True - yet, isn't the inconvenience of playing an LP an ineluctable part of its attraction?
Most vinyl-sounding DAC?
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THat ANK 5.1 looks like a pretty nice DAC...I am sure it is quite musical sounding and at least somewhat analog like.
Design wise, it is not world's apart from an Aries Cerat DAC. The same DAC chip (although AC uses multiple in parallel), tube power supply, transformer IV conversion and tube/ transformer output. Oh and no oversampling/upsampling.
If you're handy, you can listen to music digitally at a very high level for little money. If you have two left hands you pay €1000 more for finished kits.
6 – Dac’s r2r 24/96 – ANK Audio Kits
ankaudiokits.com
I like the way you approach your perceptions of digital and vinyl in the link. There are days I am happily playing digital. And others analog. I don't waste time comparing them to each other. I just play them and enjoy them both. Either work very well.
Comparing same performance on digital to analog is NLF.
Analog should be used to play analog era records, or good records if any from later era. Those who keep comparing the two media are NLF, because it means they haven’t got their heads around the recordings. If they compare a good recording from analog era and their digital sounds almost as good or better, they should get a new system because their analog is deeply being held back by the downstream.
I agree. The media is the key. I have a bunch of albums on Qobuz that I love. I have nothing bad to say about them and enjoy sitting and listening. Same for Vinyl. I have some records that sound great. I have others that would make better coasters. I play what is appropriate for the source.
how is being enamored with tube rolling any different?
i tried the Lampi and tube rolling and it was not my thing. but respect that it's a great thing to be into.
neither are bad or good.....and everyone ought to have at it. but tube rolling dwarfs format comparing as far as broad based energy committed. it's a deep hole people go to hide in. whoever dies with the most tubes wins.
just that there is not any right or wrong attached to tube preferences. mostly just encouragement. format opinions are like politics. and strong righteousness attached. "you should do this, and then that". ok.
trying to marginalize parts of the hobby is wrong thinking.
i do enjoy the nice tubes in my EMIA phono corrector. and probably have 4 or 5 dozen tubes upstairs and a new unopened tube analyzer. but don't think about them much.
still don't like your acronym.
It’s very different. It is comparing things on the same platform. Like cartridges can be compared on your TT. Valves can be compared in a phono, amp, Dac. I am not addressing the comparing hobby at all.
Comparing digital to analog with the same performance doesn’t make sense unless you are purposefully picking up a bad sounding vinyl recording. Would you do an amp compare purposefully compromising one amp?
comparing digital to analog is like comparing low watt SETs to high powered solid state amps. You cannot do it on the same speaker without compromising one oF them.
if you want to own low watt sets and high powered SS amps, you need two different systems. Digital and analog are two different systems.
if someone’s vinyl is not sounding superior to the digital, either the recordings are not good, or there is some serious flaw downstream. Not saying that means one cannot enjoy digital independently without comparing
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Maybe. I wasn't comparing amps but when I reviewed the WVL SON field-coils I used 18W SET and 110W solid state. While I preferred the sound of one combination over the other, I found no compromise in any of the components.
But I understand your broader point about same system vs different system compares. Speaker+amp is a special dependency relationship. Maybe pre+amp, not as sure there. I don't think source is in such a relationship with other components. When you talk comparing digital to analog I take that as format driving the platform.
I was not talking about the drive, but more about making conditions appropriate for a compare.
So, it is pointless to read a report that compares a 2w 45 amp with Krell on Apogee Scintilla and says I prefer Krell. Similarly, it is pointless to read a report where someone places a poor recording on the table and says the digital sounds better (or close). On the other hand, if you put a good vinyl recording on the table and it does not sound better than the digital, my suggestion is to change the system
From a technical point of view, it only makes sense to take a tube that leads to the circuit and its operating point (anode voltage and quiescent current). Only then can you achieve the lowest distortion and maximum dynamics. Otherwise you just play with different levels of distortion to create a special sound. That's why i prefer where the designer relies on a tube to get the most out of it. It's the same in the analog world. Example There is only one point at which a catridge will deliver the greatest dynamics only with the correct VTF, when the cartridge output voltage is at its highest. Whether it suits your personal taste is another matter.
So was I talking about compare conditions. I think we agree.
Sure a 1 or 4 Ohm speaker with a 2W amp is almost apriori going to be a poor match.
That's my point -- on many/most speakers there is a dependency relationship to an amp and in many cases it is fairly narrow in terms of speaker requirements, but it is not always narrow as with the SONs. You can drop in tubes with the same electrical specs into a unit to compare tubes. It is the the electrical spec equivalence that allows such a compare. But maybe you don't want to drop in a really low compliance cartridge into a really high effective mass tonearm to compare with a high compliance cartridge. Sometimes no compare is better than a mismatched compare in terms of information value.
SS DAC : Vitus MP-D201
Hans Ole Vitus designed this DAC to get LP sound from CD.
Tube DAC : Audio Note DAC5
The sound of vinyl is different to CD but what we hear from different DACs is not equal. Some DACs like Weiss Medus , dCS Vivaldi are different to some others like TAD D600, Vitus MP-D201, Audio Note DAC5. The second group are more similar to Vinyl playback.
there are many many parameters in designing DAC and I can not say what parameter make a DAC more similar to LP but my expereince shows the time domain response is one of important factors.
NOS DACs like Audio Note DAC5 have perfect time domain response without any overshoot. TAD D600 and Vitus MP-D201 both have perfect time domain response.
TAD has his own digital filter Legato Link (for best time domain response).
Vitus uses Anagram Technology for best time domain response.
Audio Note is NOS DAC without any filtering and has perfect time domain response.
Bidat use adaptive digital filtering for having both time and frequency domain response.
It seems Wadia and Playback design also have perfect time domain response.
I guess the Wadax has perfect time domain response but I am not sure. I did not have Wadax and this year Wadax will come to my showroom.
there are many many parameters in designing DAC and I can not say what parameter make a DAC more similar to LP but my expereince shows the time domain response is one of important factors.
NOS DACs like Audio Note DAC5 have perfect time domain response without any overshoot. TAD D600 and Vitus MP-D201 both have perfect time domain response.
TAD has his own digital filter Legato Link (for best time domain response).
Vitus uses Anagram Technology for best time domain response.
Audio Note is NOS DAC without any filtering and has perfect time domain response.
Bidat use adaptive digital filtering for having both time and frequency domain response.
It seems Wadia and Playback design also have perfect time domain response.
I guess the Wadax has perfect time domain response but I am not sure. I did not have Wadax and this year Wadax will come to my showroom.
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I'm afraid creating a completely analogue sounding digital front end without considering your source and network will lead to a road of expensive pain that no DAC will be able to resolve.
What streaming source and network setup do you intend to use?
Glib take: I rip all my vinyl as I play them at 192/24. Playing those digital rips gets my digital system sounding closest to vinyl 
Ok, quite a facetious comment, but this actually proves quite useful for tuning the digital side of the system, because you know what the vinyl should sound like and now you have a benchmark sound to work to playing the vinyl rips...
Ok, quite a facetious comment, but this actually proves quite useful for tuning the digital side of the system, because you know what the vinyl should sound like and now you have a benchmark sound to work to playing the vinyl rips...
I thought a Holo May KTE in NOS mode was easy enough to listen to for long periods without causing listener fatigue. While it had other sonic virtues, the lack of listener fatigue set it aside from many I’ve heard.
Conclusion and final words
To briefly conclude the differences between sharp and slow DAC filter responses:- Sharp filter; Default option because it is technically superior and one of the reasons oversampling DACs with filters are used. It measures better and requires less from the analog filter at the output, or in some cases it can be left out completely.
- Slow filter; Alternative option. Technically not as good but some claim it sounds more natural. In a way it is a step towards (backwards) NOS DAC.
- NOS DAC without any filter is technically the worst case. However, still some people like the sound of them.
DAC digital filters and their impact in time and frequency domains - nihtila.com
Many DAC chips and devices using those chip have user selectable options for digital filter response to fine-tune tonal characteristics. I will take PCM1794A used on H-DAC as an example and see what effects these filter types have on impulse and frequency responses. This is just scratching the...
nihtila.com
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