Fun & Silliness w/ "Cheap" DAC measurements ...

"The "narrative" I referred to is that one of these DACs was vaunted as being the best thing ever."

>e10k

"one of the units in the plots was compared to similarly expensive units and declared better"

>topping d50


Did i win something? Maybe a cookie?




Later edit: now that i think more about it ... there's a dragonfly somewhere in there as well.

 

I thought about the DFR and the Mojo as well, but then I felt comparing DAC/Amps to pure DACs was just a little too silly.

 

The title says it all "Silliness", so i thought to myself why the heck not?

 

I bet one of the DACs is a Chord Dave.

 

Green is topping D50 with apodising FR, maybe?

Black looks like a NOS DAC? Perhaps that is the scarcely available little thing.

Orange looks pretty nice actually, on paper.

 

Orange = Grace SDAC because well-implemented and well-measuring D/S design
Green = ODAC (didn't know it was that scarce) or Geek Out (that's really scarce but I thought measured better)
Black = NOS R2R design like "Airist Audio" R2R DAC, Holo Cyan or Soekris 1541

 

Did you read the first post?

 

Duh, I missed the last line: initial post corrected.

 

Did you read post #20?

 

Some people just insist on sucking the fun right out of everything, even when it is titled "fun and silliness..." Sheesh.

 

Can we have ten straws with the one thread please?

 

Obviously not....but missing post #20 is not the same as missing post number #1 so you can take you dislike and.....

I can't wait to see what DACs are involved.

 

Teeth: all have the same number, because of the sample rate; it's just that some are less snaggly than others because filters, or not.

I'm going to guess that Donny Osmond is some sort of pun on NOS. Therefore green might be SPS 3 ("scarcely available little thing" and teeth).

 

So far, I think @Elnrik is the closest overall (and actually addressed all three questions ... including probably the definitive answer to the question of Donny boy).

The orange plot is, indeed, the standard Grace SDAC.

There is definitely at least one Topping D50 in there.

There are no NOS DACs included, nor any R2R/multi-bit DACs. It's all D/S stuff.

While comparisons have been made to expensive DACs, none of the units involved here are actually expensive themselves (just some modest multiple of the price of SDAC).

All are pure-DACs.

Remember, the point here is a bit of silliness/fun - nothing more ...

 

MUAHAHAHAAAA!!!



Black plot would be the D50.

The other... Focusrite Scarlett 2i2? Edit: Or the Dragonfly Black/Red?

 

Green: topping D50 black: ifi micro BL, final guess

 

What does "pure-DAC" mean? Lack of 3.5/6.35mm outputs?

 

Maybe not even a preamp function?

 

I have not heard of any 1-bit NOS devices. I thought they kind of had to work off the principle of oversampling. I could be wrong here.

However, Audio-GD NOS1704 had an NOS version and might be one of those rarities. Could explain the dark nature of that jaggedy black line. However, the PCM1704 is in fact multibit chip.

Maybe a DDAC with a PCM1794, but isn't the 1794 a hybrid chip?

 

It means no amp-stage.

And if there's volume control, it's being done in the digital domain.

So if it has analog inputs, headphone outputs, an actual amp, or analog volume control it'd be disqualified. So that'd exclude, for example, the Dragonfly Black, iFi Nano or Micro iDSD Black Label.

It is a hybrid chip.

When I say "not multi-bit" I mean that it is not the entire conversion that way. As much as iFi would like to have people think is the case, having 5 or 6 bits of your D/S DAC operate in multi-bit form doesn't stop your DAC being D/S.