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DAC Talk: Sigma Delta vs R2R/String (Direct comparison of premium designs)

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by Madaboutaudio, Jan 21, 2016.

  1. Madaboutaudio

    Madaboutaudio Friend

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    Lets say we are only concern about getting the absolute best sound quality, and not caring too much about price differences.

    i.e. Audio-gd Dacs NFB-7 vs Audio-gd Master 7.

    Picture of NFB7 internals:
    http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/NFB7-2015/NFB7H5.JPG

    Picture of Master 7 internals:
    http://www.audio-gd.com/Master/Master-7/M73.JPG

    As you can see, these two premium dacs were designed by the same engineer(Kingwa of Audio-Gd) and both are high-end balanced DACs, the major difference between these two is that NFB-7 is sigma delta(ES9018S) vs the R2R Master 7 (PCM1704UK) with audio-gd's own DSP upsampling.

    I think this comparison is the closest you can get for R2R vs Sigma Delta shootout. (unless Schiit comes out with a new Sigma Delta dac that comes with their recently improved proprietary closed formed filter).


    Here's one related old quote pulled from Theta website, wonder if things have changed, given that we now(2016) have new technologies like multi-bit sigma delta, femto clocks and better measuring equipments/new found knowledge:
    http://www.thetadigital.com/legacy_products.shtml
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2016
    Madaboutaudio, Jan 21, 2016
    #1
  2. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Again, current delta-sigma designs are not one-bit. They are actually multi-bit. ES9018S is sort of one-bit though.

    Furthermore, Theta Designs is pretty much Mike's old company, and we sort of know how Mike feels about delta-sigma in general.

    Also, delta-sigma and classic multi-bit DAC front end requirements are not the same. So it's not necesarily a drop and replace. Doing so would be fairly misleading. Given this and assuming all things are designed with specifications in mind, same company using same chasis and whatever, still has an equal opportunity to f**k up one design and not the other.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2016
    ultrabike, Jan 21, 2016
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  3. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    yea I'm curious about this too, I need to upgrade my rig some time this year. New Interconnectors followed by either a Master 11 or a something compareable
     
    Mshenay, Jan 22, 2016
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  4. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Can you slow down on the posting for postings sake? This isn't other forums; your credibility is not measured by your number of posts. You have 50+ posts and a single "like" which tells me you're not really positively contributing to any discussions here on the site. You're having a significant negative impact on the signal to noise ratio here.

    Maybe try for fewer, more useful posts rather than carpet bombing every thread? We don't need to hear about the things you think you're going to buy in every third thread. SBAF isn't really a "post your stream of consciousness everywhere!!!!!!" kind of place.
     
    zerodeefex, Jan 22, 2016
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  5. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    Yea I get that feeling here, you guys get pretty deep into the technical discussions

    I may be better off just lurking here for now
     
    Mshenay, Jan 22, 2016
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  6. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    You don't have to delve deep into the technical but I will suggest that you feel out the vibe here a little bit more and think about what you might be contributing with your posting before hitting the "post reply" button. My intent was not to tell you you need to get an EE degree to be a functional member of SBAF, but rather to suggest that maybe it might make sense to understand the forum a bit more before running around replying to everything everywhere.
     
    zerodeefex, Jan 22, 2016
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  7. jexby

    jexby Posole Prince

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    WTF does your "Contributor" status mean of Head-Fi?
    Do you have to pay Jude for that?
     
    jexby, Jan 23, 2016
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  8. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    I appreciate that, I might just stick to reading a little more here. I'm trying to get a better grasp on the more technical side of everything and you guys do an excellent job delving into that

    at least till I can get a rig together to start doing my own measurements

    so I started to dig a little into how to do measurements, an I found two software suites [one that was free] has any one used REW, it calls it self "room EQ wizard" it has inputs for a Mic.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2016
    Mshenay, Jan 23, 2016
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