Soekris DAC1421 Measurements

More or less the same as Amir's.

All the distortion is -85db down or lower. That's 0.005% THD, this means the measurements are excellent. Yes, R2R DACs measure worse relative to the sigma-delta DACs uses opamps, but that does not mean R2R DACs measure badly as some have interpreted.

Saying this measurement looks bad or poor is like saying the 2015 Camaro ZL1 which does a 1/4 mile in 12.4 @ 117 mph is "bad" because the Corvette ZL1 will do the 1/4 mile in 10.8 @ 135mph. In real world street driving conditions, it doesn't matter.

Amir measurement for comparison.

 

THD+N for 1kHz signal.
SINAD at 0dbFs for 1 kHz signal is indeed about 85db. While not as good as the 100db numbers from modern sigma delta chips with opamps, 85db is still excellent and near the limit of microphones / mic-preamps.

 

A few more THD+N:

20-20kHz at -10dbFS


-30dbFS


-60dbFS

 

Back to the 1kHz FFTs.

-30dbFS. Note scale is normalized to the -30dbFS signal = 0db.


This time at low output -60dbFS. Note scale is normalized to the -60dbFS signal = 0db.


And near the limit of 16-bit audio at -90dbFS. Note scale is normalized to the -90dbFS signal = 0db.


Note that the harmonic distortions go away at the lower levels.

 

Conclusion:

Nothing wrong with the measurements. In my experience, nothing seen here will correlate well or at all to human observation*.

While R2R or discrete resistor designs do not measure as well as modern sigma-delta DACs with opamp output stages, the distortion and noise are well below that of the threshold of human hearing and on par with microphones and preamps on a good day in the studio.

If we wanted to be nitpicky, the odd order distortions do seem to be more evident than the even order, and there is a bit of AC mains which isn't being totally filtered out. But again, these are so low in level that humans will not be able to hear them. Note that the harmonic distortions essentially go to zero for lower level signals - this is not the case for some R2R DACs.

What constitutes a bad measurement? See here: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...ically-incorrect-audio-blog.7261/#post-249242

*I strongly suggest the use of volume matched double or triple blind tests (and actually attempt via practice to make out perceptual differences of DACs - put your expectation bias away): https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/dac-blind-test-series.7518/