Massdrop x Airist Audio R-2R DAC Discussions | Drop

Oct 26, 2019

mbvjmcWow that's a total embarrassment for Massdrop

Oct 26, 2019

ryanaeh

125

Oct 26, 2019

mbvjmcI saw that, and lol'd hard. A bright point to start my Saturday sick day...

Oct 26, 2019

AnotherVoice

115

Oct 28, 2019

porntipsguzzardoIn my mind, I can't refute what Audio Science Review published, but when I listen to the Topping D50, one of their highly rated DACs, I still prefer the Airist. I know it shouldn't be that way, but I much prefer the Airist. In fact, I find it difficult to listen to the D50 and start to get fatigued. Maybe I'm subconsciously rationlizing my purchase, but I already purchased both and I would happily use either one. I dunno.

Oct 28, 2019

Oct 29, 2019

AnotherVoiceThat's a fine thing to say, and it would be great if more people could speak in the fashion you do. The subjetivists on the other hand though leave no room for possibility of something like psychological effects. What they perceive is the only reality possible. The only problem is, they run into contradiction once you offer to remove measurement equipment out of the equation and put their hearing abilities to the test, of course which they fail time and again. The Airist is okay if it makes you feel pleased, no need to defend your preferences, as no one deliberates taste much. But the problem with the Airist is it simply isn't competitive for the price, lacks balanced at such a price, and is an ethics minefield from the creator. The one positive thing it has going for it is the enclosure is perfect with the other Massdrop amps. Aside from that, there's nothing in reality that puts it ahead of any other DAC at all unfortunately.

Oct 29, 2019

AnotherVoice

115

Oct 29, 2019

JJayJJI get what you're saying since I briefly went through this with cables and interconnects but after doing some testing I heard no difference between some super expensive interconnects and the cheap ones they give for free. I would argue you may feel the same when it comes to balanced versus unbalanced connections. In the subjectivists defense, a lot of these naysayers are commenting on stuff they never tried. It's sorta like people arguing about cars they've never driven. The specs may say one thing, but to *you* which specs actually matter? You don't know until you try. Perhaps we should view this amp the same way some people view tubes. We know it distorts, but it still sounds better.

Oct 29, 2019

Oct 29, 2019

JJayJJWell said. After watching a Joshua Valor review on YouTube, I also thought that it makes a cool stack with the 789 or Liquid Cavali X, but that was just about the only good thing I could think of.

(Edited)

Oct 29, 2019

Oct 29, 2019

AnotherVoiceI agree with the point of people discussing audio equipment without having listened to it (which sounds a bit odd), but if I'm going to the expense and trouble of owning a dedicated DAC, I sure as hell don't want it distorting a clean, high res PCM file. An amp can have a sound signature, like tubes, older solid states, or amps with tone controls / EQ settings etc but a DAC's job is in its name; digital to analog converter; there must not be any noise or distortion being introduced to the audio signal coming out of the conversion of the digital file.

(Edited)

Oct 29, 2019

Nov 1, 2019

LuckyLuke575Man, people buy things purely based on looks all the time. Which is a shame, obviously, because it can severely rob them of quality experience. That said, I'm so anal I struggle to buy things unless they look good AND function above average. My life is pain.

Nov 1, 2019

Nov 2, 2019

postwarscarsYeah, but that probably means that, although you take a long time to decide, you ultimately end up with the best option for what you're trying to achieve.

Nov 2, 2019

Nov 6, 2019

LuckyLuke575Yes, I'm almost always certain of my purchases, even if they give me tremendous anxiety at times.

Nov 6, 2019

porntipsguzzardo

Nov 7, 2019

Poor SINAD? It has about 20 harmonic spikes on a 1khz tone. It's muddying up the sound. Fortunately, I can't hear all of them since I can only hear to 15khz. On a multi-tone, more like music, the harmonics are so bad, they kill detail. Then there's all the distortion. No, this is not one measurement. This is a whole host of bad measurements, and they all affect the sound in bad ways. Science is not a cult. Truth is not a cult. Facts are not a cult. I want to listen to music loudly and clearly. I want it even across the spectrum. This DAC kills that.

Nov 7, 2019

Nov 7, 2019

Define cult here. The people who want their music to be reproduced properly, or the people who think throwing it into a blender makes sense? Some distortion is fine, but you shouldn't introduce it immediately at the conversion point because then you can never remove it. At least when you have a tube amp you can swap to a solid state if you wish, but what's the point when the signal coming in already sounds like AM radio? The cult are the pure subjectivists who want to discredit honest measurements because God forbid their perception actually be wrong (or their ears not as acutely accurate as they believe them to be).

Nov 7, 2019

Nov 10, 2019

Do you understand what a straw man is? The user I replied to specifically tried to discredit the numbers with subjective rationale. I'm not sure how I'm building an argument purposely set up to fail, unless you're implying his argument wasn't sound to start with (which it wasn't but I'm sure that wasn't your intent). Further, petty division? From a response to a person calling objectivity a "cult"? You're accusing the wrong person here, but obviously you have some money tied to your position. The issue with your stance is, as you've fully admitted, you listened to multiple DACs, but you're looking for confirmation bias. The usual argument here is that you should do a true level-matched blind test, but that's difficult to do with a DAC. For me, in audio, I simply don't want to rely solely on subjectivity to build an argument, THAT is how you set yourself up for failure. You said it was ironic that it (listening) could be applied to both sides, but that's simply wrong. I can give a subjective opinion, but that's not the same as presenting it as fact, which is often the problem with these discussions (not saying people don't do this, but I don't believe it's a valid argument and would never do it myself, and I'd like to believe most objectivists aren't that irrational). Lastly, you're correct, ladder DACs measure worse than Delta Sigma, but you cannot tell me the intention is to measure that poorly. Even for a multibit this device falls far short of the mark. As for Amir not listening to it: dude it's a DAC that doesn't measure well, why bother? It isn't going to magically improve and change his mind, you could tell that from his other reviews where he has actually done so with poor performing gear. A DAC just isn't how you're portraying it, you're going to see the most actual change at the speaker/headphone level (and part of why you think you're hearing these things is due to mundane stuff such as voltage changes or volume levels), but again my point was always why settle for objectifiable mediocrity from the start? I like tube amps, for instance, but I'm not going to argue they're more transparent than solid state, it's just factually incorrect. Oh, and so we are clear: I take no personal pride in trashing this piece of equipment. I just very much dislike comments like the one above, because they are absolutely void of merit.

(Edited)

Nov 10, 2019

Nov 11, 2019

"Most certainly. You were making an argument based on a misrepresentation of someone's position which is the very definition of a straw man fallacy." His position was that SINAD does not indicate poor performance in a device that specifically is meant to interpret digital data into analog, which is factually incorrect for any number of reasons. "...is pretty hard to dispute...objectively..." of course that's hard to dispute objectively, it's an opinion. Subjectivity varies from person to person, but what you're misunderstanding is that an opinion can be directly scrutinized with proper evidence. There is no evidence to back the veracity of his claim, it's simply a statement with no weight, which is counter to the (at least somewhat reasonably defined) evidence provided by the measurements. So while I objectively can't claim he's incorrect, I can provide evidence to the contrary. "I get that you are offended when it is pointed out that the behavior of diehard objectivists is cult-like..." please don't make that assumption, I'm not at all offended. "...that is what I was referring to by forwarding petty division with straw men...if your assertion is so, why are diehard objectivists who want to totally discredit subjective observation NOT a cult?" So this is obviously 2 parts, but I'm just going to address it as one. I was purposely dismissive here, because honestly the stance of most subjectivity tends to err on the side of avoiding objective reasoning altogether (but what I was doing wasn't actually to further my argument, it was to be combative, I'd already made my stance prior to what you're considering my straw-man). I don't mind subjectivity, so long as it's grounded and rational. Also, you are not entirely incorrect that the strict objectivists could be considered cult-like in their unwavering dedication to measurement, but here's the difference between the two: one of those sides can be, at the very least, verified through testing and reasoning, and the other largely cannot. Which begs the question, is it a cult if you're just being logical, or if it's simply adhering to something because you want to believe is true? Logic dictates, at least here, that the side with the most reasonable claims are the ones less professing of fanatical adherence to specific values. Both sides believe they are correct, to the point of absurdity, but I personally find it silly to consider objectivity the less reasonable of the two. "The corollary is also true: You can state objective facts, but that does not necessarily make an opinion false." You and I agree here, but I will tell you that my line of work consistently deals with subjectivity almost as a standard. So that being what it is, the truth is that while you cannot always directly refute a person's opinion (mostly because people don't want to hear conflicting reports), if you can offer verifiable reasons as to why it might not be as accurate as they believe, that's relatively important. I have to do this a fair amount day-to-day. The problem for me is that in something like musical equipment, it either is or isn't, which is vastly different to me than, say, the perception of Art and Design at the subjective level. "(seriously?)" Seriously. I was a teenager in the 90's, it slips out sometimes. I'm sorry, does that discredit me somehow? "Links?" I'm on lunch, if you care to continue our conversation beyond this point I will look around, but I don't have the time to do my due diligence, sorry (it's not for lack of want, of course, I like to be concise). Anyway, we'll follow the rest of this directly into the next part since it's going to correlate to my response. "Right back at you...A DAC is a DAC. I'm not portraying it in any other way than what it is. How am I portraying it? Or, more accurately, how are you interpreting that I'm portraying it?" Well, for starters, you're defending a DAC that actually doesn't do it's job correctly at the output level, per measurements? You're portraying it thus: "the intention for audio devices is sound quality; Airist has succeeded." But does it? How do we actually know, aside from your opinion on the matter? Well, it was put up against other devices on a scientific level, and shown to interpret the signal with far less accuracy than others (and so we're clear, that's if we put it up against R-2R's, not just Delta-Sigma implementations), so where's the leg to stand on? Also, obviously a DAC is a DAC, and an AMP is an AMP, what are you even trying to say? It's obviously not about what it is, but about how it functions (which is to near faulty levels). "That is one of the talking points parroted ad nauseum. My point is that your concept of 'objectifiable mediocrity' does not always manifest in the ways that our limited understanding predicts." For the very thing you accused me of, this is of equal weightlessness. I can not prove it to you, either because you don't want to believe, or because you refuse, therefore it must cancel out evidence disputing it. This is illogical, do you not agree? There are obviously other factors, but this argument makes far more sense at the Amplifier or Headphone level than it does at the DAC level, where the sole job is for the unit to reproduce an accurate signal (once you step into amplifiers and headphones I believe preference is reasonable, but this is an opinion so I suppose it should be considered inscrutable). I missed the confirmation-bias part, pardon this not being linear. "...ah yes...as predicted... the confirmation-bias put down." This wasn't a put down (obviously it struck a chord, you decided to attack me and ranted about these sorts of behaviors following this remark), but it's obvious you have a bias towards the equipment either through ownership, or your own need to feel correct in your argument. That italicized section is also not a putdown, it is simply a potential observation. Bias is not strictly bound to ownership, obviously, but also the fact that people hate to be wrong. You even so much as try to reaffirm yourself before moving on by saying "honestly, I'm pretty fucking smug when I find out I'm right, and I'm ecstatic when I find out I'm wrong." I don't believe you're ever ecstatic when you find out you're wrong, because nothing you've said here convinces me of that. That statement comes off as extremely self-congratulating, so we're clear (you seem like a smart enough person, you don't need to shake your own hand). I don't like to be wrong, personally, but I am comfortable with admitting fault. "exactly! which is why 'transparency' is only part of the picture(or sound)." But what you're totally missing (and I purposely didn't paste the rest of your rant, but I'm going to address it) is that I don't mind when someone likes coloration in their sound. I don't even mind if someone wants to pay $350 for a device that colors it before it ever gets to a device like the 789 (which immediately makes its performance less than ideal), but why defend its performance as admirable or comparative to other offerings when it simply isn't? And while all of that equipment you listed may sound perfectly fine to you, and it may sound fine, I don't own any of it, it doesn't mean it's theoretically doing its job with precision. In fairness, distorting music isn't always the wrong approach, especially if it's recorded poorly. But I just don't think a person should be willing to do that at the signal level. So while I know it upset you that it's objectively mediocre, and you think it sounds okay, that doesn't mean it's not objectively mediocre. Once you adjust to just about anything, it will sound okay, per your psychoacoustics rant (which is a fun tie-in to that whole thing you mentioned about living with an item long enough to get a sense of it, I guess). But the scrutiny, apparently, isn't allowed at that point. I'm not putting you into any boat, though you may want to stop referring to the word cult, seeing as I didn't use that word first. I don't even know how you can conclude that I misrepresented someone's stances, but to each his own (and, likewise, I would warn you to not misrepresent other's stances in the future as well). The issue here, I believe, is that you think I'm solely objective. Which I'm not, but as I said previously, I don't like to make statements that can't be verified, at least partially, in some form or fashion. This pertains almost exclusively to mechanical or electrical devices, if you want to have a discussion about other subjective things you are more than welcome to open up for new discourse. TL;DR, don't worry, I'm equally as long-winded.

(Edited)

Nov 11, 2019

Nov 12, 2019

Regardless of however you took my reply, I'm not so stupid as to think the person I replied to is void of intelligence (to the contrary, he's clearly very smart). So let me make this clear: I respect his opinions regardless of if I agree with them. Edit: I said a lot more but I think the valid response is to avoid the rest of your provocation entirely. Further Edit: let's just agree to disagree here. Motorrad isn't wrong that we likely won't come to a consensus, but at least I can respect that heysplangy is actually capable of making perfectly viable points (and isn't a totally insufferable fuck).

(Edited)

Nov 12, 2019

Nov 12, 2019

JJayJJHave you tried the Airist?

Nov 12, 2019

Nov 12, 2019

I was reading impressions of R2R DACs on SBAF and they mention how the depth of the soundstage increases compared to two dimensionality of many (maybe all)D-S DACs, as someone who listens to soundboard recordings that natural impression of the soundstage seemed like I would want that over the D50 which I currently have. Saving up for a Soekris R2R DAC. Never tried the Airist either.

Nov 12, 2019

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Nov 12, 2019

You should probably calm down over there Mr. Make Audio Great Again. No one's saying that except you.

Nov 12, 2019

Nov 12, 2019

adeadcrabI still can't understand why anyone would want to listen to 'looney tunes' audio, especially from a DAC???? If you really want distortion and different sounds, then just buy a tube amp????

Nov 12, 2019

Nov 13, 2019

adeadcrabI have not tried it, I have an RME ADI 2 DAC. I need a balanced DAC, this didn't provide it. I was going to buy one for my 789, but looking at the tech specs, for the price, it was an awful proposition.

(Edited)

Nov 13, 2019

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Nov 13, 2019

LuckyLuke575Posts like this one kick-started this idea for me : 'Try listening to Kodo - O-Daiko. Set volume for comfortable level with the flute during track opening. Don't have beverage in mouth or attempt to play bladderbust while listening. You will most likely lose the challenge when the big drum hits. Topping D30 in my lab renders sound as a cartoon mush version of the recording. Gungnir MB A2 v2 firmware will provide a startlingly realistic rendition of the big drum. Transient leading edges hit hard as heard when standing in front of similar drums setting mics. Depth of drum fundamentals produces a phantom bass in head and neck on my HD800-Jmod as if subwoofer were present.' '...impact and decay on snares and cymbals have also become dramatically more pronounced, revealing a bunch of ghost hits on the snare that I hadn't realized were there before. The shimmering of cymbals are much more pronounced instead of just being a monotone pitch (this adds a lot of musicality to me, and has me developing a newfound appreciation for cymbals in general), and decay lasts longer before fading away. There's substantially more dynamics in general.' Link is here - https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/schiit-gungnir-multibit-impressions.158/page-40#post-241444 I don't understand what 'looney tunes' audio is. edit - I also liked this fellow aussies review - https://youtu.be/c-W7v7tUl1Q The Airist is not for me as I don't want a warm tilt, I want a ruler flat line from 20hz to 20khz. The principle of R2R DACs still applies, however.

(Edited)

Nov 13, 2019

Nov 13, 2019

adeadcrabIs the Gungir (that corrected to fungus, I laughed) run through balanced or single-ended? Are you driving the D30 to the same headphone output, or using the one built-into the unit? Are these tests done at a leveled match, or are you just going by ear? That last one may be unfair, it's hard to do with a DAC. There's more to say on this front, but that review shows signs of positively identifying distortion (extension of decay, more ghost hits etc.). Just food for thought here.

Nov 13, 2019

Nov 13, 2019

postwarscarsThe youtube review is more thorough. They also also directly compared the Airist to the Topping D50s.

Nov 13, 2019

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Nov 14, 2019

adeadcrabI'd have to watch it to see. My main contention is that there are factors like voltage differences, volume settings, etc. which can affect perception and cause false assumption of performance. Specifically, things like cymbals having longer decay indicate inaccuracy in the signal rendering. Also, I appreciate the civility. If I come off as condescending, I promise it's not intentional.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

postwarscarsThere's no point in watching the video as it's not a level matched content piece, but more importantly, it isn't a comparison of anything, its simply a review of the R2R DAC. And the SABF link is a dead link.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

JJayJJWell, I'm willing to entertain most things, but I probably would've said it didn't make any solid conclusions. Reading the notes on the Gungir are very telling in their description. To say that track would be mushy on the Topping is strange. I listened to it under less-than-ideal conditions (Spotify non-premium > iMac 2018 out > Atom > HD1), and it was perfectly dynamic at lower bitrate streaming. It's hard not to be skeptical of these descriptions, I've heard R2R DACs and I've never thought they were better, or even appreciably different, than delta sigma.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

postwarscarsI'll come back to this dialogue when I get an R2R DAC (probably at the end of this year) and be prepared to eat humble pie if it's simply a scam. Regard to the dead link,, The SBAF link works if you copy and paste the link in a new tab. edit - probably important to note the Gungnir multibit is not R2R as far as I am aware, however its sound remains consistent with genuine R2R DACs.

(Edited)

Nov 14, 2019

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Nov 14, 2019

porntipsguzzardoyou would buy a fucking topping and say it's the best sounding dac possible, simply because it measures well. Guess what, it measures well because they build it to measure well, not to sound good, because they get a free army of shills for measurements, on their terrible sounding products. Congratulations, you played yourself.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

adeadcrabI wouldn't call it a scam. I just have found that the most change I ever observed in audio equipment came from the speakers/headphones. The differences in amps are usually relatively minor, even tube to solid state (but some people would claim the change was as vast as the oceans). DACs are easily the least different between products. Marketing is about sales, so you will rarely find a company who is wholly transparent about their product, and that is doubly true for the audio world where users perpetuate the silly divides we see in this thread. People literally do the marketing for some of these companies, without ever realizing they were socially engineered to do so.

(Edited)

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

postwarscarsI used to believe dacs didn't have sound differences too. Then I realized how much shittier chifi well measuring dacs sounded. They sound lifeless, built to have great tone tests, but are terrible at piecing a song back together, they sound as though they take an average of the dynamic range of the track in 5 second intervals, and just erase all the accented peaks of a track that give a song depth (think when a drummer hits the snare twice as hard every other rotation of a beat, think of a guitar riff ending just that little bit louder than it began to jump out at you, etc. This isn't that audiophile flowery language bullshit, this is the stuff we all hear and love, and when you just smudge the peaks out of a waveform it sounds dead, there's no life left. It's similar to the overly compressed bs of loudness war casualties, only in that case everything is blown out to be max volume, while in this case all the accentual peaks seem to be brought in line with the rest of the music. I don't know why this is done on these dacs, I don't know how you could measure it, frankly music isn't measurable, that's why we do tone tests instead of just playing a song and having some instrument analyze it, because a machine can't understand what is happening in the song that gives it those types of qualities, and therefore give the music life. A bad dac, in my experience just simply doesn't bother reproducing these things adequately. I don't have the airist r2r, and don't know if I ever will buy it, but I do know that simply because the measurements aren't perfect, doesn't mean this is a bad dac, or that it sounds bad, because I'm 99% sure it sounds infinitely better than any of the topping or smsl's i've tried.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

tooitchyI've tried a fair share of DACs, and have never experienced what you're describing. And while I don't currently own a Topping or SMSL product I would be utterly astonished if the things you're saying were true (to the extent you are claiming). I've been through pro and consumer products over the years, and it's always been such a straight-forward thing to me I never got the fuss until I took the time to actually understand what half these things meant. To each his own, really. Maybe you're correct and these somehow are vastly inferior products that miss the mark entirely. But personal experience make me extremely skeptical.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

postwarscarsI was skeptical too, but my eyes were opened, against my will. measurements are not giving anywhere close to the full story, and inaudible distortion being even more inaudible is no longer a concern of mine when amazing measuring dacs sound glaringly inferior to something with a bit worse measurements, but provide the impactful performance you expect out of your audio.

Nov 14, 2019

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Nov 14, 2019

tooitchyI mean, all I expect out of audio is that it's reproduced at least correctly. I hear people make mention of audio that "sounds like you're there, like it's supposed to" and all I can do is ask if that even makes sense. An audio recording will never convey in-person dynamics no matter what we listen to it through. Recording and live performance are so separate from one another. I just don't expect my playback to be something it isn't. Some people want to be told what they want to hear, I just want the truth. But that's preference, and those differ for all of us. None are specifically wrong.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

tooitchy"Guess what, it measures well because they build it to measure well, not to sound good." Been a long time since I've heard this statement. Surprised no one has made a meme of this yet. Imagine if Intel or AMD or Nvidia can simply "make their CPU's or GPU's measure higher FPS numbers in games, but not actually have good performance". What an absolutely lunacy ridden statement that would be laughed away in any other sort of industry..

Nov 14, 2019

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Nov 14, 2019

postwarscarsI believe there are differences in "accuracy" we can measure tonality, we can measure dynamic range of a dac, we can measure distortion, but all of it is done with single frequency sine wave test tones. Where exactly does any moment of a song with multiple instruments all playing different sounds and volume levels, a singer who's voice has a range, all going at once, all in time with a beat, come to have much in common at all with a 1khz test tone? There simply are things about music reproduction we cannot measure, and have no way of even quantifying the results of such a measurement. How do you measure the spacial displacement of the signal being sent to the driver? The driver, depending on it's quality and ability can interpret this to varying degrees, but how exaclty do we measure a dacs ability to maintain this subtelty in its reconfiguration of the analong waveform? it's not a tonality change, it's not a matter of distortion, there is no way to measure it, so this is one obvious way a dac could be woefully short in its abilities that just ignore entirely and go so far as to mock those who speak about it, just because it can't be measured (ASR is full of threads where they gang up on anyone questioning the hivemind mentality of objectivism). It's funny really, the ones claiming to the most objective, are the least open to compromise on these things, bet their entire tone changes overnight should they come up with ways to measure a dacs quality with these kinds of things, and suddenly the things people hear are valuable because a graph can be made from them. Put simply, the objectivist side is cult like in the worst possible ways, taking it upon themselves to make sure everyone who isn't with them, is a delusional idiot who wasted their money and are lying to themselves by thinking something that didn't measure all that well (but still inaudible), sounds good. So bad measuring=dac sounds bad and cannot sound good....but good measuring dac=dac sounds good and cannot sound bad? Why is it out of the question for ASR that the topping d30/d50 sounds worse than something that doesn't measure as well? 1khz tones just aren't enough to tell the full story of how something sounds.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

JJayJJToo bad your comparison is a fucking joke because you're talking about performance in actual use with a cpu, things that can be measured. Not sound quality, things that I will freely admit cannot be measured, at least I'm not delusional and run around talking about 1khz tone measurements being the standard barer of what sound reproduction should adhere to. Not a single test will tell you how the song will sound when played back on the thing, only that the frequencies come out accurate. Great, that guitar riff is not just a frequency played back, that drum beat with the accented snare impact every other measure is not a multi-tone test for jitter/distortion. Sorry, there are things that cannot be measured, if you're that firmly in the objectivist camp, you're a cultist denying reality. At least even the worst of the subjectivists admit the tests do have some importance, but you objectivsts are so far up your own ass with data that you think nothing else matters at all, and the mere thought of anyone saying there is a difference between two dacs should be crucified. Fucking hilariously delusional, dunning krueger at its finest.

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 14, 2019

tooitchy"Too bad your comparison is a fucking joke because you're talking about performance in actual use with a cpu" So measuring the Total Harmonic Distortion of a device isn't something I can use to gauge a portion that will effect sound quality? Or Signal to Noise Ratio Or Frequency Response Or Intermodulation Distortion Or Power Output NONE of those can be of "actual use"? Do you understand how lunacy based your rationale sounds like right now? "Not a single test will tell you how the song will sound when played back on the thing" Naturally because I don't listen to a DAC, I listen to speakers, IEM's, headphones... That's the main contender here. But the difference between be and you is, you think sound quality is one metric, and if it can be measured, that can't be a part of sound quality. Also you havent even touched on the mastering, or recording process of the actual music itself, or subjective preference (which isn't even up to debate). The discussion here is about fidelity. Not "sound quality" whatever the hell that even means (and it can mean so many things, which doesn't mean anything unless you give proper context which you fail to do at all points). "Sorry, there are things that cannot be measured, if you're that firmly in the objectivist camp, you're a cultist denying reality." Sorry you're a science denier, so by definition you accept propositions that don't always require evidence, thus you fulfill the personality that is most impressionable by cult-like behavior. With that idiotic portion out of the way.. No one ever made the camp everything can be measured and quantified on a metric scale of classical mathematics with respect to objectivity. But I don't need to measure it that way. I can simply ask people "hey which sound did you enjoy more" and run that measurement multiple times with various pieces of music on various gear, and there you go, I have the ability to measure everything that pertains to what that person cares for with respect to sound quality. It doesn't have to be formalized in rigid structures (which will satisfy your reptilian brain that can't understand what most scientific measurements are purposed for), so even a layman like you would able to digest a measurement of sound quality. And because it's subjective, you can't bitch and whine like you do now. And with that I firmly close the book on your nonsensical declaratory statements once and for all (actually not really as you can repeat the same nonsense a million times if you feel like). "At least even the worst of the subjectivists admit the tests do have some importance, but you objectivsts are so far up your own ass with data that you think nothing else matters at all, and the mere thought of anyone saying there is a difference between two dacs should be crucified." Fifth-grader level strawman. Surely you you can't be this infantile?

Nov 14, 2019

Nov 15, 2019

JJayJJ"Imagine if Intel or AMD or Nvidia can simply 'make their CPU's or GPU's measure higher FPS numbers in games, but not actually have good performance'." So, in fairness, this has actually happened (well, not in games specifically). ATi and NVidia have both (in the past) been caught creating test configurations in their software to produce better-than-actual performance when run through benchmarks. So there is a world of possibility where, perhaps, tooichy isn't entirely incorrect that a company may engineer its product to better suit a test. I'm unsure how you'd do that in audio though, honestly, but I'm not an engineer and cannot speak to how one would go about creating such a bias in measurement. For tooitchy: I think some of what you're talking about is speculative, and some has relevance, and the truth is probably somewhere on the fringes. Some of what you're talking about (spacial displacement, guitar tone) is on the boundaries of being irrelevant (a DAC doesn't need to correct for the driver, and tone is really just varying frequency at the base level). But, you're also not incorrect about it being hard to quantify how multiple tones will sound during playback compared to a single test tone. What those instruments are checking is purity of signal, which the reasoning is that if it plays this tone correctly and without distortion, the signal is accurate, and should thus be accurate across the range. I don't know how correct this assumption is (like I said, not an Engineer), but I'm assuming that's the basic premise (and I could be completely wrong). I'm also assuming that the tests have gradually been truncated to this point because they would yield similar results across multiple frequency ranges, so a standard was created to simplify the process (but, again, could be totally wrong here). I guess the real question is if a company actually has the capacity to modify a device in such a way as to produce specifically ideal results, while the performance is not actually what it shows. In audio, that's a very nebulous question, and as I think we both would agree, near impossible to answer. This is getting too long-winded (I've already destroyed this thread with my absurd amounts of text). In my experience, which should obviously be taken with a grain of salt and an asterisk, I've never found the data to be incorrect. That's to say, I've never had an experience with any DAC that made me say "wow, that's a dramatic change from the other DACs I've heard" or "this is so much more realistic." I've heard a lot of them at this point, so I'd like to assume dropping $350 for me to just say "hey, I've been here before" would be both scrutinized by confirmation bias, and a waste of money. Anyway, I think it'd be petty to purchase a piece of equipment just to yell, "TOLD YOU SO," so I'm willing to concede we may not all have the same tastes.

(Edited)

Nov 15, 2019

Nov 15, 2019

postwarscars"...This is getting too long-winded (I've already destroyed this thread with my absurd amounts of text)" This is why I never visit the forums. This is a rare exception :P

Nov 15, 2019

Nov 15, 2019

postwarscars"So, in fairness, this has actually happened (well, not in games specifically). ATi and NVidia have both (in the past) been caught creating test configurations in their software to produce better-than-actual performance when run through benchmarks. I'm unsure how you'd do that in audio though, honestly, but I'm not an engineer and cannot speak to how one would go about creating such a bias in measurement." See the problem is, the tests were instantly exposed for a few reasons. The majority of these cases were their own first-party tests with no audit. And the other fringe cases was simply the device performing better in one portion of a suite of tests done in the benchmark. It wasn't actually the cards doing "better" than their native hardware can support, they just didn't have performance gated as they usually do to avoid user error with over current issues when overclocking. Also benchmarks are synthetics, they give approximations, not true to life translatable reality for every single person's use-case. Everyone is aware of this, in the same way everyone is aware from Amir's benchmarks they aren't going to be getting 130db of dynamic range on a device running at 10% overall power output. This is what I mean by people not understanding what they're reading when looking at benchmarks. They aren't a quantification of the totality of the generalized and highly interpretive notion of "sound quality", they are simply points that allow us to gain a better picture. As opposed to the irrational person I speak to, he will make a proclamation that flies in the face of reality and say thats why benchmarks don't tell you anything about sound quality. It's like saying "I can hear -300dbFS, and because of such, I can tell you this DAC sounds terrible, or lifeless, or frozen, or floaty, or feathery, or grainy, or good, or evil, or X". THIS is the sort of person I am dealing with here. It doesn't make sense to talk to him about the historical occurances of devices performing good from a singlular test within a benchmark suite. He doesn't even know the purpose of a benchmark, and denies it's objective veracity. It's like talking to someone about space travel who isn't convinced people can fly from continent to continent in an airplane or something to that effect.

Nov 15, 2019

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Nov 15, 2019

adeadcrabThey have to be long winded when you have simpletons that want to discuss topics of deep complexity. There is no short way of putting some of these ideas, when you do that, you get a billion questions asking why you don't elaborate, and when you do, you're back at the same place even if you were to get long winded.

Nov 15, 2019

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Nov 15, 2019

adeadcrabI don't know what 'lab' you're talking about, and I sure as hell don't give a toss about what anyone else can 'hear'; for all I know they might be like that other bloke on the 6XX discussion that had ears full of wax while complaining about the sound of the headphones. And all those descriptions are nonsense; there's far too much pyschoacoustic sound perception to have meaningful subjective comparisons. However, direct, objective, repeatable, comparable results is something I can understand. Now I'm not saying that this Airist may have a nice sound that many people would enjoy; I wouldn't know until I listened to it. But that's besides the point, because the purpose of a DAC is to convert a digital file to an analog signal as accurately as possible, with minimal noise and distortion. This Airist fails dismally in that regard. End of story. And to say that the Topping sounds 'mushy' is total bullshit. If that's what you're hearing then you need to go to get off the computer and get to the hearing clinic. I have a Topping DX3 Pro and the sound is objectively and actually excellent.

(Edited)

Nov 15, 2019

Nov 15, 2019

tooitchyYou're talking hogwash mate

Nov 15, 2019

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rubley00

Nov 16, 2019

porntipsguzzardoThis DAC is trash. It would be trash at $50. The fact that you can get a D50s for $180-$250 which destroys this piece of garbage is the cherry on top.

Nov 16, 2019

Motorrad

2898

Nov 16, 2019

LuckyLuke575for somebody who has yet to listen to this thing you sure do spend a lot of time attacking it... do you hate subjectivity so much that you don't even trust your own? it's cute that you think you're something other than an actual simpleton...

(Edited)

Nov 16, 2019

Nov 17, 2019

rubley00It doesn't destroy this thing though, Topping is trash. but think you've got something better, ignorance is bliss. I wish I was still as ignorant as I was when I worshipped ASR measurements, the truth is much more difficult to accept and live with.

(Edited)

Nov 17, 2019

Nov 17, 2019

MotorradThey think their Topping dacs are the best ever made, cause all DAC's are identical! Duh!

Nov 17, 2019

Nov 22, 2019

MotorradIt sounds like you think with your feet. How can I take someone seriously when their brain is in their feet?

Nov 22, 2019

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Dmac6419

194

Nov 24, 2019

LuckyLuke575He's just mad cause he wasted $350

Nov 24, 2019

Nov 25, 2019

Dmac6419For sure. Some people have irrational reactions when they find out they've been scammed.

Nov 25, 2019

Nov 25, 2019

LuckyLuke575Just like some people have irrational reactions to measurements they don't understand, and then spend months trying to gloat over others. This, is an example of the Dunning Krueger effect. Idiots who think they're geniuses because they saw squiggles and some red text telling them it meant bad things!

Nov 25, 2019

Nov 26, 2019

tooitchyguys I am *so* over this thread!

Nov 26, 2019

Nov 26, 2019

tooitchyI'll read the squiggles when I'm trying to buy an accurate sounding DAC that has inaudible noise, distortion, power supply hum, and a flat frequency response; that's when I'm a genius of note and repute. But when I listen to my vinyl records through my old Sony integrated stereo amp, then I don't give a rats ass about the squiggles or what those dudes say lmao

Nov 26, 2019

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Nov 26, 2019

adeadcrabIt's not over until we come to some sort of agreement lol

Nov 26, 2019

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Motorrad

2898

Nov 27, 2019

tooitchyit's true. Idiot trolls like Luke saw some numbers on a website that has 'science' in its name, and now he thinks he's a fucking scientist. too bad he actually has no idea what those numbers even mean. but hey....Science!

Nov 27, 2019

Nov 28, 2019

You're still talking with your feet...

Nov 28, 2019

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Nov 28, 2019

MotorradYou can't say that man, they have a bunch of guides and tutorials on there. Now your talking with your feet and your ass...

(Edited)

Nov 28, 2019

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porntipsguzzardo

Nov 29, 2019

This is utter nonsense. You can see on the measurements exactly how this DAC screws with the sound. Your perceptions may be tuned to hearing muddiness. Perhaps you call it microsounds or something inane like that. I listened to a rogue audio tube amp once. It added all kinds of grungy guitar distortion. It sounded kind of nice on the guitar part, with extra distortion, but I could barely make out the words. That's when I realized that tubes are garbage. I mean, why would I want to add distortion to what the musician created? That makes no sense. And that's exactly what this DAC does. Measurements only matter because they show what is happening to the sound. I assume you want to know what's up with the sound.

Nov 29, 2019

Nov 29, 2019

porntipsguzzardoCheers to you my friend. Finally another logical guy on here.

Nov 29, 2019

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Nov 29, 2019

How much of a hypocrite do you have to be to type something like this: "...you're just a troll and this is something you're doing because you're empty inside and you need to feel like you're better than others..."? Like holy shit, man. Are you actually self-aware? Dolphins can tell their reflection in the mirror, but I swear to God you can't. You act exactly the same way as the people you're trying to talk shit about.

(Edited)

Nov 29, 2019