ESS chips

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by Vtory, Apr 14, 2019.

  1. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    Probably combination of both.

    From my recent experience of different ds dacs with the same chip (4490 dacs, 9038 dacs), dac chip mostly determines technicalities and base sound. I'd say 80-90%. Goodness of circuit design and engineering account for the rest. It's more like the relationship between meat level/quality and chef. There will be no fails if super fancy wagyu meat with so-so (well trained) chef doing normal jobs. Veteran master chef with lots of experience can even cook so so meat (say, usda choice?) fantastically. I'm regarding good chifi products as the former, and something like modi 3 or cs solaris as the latter.

    Speaking of this, I am also a bit wondering why named engineers tend to resist to use the most recent chips. Es 9038 or akm 4497 are only seen in China. Is it because veteran engineers tend to be conservative?
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    ESS is a super weird company. No data sheets publicly available. Need NDA before they release them. This gives engineers pause. Also, at least one of the older ESS designs had a bug. I dunno, they've always seemed sketchy. I like the fact that I can pull up data sheets for AKM, AD, BB, etc. It's like I'm thinking, what are you (ESS) hiding, or what is so broken that you don't dare publish?

    ESS mainly caters to consumer stuff, Blu-ray players, etc. Stuff made in China. So it's natural that OEMs with their offshoot audiophile brand utilize them. I'm sure they get a special deal. I'm not exactly sure that ESS is a totally American company either. They are based in Milpitas, CA. A lot of companies there have ties with China and Taiwan.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2019
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Last edited: Apr 14, 2019
  4. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    Yeah. I've already looked at them. When I found them before, was wondering: (1) why there was no "pro" version (detailed) sheet and (2) what the heck "confidential" means. Now I see (more parts of) the story -- it's a matter of nda and weird contracts!
     
  5. EagleWings

    EagleWings Friend

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    Could you get into trouble for posting this publicly? It does have the ‘confidential’ watermark. No idea what ‘wesion’ means. But a google search of ‘confidential wesion’ returns a link to this very data sheet hosted on some other site.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I didn't leak it. As a reporter, this is newsworthy for the public.

    If ESS wants to go after me, I'll make a big stink and put up a GFM to pay for lawyers. I can hide the document link at their request, but will still make a big stink and maybe even register a site like www.WhatisESSTryingToHide.org and then tell the story. Not sure they want to damage their brand.

    Wesion might refer to Shenzhen Wesion Technology.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2019
  7. EagleWings

    EagleWings Friend

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    Cool. Couldn’t tell if the google drive was yours or not. I am not familiar with how law works on these matters. Just looking out for you.
     
  8. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Musical Paradise dac offers three chip choices with their dac. Add the simplest cap rolling in history, plus various tubes rolling, it's a tweakers nightmare/paradise.
     
  9. murray

    murray Friend

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    THD correction registers could also possibly be used to flavour sound by adding in measured portions of 2nd and 3rd harmonics.
     
  10. Josh358

    Josh358 Facebook Friend

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    My Exasound e38 mark II arrived this morning, it uses the 9038 Pro, and so does the Ayre QX5 Twenty. Interestingly but perhaps not surprisingly, Stereophile's observations of the Ayre are similar to my initial reaction to the new DAC:

    "Used in his own domestic system, the Ayre at first impressed JA with its "[D]etail. And more detail," and although the Ayre never overstepped its bounds in that respect, the combination of QX-5 Twenty plus MBL Corona C15 amps and Rockport Avior II speakers "resulted in a slightly relentless quality," compelling him to play music "at a lower level than I'd been used to." Adding to his system the Ayre KX-5 Twenty preamp and disabling the Ayre DAC's digital volume control ameliorated the forwardness, and contributed to JA's conclusion that "feeding audio data over my network to the QX-5 with Roon . . . rather than USB connections, is the way forward."

    Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content...dition-digital-processors#MdJrjfcEq7GW57rz.99

    I'm not going to render final judgment because I want to give the e38 time to burn in, but so far, I'm a bit disappointed -- compared to my old e28 Mark II, the soundstaging and detail are much improved, the highs have a more analog quality -- no ES9018 grit and glare -- but when I push the volume, it sounds like it wants to bite my head off. And I heard much the same at AXPONA. Unfortunately, I don't have a multichannel preamp to try what John Atkinson did -- I'm driving the amps directly. I also don't yet have the Teddy Pardo linear power supply, that's shipped separately from Israel.

    Frustrating, since the DAC sounds great on smaller pieces, if with exaggerated attacks or transients. But not going to reach any final conclusions yet.
     
  11. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    The latest ESS and AKM chips cost a ton and don't really sound better than cheaper chips from other brands. There. The specs of the older chips from AD, TI, and Cirrus are already really pretty good and they are not what's holding back most of the products they're in.

    Stuff like board layout, power supplies, and analog stages are at least as important as the chip. Some gear brands are spotty, some always great, some just okay, and some are always horrific no matter what ICs they solder to circuit boards shoved into metal and plastic boxes.

    There's no f'ing point anyway if the rest of the gear is far worse than your dac. No woman is going to jump on some hideous, fat, broke, unfunny junkie packing a Convert 8. It would be like asking a hot chick who's not retarded to sleep with Charlie Sheen. Yeah he's rich and funny but he smokes crack and has AIDS.

    NEVERTHELESS, FUNCTIONALITY UBER ALLES !!!!!!
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2019
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yes, now you know what I mean when I say something sounds "square" or has a lot of gross or macro detail.
     
  13. Elmer Danilovich

    Elmer Danilovich MOT:Earmen, HeadAmp, Bricasti; AKA:MShenay

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    This has been my impression of many ESS Sabre implementations over the last year as well. I have you to thank for that understanding though. Your analogy of "over sharpening" kinda helped me grasp what I was hearing. An it became hard to ignore once I picked up on it.

    This impression of some ESS Implementations was further instilled in me when I finally got rid of my NFB10ES2 and switched over to an RME ADI 2.

    That said, I still enjoy my Geek Out v2+ [Green Filter] which is also an eSabre chipset but I've found it's quite different from some if not many of the implementations I've heard even using the same chipset.

    An it's a shame the company desn't publish their data sheets in a more accessible way
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2019
  14. Josh358

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    I have the impression based on an interview that ESS goes for this sound by designing for transient overshoot. I find it fatiguing myself, but I'm listening on fairly revealing planars -- perhaps it works better on less defined dyamics?
     
  15. Josh358

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    That's what Charles Hansen used to say -- that the DAC chip was actually a minor component of the sound. It does seem to make a difference, though, as the similarity between John Atkinson's review of the Ayre and my reaction to the Exasound (which happened before I read JA's review) suggests. Similarly, I saw people complaining about the harsh highs in the ES9018, precisely the problem I had with my e28 Mk II, though when I asked George Klissarov about that at AXPONA he said that they'd learned a lot about DAC design since the e28!
     
  16. neogeosnk

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    ESS 9038 sounds great in the right hands. Have heard horrible implementations on cheap chinese dacs. If Benchmark comes out with a Dac4, it will probably sound like a Dac2 again though.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2019
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    LOL. Yeah right. Painful shit sounds bad no matter the type of transducer.

    I still remember the look on @LFF's face when we played the Mytek Stereo 192 and let the music play on for a minute more than necessary. He was like "why are you subjecting me to this torture?"
     
  18. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    Mytek turned down the etch and turned up the lofi warmth the last time I heard one of their dacs. Ess Sabre with balls cut off. Still crap.

    Benchmark dac 1 sucked and didn’t even use an ess chip.

    Yeah some people could have the best, most special, best measuring meme parts in the whole world and the sound is brown every time like benchmark, mytek, focusrite, etc.

    Then you hear Lavry conjure up dopeness from a Analog Devices parts box and Apogee using whatfucking ever and always sounding like Apogee.

    I never heard a tolerable for long term listening ess9018 or ess9028. The lh labs stuff on the right filter is kinda warm and tilted with slight low end boost and high end roll off to me though. The Apogee symphony and groove were tolerable but not great either. Not painful but not good compared to other stuff.
     
  19. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    ^
    I wholeheartedly agree with this.

    Sabre chips seem to result in rather varying implementations possibly because ESS has pretty weird policy (Post #2) and less specific "recipies for dummies" like AKM. While akm has its own fuckeries but at least from my experience, implementations rather consistent among lower products (so outlier dacs such as modi 3 or cs solaris excluded).

    I don't know much about exa except being loved by amir a while ago -- likely before he got sponsored by topping. But @Josh358 's report sounds quite interesting.

    So far, from a certain hierarchical perspective (ess9018 - 28 - 38(es) - 38 pro (single or dual configurations)), I observed several patterns of evolution/devolution in sabre dac makers. Below is my take+speculation after hearing numerous sabre implementations during very recent sabre dac journey.
    • Got early sabre (either 9018 or 28) right, then made a homerun with 38 pro -- Matrix audio
    • Keep being wrong regardless of chips -- Agd/Kingwa (some seem like this tuning though)
    • Struggled with earlier chips but managed to know what they're doing recently -- Gustard
    • Favoring status quo and reference recipe (issues not addressed + boring) -- Topping (I didn't hear their 9038pro products yet though)
    • Borderline decent but never special -- SMSL, benchmark
    Now there may be a new pattern -- somewhat successful before, but fucked later -- of exasound. lol


    PS. Just my 2 cents for josh358

    Do not quote JA (and stereophile by extension) as an authority or verified expert in this forum. In SBAF, consensus is that he is rather regarded as a rando conflicted by interest or questionable accuracy/candid (google Yggdrasil and sbaf if you want more stories).
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2019
  20. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Anything ESS can sound amazing if people know what the hell they were doing. It took an Ayre Codex that I currently own to convince me that ESS stuff doesn't have to be bright paper tearing highs that makes your head heart in three minutes. It took me many years to reach to this point since my local Audio Club have a thing for ESS based DACs that sound less than stellar.

    It's about the ads for the most prices cables you can find. Poor J Gordon Holt.
     

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