DAC's got a connect option, which to me is the big deal, my wife is the deciding factor on what gets put in the living room. If something doesn't have connect that she can't go into title and do it, she doesn't want it. She doesn't want any kiosk, she doesn't want any blue osh, she doesn't want any anything but to go on to title, push play, and select the device in the living room. And then you don't need a streamer. So this is my take on streamers. If you want a lot of use for it, and if anybody wants to know what I was using as a streamer, blue sound node icon, it's excellent at $1,200. And now I've got a WIM Ultra, which is the steel of the century at $329. And everyone should buy one of those just to see how good it is so they can judge everything else against it.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

My friend Pat Kelly, who's a computer science genius, says he just cannot bring himself to spend $100,000 or more on a computer.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

Because he does not want to get ripped off.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

My only comment on this is, and this is a very, very non-technical comment, the I use an Inuist streamer, but significantly because I love that app, that sense app lets you curate a playlist, as many playlists as you want. So I love the fact that I can hand my friends my iPad, and there's the J playlist, the Jim playlist, the Pat playlist. Everybody has their own playlist on this thing. I just get a big kick out of that, and that's why I want to.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

You know what? Inus would probably never send me a streamer based on what I say about streamers. However, I have heard that about the wrap. People have said, you know what, they do have an excellent interface. And right now, Rune's got the best in terms of that type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah, yeah, we've worked with we've worked with Inus and we know those guys. Um, it's a really awesome company, but the majority of the company is software. Like they're the software package that they program and create is awesome, and they put a lot of work into it. And like when I was talking about streamers, the software experience is really the most essential thing you're paying for. And so if you're just going to grab a computer and put rune on it, that's great. But you don't necessarily need a hundred thousand dollar computer for rune. But if you support one of these streamer companies that makes a dedicated device that does its job very well, reliably, no bugs, no crashes, that is a really great option for a source.

SPEAKER_03 40:08

And your wife must like it. Yeah. My wife, I could never get my wife to use rune, not once. I've tried multiple times.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

It's intuitive for audio files, it's not for others.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

For audio files, it's for she used she uses Kobas and she was fine with Koba's and a render, but she would not, she did not like rune at all. I could not get her to use it for some.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

I personally actually do not use rune because I'm a musical philistine. I don't need all the metadata stuff. So I my thing is use sense and cobas, and that's all I makes it very simple for me personally. It's great.

SPEAKER_03 40:37

Yeah, if you don't enjoy using it, there's no point.

SPEAKER_04 40:40

So or you can't I love rune, especially the grouping feature where I can do direct A Bs of two DACs or two signal chains and give them the exact same file and know it's in sync to itself. Although it's not always in sync, depending on the streamer, some streamers will delay a signal slightly, which is irritating when you're trying to do direct A B. But and if you're confused enough where it's late enough in the evening, it becomes an ABX.

SPEAKER_03 41:09

But uh just real quick to add on to that, you shouldn't use that feature for A being two products because the way the rune, especially if it's over network, works, is one of them will be the clock priority over the other one. And then the one that's not the priority will get extra bits slipped into it to either speed it up or it'll delete bits to slow it down. So they aren't actually receiving the same data. One of them is receiving slightly different data to keep the two in sync.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

Good insights.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

Great for multi-room playback and enjoying and having music throughout your house. Absolutely a wonderful feature. But if you are actually doing critical A-B comparisons, you should do A and then B. If you group them into a zone, one of them will get a preference over the other. Just as a side note.

SPEAKER_04 41:58

Yes, but of course, if you then are doing enough tests that one is A in one test and one is B in the other test, obviously. One will always be priority, though. And therefore, it still becomes a question of DAC quality or audio quality on the different streams rather than favoring one or the other.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Issue number seven. In general, do you prefer the sound of 16-bit 44 kilohertz Red Book recordings or the sound of high resolution recordings? When you're scrolling through your rune or COBAS or whatever, and you're looking for a particular title and you see the 1644 version and the high-res version, which do you just naturally click, Doug?

SPEAKER_02 42:43

I generally will click the high-res version, but not because it's a high-res version, just sort of looks more appealing. But let me tell you, there the the biggest thing about high-res, and somebody just put high-res is there a lot of the difference people are hearing, or most of the difference people are hearing, are remasters. This is the thing. And I don't know if anybody remembers Mark Waldrup and AIX Records, and he had a really disheartening thing. He he invested a lot of money in high-res, one of the first and all that. And then many years later went out and did tests by distributing high-res and 1644 files and found out people couldn't hear the difference. Skilled listeners when they were the same source. Likewise, Ken Ishiwata, who was the brand ambassador at Morance for a million years, uh, did a really great test. He was a real proponent of SA C D back in the physical disc days. However, he was doing this test in Munich High M in the early 2000s, and he had the same recording mastered specifically for C D, specifically for DVDA, DVD audio, and mastered specifically for SA C D. And he would play them. And you could tell subtle differences between all of them, but nobody could say which was better. Okay. Nobody. And he's point was what matters most is the mastering over the format once you're at CD level and beyond. And so a lot of people are all, I remember we had some writers going, Oh, hi Rez, you can hear all kinds of details. No, all that's happened is you got a few more bits and you got more bandwidth that you can't hear anyway. What you're really hearing is a remastering of the recording. That's what you're usually hearing. My two sets.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Daniel, which do you agree? Yeah. Which do you click on?

SPEAKER_03 44:35

Yeah, so my preference isn't necessarily high-res or CD. It's try to find what the original published recording or what the recording was done. Because if you see, like if you go on to COBAS and you see a 1644-1, a 2444-1, a 2496, and a 24192, they did not use an ADC at each of these rates. One of the rates will be original and the rest are sample rate converted or upsampled or downsampled. Typically we find that if you see like a 2444-1, that's not always, but typically on Cobas, that'll be like the original studio master. And it could sound better than the upsampled high-res one. Or if the up and sampled high-res one, you know, as uh Doug was saying, it could be a remastered version, in which case you're just picking which one you like the mastering of better. But I typically say try to find the original recording in whatever form that is, stick with it. If it's DSD, then leave it as DSD. If it's PCM, you know, do PCM. Try not to, you know, higher does not mean better. Original is typically the going to be the best result. Stephen?

SPEAKER_04 45:43

Yeah, I haven't heard anything I would disagree with. Um, yeah, mastering is always the critical thing. And often when you see something that is a higher resolution, yeah, the thing to see is has it been remastered or is it just an upsample? And that makes a big difference. Getting back to the originals. I mean, there are cases where getting back to the originals is maybe not the best idea in the case of um are you familiar with plangent processes who have who deal with uh real-to-real analog recordings and which removes where they have a process that removes the wow and flutter by looking at the uh um pilot tone and measuring it and and seeing how it varies from from being accurate. But other than that, yes, I mean it's like I really would like to hear a version of kind of blue where the piano is in tune for once and doesn't flutter during the beginning of in a silent way. That would be really exciting for me. But yeah, generally the closer you can get to the original, the better you are. And whatever the uh sample rate is, is probably one of the least important aspects of the sound. Unless it's, you know. Well, actually, even I don't know if you guys listen to a lot of internet radio that tends to have some really low sampling rates. It used to be like 32 and 16 bits. Um and you where you can hear the phase effects that that you guys at MSB were talking about quite clearly on something that's at that low digital bit rate. But I don't hear even radio's gotten so much better, uh, internet radio, that that's really very rare to hear.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

And and and some of these remasters, I like what Jonathan said, trying to find the original. Because some of these remasters, they're being released to make money. Okay, they're just like, hey, Stephen Wilson's version of this, this version of that. What iterations, what did they actually use to make it? I um I was in one of the top mastering engineers' plays. I won't say which album. He was remastering an album in high-res and vinyl from a CD because there was nothing else available from the company. They sent him the CD and said, make this into a high-res and vinyl set of masters for us so we can re-release it. Okay, and this stuff I bet happens all the time. What are they getting? Where are the tapes coming from? Where are the source files? You know, um, Mofi got caught on the whole scandal about claiming analog, uh, pure analog. Oh, we make a digital copy in the middle. You know, what is really happening? You know? And so I like that. Get back to the original, but you hope they made the original right on good equipment too. So just listen to them all.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

Agent number eight. What do you did? Agent number eight, what do you think is the best stream redac interface? What's going on with all this complexity about the interface? USB, coaxial, i2s, xdmi, what are the sonic differences among these interfaces? Jonathan and Daniel?

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Well, so again, uh this is a theme in this episode is implementation is everything. Um you take a source and you do a great implementation of any one of these formats, that's your best interface. If the DAC has been competently designed to accept any one of these as a high quality input, then you have to match it with a source that matches. So, you know, something that has like optical isolation and is great, right? You you have to look, there's certain fundamentals that are good, but it all comes down to the implementation in that source. So, like we are always trying to make every every possible source. We're not gonna say you can only use USB or you can only use, you know, you know, SB diff or TOS link or whatever, because it's it varies so much. And at the end of the day, you just want to support all of them. And so I don't think there has to be any considered sound difference between any of these options. Um, if the implementation is good and the DAC can receive it and its implementation is good, then it'll be a great source.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

Okay, but I'm not gonna let you so if somebody calls you up, I just I just I love my cascade. Which interface should I use? What do you tell them?

SPEAKER_01 50:12

I say, what's your source?

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Yeah, that's it. That's the right answer. I can't say.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

Okay. Steven, what do you think?

SPEAKER_04 50:21

Uh yeah, what they said, basically, any implementation, if it's done right, will sound good. And it comes down to what do you already own that you want to want to run into your DAC. You know, it's it's always a question of doing what the consumer wants to work into their current workflow in a smooth manner.

SPEAKER_02 50:44

Doug? This is where I pull back. I might have been a computer guy back in the day, but I'm not some hardware engineer. And I would ask the guys at MSB, who I know do good interfaces, and I have seen measurements, not that we haven't actually uh done any on any your DACs. I don't think we've reviewed anything, but your DAC seem pretty much impervious to whatever source they're fed. In other words, the data's coming in and it's perfect regardless of the source, because internally you're reclocking and all of that. And so in this kind of case, I'm not going to be one of those guys who says, oh, i2s or USB or TOSSLink or something, because honestly, it's the hardware guys who know how the thing behaves.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Yeah, I I'll I'll add a little more clarification for you, Ron. So if you have a DAC that doesn't have any optical isolation and you take a very noisy computer source, a streamer, and you you put in a USB cable and you plug it into the back of the DAC, that cable will be injecting a ton of high frequency noise. All of those high frequency clock signals, everything is just gonna be blasting into the DAC. So like we created a USB isolator. USB goes to the isolator, and then you have an optical connection to the DAC. Eliminates all of that. Great. So like we fixed that issue with USB. But like with our new DACs, we have a digital-only box. You can inject that high noise, high frequency noise into there, and then we have an optical isolation to the actual DAC itself. So if you do have a very noisy source, and again, this goes back to the best implementation for that source, we want the lowest noise possible. So if somebody does call up and they are asking, we're gonna say, what is your source? Is it a noisy computer? Let's put in an optical isolator. Yeah, let's give it the best chance it can. But like that is where it depends on the source. If you have a really low-noise CD player that has a great implementation, you could be running RSEA or a TOS link or get great results from just basic inputs. If it's not a risk to the system itself. So again, yeah, definitely it's a source-dependent uh decision to make.

SPEAKER_03 52:58

Yeah, for like a TV or home theater processor, definitely you want to go with TOS link because you want to isolate the noise from your TV from getting into your audio system. So it really depends on the source, and you know, TV, server, CD transport. Uh, if it's an SACD player, you're probably gonna go with the i2s, uh the i2s over HDMI interface, because it's the only interface you can do from a physical media to get the DSD into the DAC.

SPEAKER_02 53:25

Now, let me put you two guys on the spot then. Potentially will your DAC perform at its DACs, because you got more than one, perform at their peak, regardless of interface. In other words, there's no one interface that can that can outperform another. I'm saying the source. In other words, they all have the potential to go at the peak.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

Uh I believe so. Yeah. To the best of my knowledge and to the best of my listening ability, I believe so, yes.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

I believe you.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

I thought we weren't supposed to trust manufacturers.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Well, this is where, you know what, this is true. But this is where, and I visited MSB, and they know that I ask lots of questions. I do, you know, what drives me crazy are reviewers who think they know everything. Okay, and make blanket statements. And like I said, many of the guys, uh, should I say ASR again? Maybe I won't, um, they are more confident in measurements than the engineers who design the stuff. And you you do when you get a candid discussion with the real guys designing the product, and you kind of open up and put them on the spot like that, you can get a real answer.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

Yeah, Stephen, I hear what you're saying, and I want to clarify a little bit of my earlier comment. So when we did the first question about how to select a DAC, my my first, my main target is to get to know the people making it. I think I think we should trust the people. If you can go to a company and you can learn who those people are, what they stand for, we can trust those people. Um, the risk is companies that don't have uh a person behind their integrity, someone that you can trust. So I'm not saying a blanket statement of all manufacturers are liars. There are definitely ones who have honest measurements and will will work honestly with consumers, but I think it is good to be mindful of taking everything published on the internet without actually knowing that someone supports it and has their own integrity put on the line for it.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Mike Levine asks, is there a synergy if the same company makes the DAC and the streamer or the server? No? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

So so yes and no. Yes, it can be done if the best implementation of their server is the best implementation for their DAC. But it does not necessarily create a better synergy.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

Question number nine. A lot of marketing and digital audio relates to reducing noise. When I go to Walt Disney concert hall, I hear a heck of a lot of ambient noise. How does the technical achievement of low noise floor in the digital domain actually improve the believability of digital playback in our homes? Daniel? Jonathan?

SPEAKER_03 56:29

Yeah, so I'll answer this. Um, first, when it comes to noise, you have to distinguish between the type of noise. When you go to a concert in person, you are hearing actual noise. It's natural noise. You know, when you sit in front of a waterfall, you're hearing a natural noise. It's calming, it's real. When you talk about digital noise, that's artificial. That's what puts you on the edge of your seat. You know, what would you rather listen to? The ocean or, you know, the bearings going in an engine. So you have to distinguish the type of noise. Some noise is pleasing and calming and part of the real world. Your body accepts it, your mind accepts it. It's it's real. The artificial noise that you would find in digital processing and computers, etc., your body rejects because it's not natural, it's artificial. So, you know, it's it's the artificial flavor of the world. It's just because we use the same word noise does not mean they're the same thing. So, yes, low noise in digital and electronics is absolutely critical because it's low artificial noise. Whereas, you know, obviously in the background, I mean, I was at somebody's home and they did all their listening sitting by their pool next to a waterfall. But that was natural noise. It was water flowing down a mountain. It wasn't, you know, you know, servers running or fans running or you know, an artificial noise that was manufactured.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

And then you also have to consider that the DAC is a system you have designed to perform in an optimal way. And when you bring in noise, that is not part of the system. So you're throwing this noise into the conversion process, you're putting it through the analog stage, you're amplifying the noise, you're putting that noise into your amplifier, then through your speaker tweeter. Like that is not has nothing to do with the signal we're trying to recreate. And so it's never going to contribute in a in a way that isn't offensive. And it's going to also then degrade your sound stage and other aspects of the music because it's it's running interference in a way that's just really bad across the board, which is why it's such an important metric.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

So when you when you have noise in your signal, you're asking your amplifier to recreate that noise. You're asking your speaker to recreate that noise. You're taking away its ability to recreate the music that you're going for if it's trying to play, you know, especially like out-of-band noise. You're trying to play, you know, 40 kilohertz, you know, tones that are actually just noise because you're listening to a CD.

SPEAKER_00 59:01

Well, in your client example, whether it's just high ambient noise, does low does low noise in the digital domain even really matter when the ambient noise is that high to begin with?

SPEAKER_01 59:11

Uh absolutely, because it interferes with the electronics' ability to recreate the sound.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

Stephen?

SPEAKER_04 59:20

Well, signal always has noise. That I think the trick of modern electronics is putting that noise down at such a low level that it doesn't intrude in audibility. The other aspect of noise that I find intriguing is all right, so we've lowered the noise past human audibility. It's still there. How much is it affecting the electronics? If we can't hear it, how do we know how much it's electric electronics? It's a little bit like the tree falling in the middle of the woods. How do you hear it depends on how far away you are from the tree. Modern digital has made that tree falling very, very far away to the point that noise is really not an issue in most competently supplied digital products. Um, I guess you guys in MSB are aware of uh immersive and their DAC that uses a double DAC system to get 168 dB signals of noise. I'm not actually not aware of those guys. Pretty much every mastering engineer who's ever heard one has bought it. Um I reviewed it recently. I didn't buy it. But um they use a system where they're lowering the noise to an amazingly low level. Does it result in overall better sound? In some ways, yes. In other ways, not really. But yeah, I mean, what that's noise is one of the fundamental issues that all audio has dealt with since the days of a Dixie cup and a string. It's always just like in photography, it's always been making faster and faster and more responsive cameras. In audio, it's always about lowering the noise and moving it further from audibility.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

Doug, what do you think about digital noise?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

Well, I think uh digital noise is a bad thing. Um, I like that Jonathan was um kind of differentiating what we call noise, and there's noise and there's distort distortion, the two different things. Um somebody put in the comments that noise, the recording process eliminates much ambient noise. That's not true at all. Actually, it depends on the recording. Um, Cowboy Junkie Trinity session is full of ambience. Um, Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mine is full of ambience. Now, where noise becomes uh a problem is when it's an obvious artifact of something that shouldn't be there. And I'll get back to something I talked about in the original um what to look for in a DAC. I think it's quite important in the filter designs. Uh, John Sau of Benchmark Media brought it to light heavily and still harps on it, something called interover samples, okay, where what happens is that the filter doesn't have enough headroom. And if it's interpolating um a point above the zero dB point, it could distort some DACs. And we're testing for that now. And I had to DAC in by a fairly new but very expensive DAC. The thing would let out a snap every time clipped material, regardless of volume level, played through it. Okay, literally like a little, like a static snap. And I went to the design and said, Oh, yeah, the filter, we didn't have enough headroom. And that's very disconcerting because suddenly you're hearing this pop coming straight from the speaker or from the tweeter, right? Because it's isolated. And that's not part of the thing. That's noise that's not correlated with anything. But if you have a noisy environment, like you said, a waterfall, we listen to the Trinity session. The opening track was recorded by Peter Moore, and somebody threw um the boiler furnace on at the church. Okay, so behind Margot Timmins singing is a boiler going, and he said we couldn't get the guy to turn it off, so we just used it for the song. So that deep, rumbling, ambient noise from the boiler um was part of the song. Okay, so I think it depends what we're talking about noise. Hey, watching a movie and some guy puts his cell phone on over there, bright light, that's really that's visual noise, and it's disconcerting.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

In DAC architecture, where should the clock go in relation to the DAC? Some companies have the philosophy that the clock should go in a separate box. Some companies have the philosophy that the clock should be as close to the DAC as possible. Jonathan, Daniel, what do you think?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

Yeah, so our our belief is the DAC should be as close to the conversion point as possible. Because the thing to keep in mind is when it comes to clocking, jitter or noise, it's phase noise, is additive. Once it's added, it cannot be removed. So if you have the clock in a separate box and then you're sending it over, you know, a single-ended cable like a B and C cable or an SMA cable, you know, every time you do a conversion change, you add a certain amount of noise. So, you know, our belief is put the lowest noise clock you can as close to the conversion point as possible, where you're not needing to change formats and signal levels and voltages and just keep it as localized as possible because phase noise is additive, and you know, sticking it in a separate box does not mean it's going to be a lower noise. Typically, in my belief, it would be a higher noise by the time it goes through the whole chain.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:46

And this is not um, this is not clock accuracy. This is just phase noise. And for audio playback, phase noise is everything, and accuracy is much lower down.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

Well, Ed Meitner of EMM Labs has always agreed with you that the clock should be as close to the DAC as possible. Uh, but DCS obviously doesn't. They put their clock in a separate box. Uh, Stephen or Doug, do you have any insight into why DCS does it differently?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

Because I could take a wild guess, but um, I will just say that I I talk to a lot of designers. And yes, Ed Meitner, um, he's a very blunt guy, and he wouldn't mind me saying he's he says pulling the clock out and putting it in another box is one of the stupidest things you can do. He will have it as close in proximity to the DAC chips as possible. When I was visiting DC or um MSB, uh, that was one of the questions I asked them, right? There are no external clocks because they do the you got the external box, you got an external power supply, you've taken the digital processing. But when it comes to the clock, correct me if I'm wrong here, Daniel and Jonathan, you've got the clock in with the DAC circuit, right? As close as possible. And everybody. And the best answer I ever had came from an RF engineer. Said, I could design an external clock to be just as good as one you stick right there, but no better. So I don't know why you do it. So I think those companies that pull the clocks out, they got a little bit of explaining to do.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

Yeah, I've recently reviewed two DACs, both of which had the option of external clocks. And in both cases, I found the clocks did absolutely nothing for the sound. And also, since you're dealing with timing, the idea of moving the clock further away seems to introduce more issues because you're introducing a distance that has to be covered, that has to take some time to cover. So it strikes me as making your job more difficult. I mean, let's face it, external clocks were made for a very good reason to synchronize multiple digital devices together to one clock. They do that very well, and that's what they should be used for.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:54

And I'll just add that I'm not saying any company does this, but if a company is deliberately impairing their internal clock, to put a better one externally, so you have to buy another box, I think that would be a pretty disingenuous thing to do. I've never heard a good reason to pull the clock out.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:15

Well, a couple years ago, there was a pro journal that did a very uh detailed study of clocks, and that was their conclusion that internal clocks was an easier and better way to do it and had more success.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:31

Last question. Are we approaching the end of meaningful progress in DAC design? Or do you foresee major breakthroughs ahead? Are we getting to a point of really diminishing returns? What do you think?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:45

No. Whether they're audible, I think is the question. Whether they're the fact that they're technologically um can be proven becomes more of an issue. Again, go back to this immersive piece that has this amazing signal to noise. That's just one spec. It's obviously a breakthrough spec, but you have to think that other DAC manufacturers will find up find their own ways to do double DAC systems that employ both a high-level and low-level DAC that integrate together.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

Daniel Jonathan, how can you come up with anything past the Sentinel, which is your new super flagship?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:23

Well, here's the thing: we have always pushed up against the idea of getting to an ultimate, you know, set of performance. And so we made the Sentinel deck. It's got everything we've ever been able to throw at it. We came out with it, we were really excited about it. We think it's you know the best we've ever done. And we just spent the last three weeks making it better. And this is purely code, doesn't change the measurements. But I sit down in that listening room and the performance is wildly improved over just some things we thought of trying. So, like the idea that we've we've capped in DAC design, I think, is is not true because that Sentinel DAC is way too expensive for almost everyone. So until we can take that performance and bring it down and make it more affordable, I mean, that's the next leap. Like everyone should have flagship DAC performance in their systems, not just the few. So, as far as the next big breakthroughs, I think it's gonna see us scaling really amazing DAC technologies and bringing them down to a more attainable value. Um, and then the other area that I'm I personally am really excited for is on the software side, the interface, the streaming. You know, we have we have software like Rune and uh what Inuis has come out with, but we see the software industry changing so dramatically with you know like vocal interfaces. I would love to be able to sit down to my high-end system and get quality playback with a just just asking, just ask my system to play something for me for it to know the volume, for it to find the high quality track, for it to just be a truly immersive and relaxing experience from an interface standpoint. So, like that's a really big breakthrough that I think we have not arrived at, and I'm very much looking forward to.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:27

Yeah, I agree with that because uh I would hate to say that we're at the end of DAC design because you guys got and like you said, bringing it down to a lower price. Now that's that's a real challenge. And somebody might think right out of the box and say, you know, we were thinking this way, and but I think it'll have to bear out through listening, you know, that that suddenly somebody sits down and goes, oh wow, but I do think there could be great strides made in the interfaces and how we interface. Why doesn't the system just know the volume? Why doesn't it know, you know, um these sort of things, some really rudimentary. I won't say I was at an audio store, and they had a $500,000 system that it took the guys at the store with their own streamer and their own DAC and all that five minutes to get a song play. Five minutes. Okay. Oh, yeah, no, push this. Oh no, push that, oh this. You know, everybody would have given up. I think amazing strides will be made on the interface side. Maybe then a really good streamer will be useful, not for performance. And then maybe on the DAC side, hey, maybe I got to critically listen to that sentinel. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:39

Any final thoughts before we go to the music segment?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:43

Uh just one thing about the DAC design. Uh, it's also important to keep in mind that as you improve one area, like as DACs get better, that makes the system more revealing. And then as a result, you'll get better amplifiers, you'll get better speakers. Because you know, if you're everybody's experience is their best experience so far, you know, if you're evaluating two different amps or two different speakers, but you don't have the source or the front end in front of it to actually highlight the differences, your system's going to be limited. So, you know, as deck design improves, overall your whole system will improve because it then makes your system more revealing. And now you can experience differences with the amps and the cables and speakers and everything else. So it's really is all connected. You know, you could have the best deck in the world, but if you plug it into an amplifier that can't show it off at all, you know, it's it's kind of pointless.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:38

So do I have any music recommendations for the viewers tonight?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:45

Well, actually, yes. Um I came upon actually as only released at the beginning of May, a recording by a guy named Alan Sariel called Pluffed Bach, number three. He's uh plays mandolin and uh arch lute, and it's just one instrument in a fairly uh reflective room, and you really get a sense of the room ambience around it. And it's a kind of room that if you had three or four instruments would probably sound like crap, but with one, it sounds really, really good. And the title and the the the name of the title? Plucked Bach Three. So like a plucked chicken, but put Bach in there. Yeah. Anybody else?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:31

Uh I I recently had the chance to uh hear Pat Matheny. He came and we played at our local jazz club. Um and so I've just been listening to a lot of Pat Matheny. Love his work. He did a rendition of America the Beautiful, just solo acoustic guitar, and it was one of the most stunning musical pieces I've ever heard. Brought me to tears. It's really, really remarkable. So always a good listen to to get some Pat Mithene on the on the system.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:04

And I was I was watching a TV show on Disney called Paradise, which is like a dystopian future, and I think, but they have wicked music. Now, the theme is another day in paradise, the Phil Collins song, but the cover songs they do throughout each year, you're nodding, right? You've seen it, right, Steve?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:24

And you're listening in the background and you're like, that's a wicked version of whatever it is. They bring a lot of 80s music in, I think 70s, different times, but it's not on physical disc. You can find it on Spotify. They don't have a soundtrack, but the the TV show is excellent and the music is phenomenal. Correct, Steve? You agree?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:44

I like the covers, they definitely catch your ear and make you go, who's that artist? And then these and you go into Rune and look up the artists and see what they have. And sometimes you're disappointed because they don't have that track. I actually came across that with an artist.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:58

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:59

I was following, and it was like a really nice version of a cover, but there was a cover they had never recorded on any of their commercial recordings. Yeah. But then that's the beauty of YouTube, is you can find live performances like that. And generally, if I have my choice between a studio and a live performance, even if the live performance isn't perhaps recorded as beautifully, I'll take the live performance. There's just a little extra uh creative juice in live performances that sometimes doesn't happen when somebody walks in a studio and stares at all this gear and goes, Oh shit, I gotta play this perfectly now. And that's kind of hard for a lot of musicians. So yeah, live.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:41

Well, this has been great, gentlemen. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

None from you?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:46

No, I'm not not tonight, I'm afraid. I'm still I'm still listening to uh my Taylor Swift Exile. I love that track.

unknown 1:15:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

But I've talked about that before. Thank you, viewers. Remember the Hi Fi Five is now every Wednesday the second and fourth Wednesday of every month. The next Hi Fi Five episode will be June 10th, the Vienna Show recap. Bye bye!