Marvey's DAC Chart of Awesomeness

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by The Alchemist, Sep 28, 2015.

  1. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Funny you say that... His old avatar resembles the one on the left. Maybe Varg Vikernes can get together with Ewan McGregor one day for an album.
     
  2. gaddabout

    gaddabout New

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    Why do you limit yourself? "The same playing field" is your unnecessary framing. I've read about a guy who compared the gustard x20 with Auralic Vega and a Schiit Yggydrasil and found the big "difference with the X20 is the inner detail retrieval and soundstage.
    Inserting the X20 widens my soundstage by about 2 feet on each side and about 3 feet higher, in a realistic sense not exaggerated. The depth is amazing, can render front stage to back stage amazingly.Listening to the Opus 3 Showcase 2 in DSD 128 is stunning. It is so good as a vinyl diehard it has kept me planted in my seat with the Aurender iPad app not wanting me to spin vinyl. It might not float your boat but to me it has been an eye opening experience."

    He is so right! ...and yes I'm enjoying the x20 pro every bit:)
    Btw if you are using Room Correction (I hope so), a possible treble boost from any DAC, or USB cable et cetera...should not bother you...its
    corrected pretty easy. In Hqplayer room correction is very well implemented through its convolution engine. In Room Eq Wizard you can define the HF fall slope easy for different tasks. Most "remasters" have an unpleasant HF boost. Define a HF fall slope lets say between -2,3 to -2,8db and your done. Of course its a matter of taste too.
    Room Correction also has the wonderful effect of objectification. Who has the golden ears?
    A neutral authority helps to make the right decisions:).
    We live in golden times, at least in the audio field, because today, everybody can make room correction and thus also Gear Correction at the same time:D.
    That said, what matters most is: detail, resolution, soundstage, depth, naturalness. This delivers the x20pro par excellence:D.

    Looking at the capture directly out of REW you will see i have no HF problem with the X20 Pro ...
    my problem areas are somewhere else...but the impulse responses fixed them:)...maybe it fixed the mediocre implementation of the sabre and the resulting HFboost....I don't know.:p. All I know it sounds so fantastic with my Ecouton LQL200.
    Measurement was done with a calibrated beyerdynamic MM1 and a calibrated RME babyface pro.

    http://www.imagebam.com/image/184b58533773278
     
  3. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Gustards sucks. You can't EQ away Sabre's problems as almost all oversampling DACs measure flat enough with regards to frequency unless the makers were dumb and uses minimum phase filters like Ayre. You can never get rid of the one-note, oversaturated Sabre bass or the totally fucked treble where filtering out the harshness just kills tons of high-end detail (see LH Labs and even worse, AudioGD) compared to cheap DACs using other brands of chips.

    Most remasters do not have a high-frequency boost either; you're out of your God damn mind, most are just compressed hopefully with some high-pass filtering of the low bass to get rid of all the f'ing mud that results on super compressed recordings. Massive Brick-wall limiting results in tons of HF noise. Neither of these are increasing the higher frequencies where the loudest instruments like cymbals and snares reside, they are actually lowered to massively unrealistic, quiet levels.

    Ocassionally you get remasters run through modern ADCs where everyone is surprised at how NOT dynamic some of those old recordings and mixes really were like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Metallica (who stuck a limiter in front of Hetfield and just have drum peak)
     
  4. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    There are too many emoticons, too much incoherent prose and generally too much, it seems, Gustard shilling.

    Please take the time to introduce yourself as you've been requested upon registering on SBAF:
    http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/new-members-introduce-yourself.17/
     
  5. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    For reasons already stated - I'm not buying one, and then being stuck with it, just to audition it. Particularly when it's predecessor wasn't anywhere close to being realistic competition for either Yggdrasil or the Vega (which I also owned for a little bit). That "framing" is based on what I've heard, auditioned in depth, reviewed and/or owned ... not conjecture based on the overly-enthusiastic endorsements of people I don't know from Adam.

    If the list of DACs you say you compared to is anywhere near all of what you've heard then you simply don't have a broad enough basis for comparison.

    The rest of your post reads as entirely typical of pretty much everyone that shows up here raving about Gustard's stuff (and oddly enough, with a staggering high proportion of that sort of thing being in their very first post). The X20 was not even close to the best ESS implementations I've heard, and if its successor needs the amount of faffing around and processing out of the DAC you describe to make it listenable then, well, that's even more reason for not wanting to deal with it.
     
  6. L1C4

    L1C4 New

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    Where would the 2Qute fall on this chart? Around Lynx or Matrix-Sabre?
     
  7. ButtUglyJeff

    ButtUglyJeff Stunningly beautiful IRL

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    Isn't a 2Qute just a plug in version of the Hugo?
     
  8. L1C4

    L1C4 New

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    No, it has galvanized isolation for the USB. A lot of people with Hugos are switching over. What do you mean plugin? It is not a portable DAC, it needs a dedicated power supply.
     
  9. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Don't think Marv is evaluating the Hugo TT with USB anyway, so the galvanic isolation doesn't really matter.

    Possibly hanging with the Geek Outs.
     
  10. ButtUglyJeff

    ButtUglyJeff Stunningly beautiful IRL

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    I mean plug in the wall instead of battery powered like the Hugo. Either way, the DAC section is the same...
     
  11. L1C4

    L1C4 New

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    It should have less noise as the Hugo doesn't have galvanic isolation at the USB jack.
     
  12. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    If Marv is not using the USB the isolation DOESN'T MATTER.
     
  13. L1C4

    L1C4 New

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    There's also different internal power filtering. It is similar but the other components make it different than the Hugo and I would expect a slightly different sound.
     
  14. ButtUglyJeff

    ButtUglyJeff Stunningly beautiful IRL

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    I'm not trying to argue with you about which Chord DAC is "better" I'm just making a point that tonally it should be quite similar to the Hugo. Less noise or more noise its still similar tonally. And the Hugo is on the chart...
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2017
  15. L1C4

    L1C4 New

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    Good point
     
  16. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    That's why we have a Like button... to avoid noise disguised as posts, like this.
     
  17. gaddabout

    gaddabout New

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    I can EQ! Did you try it? On my stereo it work wonders. In my studio it works too. Simply not true your statement. BTW EQing does not kill high-end detail. IMO using a HF fall slope brings out more detail than killing. At least my hearing tells me that.
    Most remaster like all shm-cds I know have a HF boost and they tend to distort. The reason is compressing, yes thats true. Did I say a word why the HF-boost is present?
    No...because it is not important...its only a technical question not more.

    The Gustard does not suck. If you know what you're doing it sounds very good. Use modern techniques like RoomEq and good filtering with player like hqplayer
    and you are done. The gustard is definitely a little on the bright side. So if you are not using RoomEq it may me wise to look at another more neutral DAC.

    BTW the LKS is a wonderful example how smooth a sabre could sound out of the box. Smooth High-End and wonderful controlled bass. Sadly soundstage is to small...
     
  18. ButtUglyJeff

    ButtUglyJeff Stunningly beautiful IRL

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    Bad news GUTB, they do suck, and that's coming from someone who also sucks....
     
  19. gaddabout

    gaddabout New

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    Your framing is based on: " 1. Well, as already stated it is not on the same playing field." - your words.
    The raving about gustard is based on the price performance! I said "best buck". 900$ vs 2500-3000$...like Vega,Yggdrasil.
     
  20. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Geez, next you'd be telling me wrapping my fuses in copper foil and creating a fire hazard, unscrewing my transformers and putting cardboard underneath is going to transform it into a DAVE killer! 900$ vs 16,000$ Best bang for the GUTBuck
     

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