State-of-the-Art Digital

acousticsguru

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Well, I own the Yggy2 and I've had the Vivaldi 2.0 in here along with others, all driven the same way. Perhaps the Vivaldi needs its entire stack to sound its best, but as a standalone, it needed help. But this thread is about the state of the art...
All driven the same way = via USB?

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 

ack

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ack

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RBCD playback using the Spectral transport?

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
Yup, and the MIT MA-X AES/EBU cable. I'll say again - all these resistors and especially latches in the dCS have not convinced me they are truly beneficial
 
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acousticsguru

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Yup, and the MIT MA-X AES/EBU cable
Great cable, even so, 16-Bit/44kS/s RBCD straight without the Upsampler is quite a limitation (did you use the minimum-phase Filter 5 at least?). Of all conceivable comparisons, this would seem to play to the strengths of an R2R ladder DAC. Incidentally, RBCD playback is one of the Vivaldi's virtues, with the Upsampler set to double-DSD and using the latest DSD Filter 5.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 

Mikem53

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The Analog Devices AD5791 is a 20 bit DAC. One LSB error in this DAC is an error 16 times higher than a LSB in a 24 bit DAC. The excellent INL and DNL numbers as quoted in the datasheet per se are meaningless for audio and very hard to compare with the usual specifications of audio DACs. Curiously the Stereophile measurements show zero-crossing distortion.

Would we buy a streamer that would chop the four LSB's of all our hi-rez music files? I would not, but it is me.
The AD5791 used in the Yggdrasil are used in Parallel and they get 21 bit resolution. Thats what I remember reading on Head-fi from “Baldr”, Mike Moffat who goes into detail about why and how it’s done.
 
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Mikem53

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A bit more on the Yggdrasil.. some more fuel..

whereas Schitt states

"If your 24 bit recordings actually have 24 bits of resolution, we’ll eat a hat. And those "32-bit" DACs? Well, they have this measurement known as “equivalent number of bits.” This means, in English, how many bits of resolution they really have. And that number is 19.5. And 21 is better than 19.5, in all the math books we know."
 

Al M.

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Great cable, even so, 16-Bit/44kS/s RBCD straight without the Upsampler is quite a limitation (did you use the minimum-phase Filter 5 at least?). Of all conceivable comparisons, this would seem to play to the strengths of an R2R ladder DAC. Incidentally, RBCD playback is one of the Vivaldi's virtues, with the Upsampler set to double-DSD and using the latest DSD Filter 5.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

Should not a $ 35 K DAC be able to competently process RBCD also without an external upsampler, rather than experiencing "quite a limitation" without it?
 

the sound of Tao

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Is everyone comfortable thinking that the dacs featured in the last 120 or so posts really are the current state of the art in digital gear and embody its future direction.

Absolutely not disrespecting the dacs discussed lately (which clearly some are very much loving the sound of) and are fine examples of digital gear but are these the dacs really at the digital summit at this point.

The Weiss 202 was a mid tier player (in terms of the high end) nearly a decade ago with an ordinary Sabre dac chip and a none too special analogue output stage from memory. I thought of it then as being basically pleasant rather than exceptional and certainly not particularly natural (which was the most common struggle with digital up until much more recently). The 202 had the Sabre dac sound... essentially sweet but not especially spirited or musical. Not sure how the Weiss 202 a competent dac back then would be a part of a current Sota equation now within this thread.

The initially cited gear from Ron in the original post Taiko Extreme, MSB select, Lampizator Pacific all strike me as far more obviously current Sota digital contenders.

I’d even suggest that the Innous Statement may have since fallen from the mantel and been displaced by others more recently from Wadax and Pink Faun and maybe even the new gen Antipodes since Ron’s original post.
 
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morricab

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Try to explain that one to a digital audio engineer, LOL! ;)

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
It’s actually quite simple. There are some very good outboard jitter reduction devices that you can insert in the chain before the DAC that make a pretty big difference...easy A/B comparison is possible.
 
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morricab

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Is everyone comfortable thinking that the dacs featured in the last 120 or so posts really are the current state of the art in digital gear and embody its future direction.

Absolutely not disrespecting the dacs discussed lately (which clearly some are very much loving the sound of) and are fine examples of digital gear but are these the dacs really at the digital summit at this point.

The Weiss 202 was a mid tier player (in terms of the high end) nearly a decade ago with an ordinary Sabre dac chip and a none too special analogue output stage from memory. I thought of it then as being basically pleasant rather than exceptional and certainly not particularly natural (which was the most common struggle with digital up until much more recently). The 202 had the Sabre dac sound... essentially sweet but not especially spirited or musical. Not sure how the Weiss 202 a competent dac back then would be a part of a current Sota equation now within this thread.

The initially cited gear from Ron in the original post Taiko Extreme, MSB select, Lampizator Pacific all strike me as far more obviously current Sota digital contenders.

I’d even suggest that the Innous Statement may have since fallen from the mantel and been displaced by others more recently from Wadax and Pink Faun and maybe even the new gen Antipodes since Ron’s original post.
Oddly, Acousticsguru brought up the Weiss and essentially proved my point that digital measurements like the waveform plot when fed a 24 bit signal don’t mean much for sound quality. I say odd because A) He claimed that one measurement could be indicative of sound quality and B) He and micro have been arguing the obvious technical virtues of the Vivaldi (and DCS in general...RADAR! :rolleyes:) as a prime example of great measurements = great sound.
He undermines this argument by then introducing the Weiss plots!
Entertaining to set the pretzel logic at work here...
 
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Mikem53

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Is everyone comfortable thinking that the dacs featured in the last 120 or so posts really are the current state of the art in digital gear and embody its future direction.

Absolutely not disrespecting the dacs discussed lately (which clearly some are very much loving the sound of) and are fine examples of digital gear but are these the dacs really at the digital summit at this point.
The DACS being discussed and defended here may not be considered SOTA , as in using the latest technologies available. They are more evolutionary than a revolutionary. In the case of the Yggdrasil and others, they are a culmination of years based on an older proven design, proven to sound better than a DS type DAC. I consider it “SOTA” when a designer/engineer uses components designed for accuracy instead of using an off the shelf audio solution, instead using new software and methods taking advantage of the precision devices to deliver accurate sound.
I view the Porsche 911 in the same way.. An Old design constantly being tweaked and modified through the years to make the car perform like SOTA, Yet being outdated in many respects. Is that not delivering SOTA performance ?
On a personal level, I am enjoying my 16/44 redbook CD’s and highres formats thanks to an older design that has been carefully constructed to carry the original digital information intact from Beginning to end of the digital process.. whether that is considered SOTA or not, it is the process I prefer and delivers a sound I enjoy.
Much of the equipment discussed here is beyond my means and I have Not had The pleasure to experience. I have no doubt that the MSB select II DAC and others are phenomenal sounding to a level I may not be able to comprehend.
I guess some go about defining SOTA by the way it’s allowing them to enjoy digital music that doesn’t sound like 1’s and 0’s, that would be me.
 

acousticsguru

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Oddly, Acousticsguru brought up the Weiss and essentially proved my point that digital measurements like the waveform plot when fed a 24 bit signal don’t mean much for sound quality. I say odd because A) He claimed that one measurement could be indicative of sound quality and B) He and micro have been arguing the obvious technical virtues of the Vivaldi (and DCS in general...RADAR! :rolleyes:) as a prime example of great measurements = great sound.
He undermines this argument by then introducing the Weiss plots!
Entertaining to set the pretzel logic at work here...
That's because you continue to ignore what I said about the positive and negative correlation of measurements - I'm prone to give up at this point.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 

acousticsguru

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Should not a $ 35 K DAC be able to competently process RBCD also without an external upsampler, rather than experiencing "quite a limitation" without it?
It would, if they'd not taken the decision to effectively split the thing up into several boxes. That's what the combination of Vivaldi DAC, Upsampler and Clock effectively is: a DAC in three boxes, with isolated PSUs etc. The Bartok and Rossini, or even the Vivaldi One which includes an SACD transport, are one-box units that include upsampling capabilities. One may question the philosophy of splitting up the top model in four units (if one includes the transport), I've sometimes quipped they're doing it only to do cable manufacturers a favor, but whoever doesn't want to go that route but get a one-box dCS, had better get a Rossini or Bartok.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 

howiebrou

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It would, if they'd not taken the decision to effectively split the thing up into several boxes. That's what the combination of Vivaldi DAC, Upsampler and Clock effectively is: a DAC in three boxes, with isolated PSUs etc. The Bartok and Rossini, or even the Vivaldi One which includes an SACD transport, are one-box units that include upsampling capabilities. One may question the philosophy of splitting up the top model in four units (if one includes the transport), I've sometimes quipped they're doing it only to do cable manufacturers a favor, but whoever doesn't want to go that route but get a one-box dCS, had better get a Rossini or Bartok.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
What about the 6 box CH!
 

acousticsguru

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It would, if they'd not taken the decision to effectively split the thing up into several boxes. That's what the combination of Vivaldi DAC, Upsampler and Clock effectively is: a DAC in three boxes, with isolated PSUs etc. The Bartok and Rossini, or even the Vivaldi One which includes an SACD transport, are one-box units that include upsampling capabilities. One may question the philosophy of splitting up the top model in four units (if one includes the transport), I've sometimes quipped they're doing it only to do cable manufacturers a favor, but whoever doesn't want to go that route but get a one-box dCS, had better get a Rossini or Bartok.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
We need not go into a discussion as to whether upsampling per se is good or bad. I don't hear an improvement when it's done by a computer, quite on the contrary, there, it sounds artificial to me. The way I see it is it's a) a way of making the signal more palatable for certain types of DACs and not other, and b) it's apparently not as straightforward as it seems, or else all upsampling would improve the sound of digital files (which to my ears, it only does in rare exception such as this, the reason in all likelihood being jitter etc., i.e. the reason why the engineers at dCS think it had best be relegated to a separate unit).

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 

acousticsguru

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What about the 6 box CH!
See: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/state-of-the-art-digital.29583/post-691725

My two cents worth on separating PSUs etc. Leave it to the engineers to prove separate units improve matters. I could easily list reasons why it's bad idea, e.g. clocks should be physically close to whatever it is they're clocking (of course, in the SOTA DACs we're discussing they are: the external clocks are master clocks that synchronize the internal ones). In the end, one will have to listen and decide if the effort and expense is worth it. Personally, I believe it depends on the context of the system.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 

acousticsguru

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What about the 6 box CH!
People who scoff at multi-unit server/DACs tend to overlook the obvious: they have no problem adding an expensive audiophile server to their USB DAC, buy expensive USB cables etc. In our listening comparison of the different Lampizator models, for example, one of the things that struck me most is they not only thrive on, but need a dedicated server like the Lampizator Komputer. So there you have one type of multi-unit server/DAC with audiophile cable loom. Any modern dCS DAC is its own "server" (in the case of the Vivaldi, the Upsampler, which as mentioned above, is effectively an outhoused part of a server/DAC concept, is what's accessing files from external storage). Counting one fewer box(es). No use including the NAS one puts in the cellar or barn on that list, all server/DACs need access to file storage if, like me, one has nearly 20TB worth of digital files to play back.

This is particularly ironic since, adding a server and/or computer, they're adding to "computer audio" what I regard as the source of (almost) all evil they then pay top dollar to root out…

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
 
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morricab

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That's because you continue to ignore what I said about the positive and negative correlation of measurements - I'm prone to give up at this point.

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
I have ignored nothing you have said. Please show where I am ignoring what you are saying. But you essentially disproved what you wanted to say by introducing a DAC, we both consider to be far from SOTA, into the discussion. You are proving my point, which you seem not to acknowldege but said back in post 910, that this waveform measurement means nothing...as in ZERO correlation with SQ.
 

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