SBAF DAC Talk II

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by Maxx134, Jul 22, 2018.

  1. gepardcv

    gepardcv Almost "Made"

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    6loons article as unreadable as always. No introduction info except to say that Metrum has been sold and a letter from some dude who says people tell him Metrum lost its soul. Is he the former founder who has been bought out and started a new company (there’s some mention of a non-compete which he seems to be violating)? A new CEO? No clue. Then there’s the discussion of new products. No idea if they’re from Metrum or Wile E. Coyote ACME. First, speakers. Cool. Then, with no transition, something about modules which give a device the performance of a TOTL Metrum DAC for half the price. At this point, I give up trying to follow the plot twists.
     
  2. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Yeah I really couldn't make it through all his jargon and thesaurus-jerking.
     
  3. Pharmaboy

    Pharmaboy Friend

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    Great reply. I felt the same way and wrote a post here scorching 6Moons for publishing unreadable, opaque, bloviation like this. It's not the 1st 6Moons review that pissed me off, but it's the worst.

    My post was so negative that I deleted it. But it's nice to know others feel as I do.
     
  4. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    ^ what he said. I wanted my 5-10 minutes back at the end. Like the fact that people are starting to review though.

    Shame they decided to write such unintelligible aohnfopansouhdano;nfasnfjkabnoisdniad. I would have actually bought it for the "special new release price" had the review actually made sense and just confirmed it wasn't a step down from Metrum in any way. Oh well guess it will wait until 2nd half 2020 now.
     
  5. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Cees also had some streaming/dac device mentioned on his Facebook page but not on his site so maybe that didn't pan out.

    Really am curious to know any sonic differences between Sonnet and Metrum. I'd rather support Cees to be honest.
     
  6. A Child of the Jago

    A Child of the Jago Facebook Friend

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    I have an Onyx on trial and there are enough moments of magic in the NOS sound that has me intrigued as to the next step up (i.e., Pavane levels of quality), and I was wondering if anyone out there took advantage of the discounted opening offer for the Morpheus or has even received theirs yet and if they had any impressions of it (although this may be a bit early)...
     
  7. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    It took me 5-10 minutes just reading that one sentence when he was comparing it to the Terminator. I had to read it, re-read it & do another takle & I still don't know what the hell he said.
     
  8. elmoe

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    Srajan Ebaen is one of the most insipid writers. His vocabulary picks and choices in music are always painful to get through for the most part.
     
  9. Firegon

    Firegon New

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    I think I understood the comparison and he even stated ( or at least I think so ) than this allegorical way of describing them is quite an exaggeration, but to me it simply made both of the dacs unappealing. I hope I'm not the only one who though: I want neither the antique thickness of the Terminator, nor the hyper leanness of the Morpheus, but something in between. Shame, as I'm looking for a decent replacement for Iggy2 in the near future.

    Then again, I'm quite dumb and couldn't understand too much anyway.
     
  10. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    I really can't see Cees going from a Metrum sound, which is notoriously the opposite of lean, to something hyper lean. And I don't think I've ever read the Terminator to sound thick at all. My Spidey senses are wondering if those two descriptions are actually switched by accident.
     
  11. A Child of the Jago

    A Child of the Jago Facebook Friend

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    I wrote to Cees last week and whilst his response to some of my questions doesn't describe the precise flavour of the DAC he seems to intimate that it's something close to the higher-end Metrum models of the past:

    "We were able to reduce the power requirements by a third. It means that we could use 16 R2R ladder dacs, the same as the previous top designs made in the past. So soundwise it is comparable with the older top designs."
     
  12. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Audio conversion is a mature technology without a ton of margin so little R&D goes into it. TI improved SNR, AKM THD, and ESS got the blackground and variable state noise down but that’s about it. AKM is a part of AK, who mainly make chemicals and fertilizer so they have more money to throw around. Poor manufacturers using the latest, greatest, and most expensive parts will make worse sounding and measuring gear than the best manufactures will with old parts and codec chips. The best AD1955 and CS4398 using DAs are still fully competitive and excellent

    Then most of the world is digital and only a handful of manufacturers are capable of writing very stable drivers. All of those xmos and thesyscon usb drivers are spotty. Some of Them won’t even let you change the buffers for maximum stability. There are many products that are not even recognized on multiple systems. Even Thunderbolt drivers are hit or miss. It’s not like some guy building sicko custom pres in his garage will be able to make something that just works like RME, a Lynx card, or Apogee Thunderbolt.
     
  13. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Then again, having played with RME, EMU, Lynx etc drivers in the past, "stable" is not exactly the word I'd use.
     
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  14. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    RME is the most stable of them all but not idiot proof. Lynx PCI-E cards are rock solid. If you have issues with either of them, it’s you or your computer. Many oem windows installs and current gaming pc builds are totally unsuitable for audio use without dropouts. WiFi and gpu drivers can break stuff.
     
  15. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    "Pro audio gear drivers are super stable!"

    "They don't play nice with anything that isn't strictly dedicated to audio!!"

    That's the definition of them not being anymore stable than XMOS et all. In fact plenty of pro audio gear uses XMOS nowadays and works just as well as RME's shitty MADIface stuff.

    RME is pretty idiot proof, unless you're an idiot. Lynx PCI-E cards are rock solid but EMU to name one that cant code proper drivers worth a damn, isn't. The point is plenty of audiophile DACs incorporate USB interfaces that work as well if not better than pro audio software, which is notoriously shitty by the way. And this is coming from a guy who has preferred pro audio DACs in my own system for almost 2 decades.
     
  16. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    The problem is that very few companies write their own drivers. These analog design focused companies don’t have the capabilities to do it, even very big ones like Focusrite. RME, Lynx, Motu, and UAD are all I can name for Windows.

    The usb only interfaces with third party drivers are all kinda dogshit for recording. Some of them are pretty stable for recording bands and sound good like Apogee Quartet (on Mac) and Steinberg 824 but they hit their limits with digital production methods. Even the Dangerous Source, Grace, and spl gear weren’t perfectly stable. Then All of that crap with native core audio on Mac and a licensed third party driver on windows is rightly the cause of all the USB nervosa. The sound really does change and guys start tweaking.

    Rme has Totalmix. I know a lot of guys who can’t manage that while the Apogee and UAD software is both simpler and harder to use depending on what you wan to do. Motu is arcane. The Presonus Quantum is lofi but popular because so many people just use their interface and daw software as a multitrack recorder. Musicians and audiophiles don’t tend to be the most digitally inclined. I’ve seen
     
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2019
  17. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    No doubt and I think stability of drivers are going to vary widely depending on use case. Audio playback only aside, when you get into recording or even worse, full on production, is when shit starts really hitting the fan.
     
  18. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I believe Centrance used to write usb drivers for lots of folks. No idea if they're still in that game.
     
  19. lm4der

    lm4der A very good sport - Friend

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    Has there been much in the way of audible improvements in D/S DAC design over the last couple decades? Does a Modi 3 sound better than D/S DACs from 15 years ago?
     
  20. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    Audible improvements? I'd wager more "different" rather than "better." At least, I could say this for the last decade, but I have to imagine 15 years ago similarly good D/S DACs existed at the high end.

    Now, better measurements? Sure. But some old school stuff measured surprisingly well, though maybe not per other arbitrary standards set by others. Nonetheless, if you're primarily chasing a small subset of numbers and graphs, I think we've seen improvements.

    I think it's more about feature improvements, size reduction, cost reduction, etc. USB inputs have come a long way in particular. SPDIF has improved somewhat, but more in terms of bit and sampling rate rather than subjective sound quality or absurd jitter improvements.
     

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