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In Reply to: RE: "The problem with measurements". Some thoughts .... posted by 13th Duke of Wymbourne on February 21, 2024 at 11:21:44
So, what would you think of a DAC that is perceived consistently of having a shallow or non-existent soundstage depth and/or flat imaging?
Do you say that it is your imagination (of course it is processing in your brain) and not due to some real signal effect?
Follow Ups:
Some options:
- conventional measurements cannot capture whatever recreates soundstage depth from a recording
- soundstage depth is an artifact created by less accurate reproduction
- reviewers have to find something less-than-stellar to say about a non-astronomically priced product in order to justify the astronomically priced products
- reviewers will find something critical about Chinese products (this may be more about price, see above, but maybe a little xenophobia creeps in)
- reviewers will find something critical about products that don't fit their criteria of the 'best' implementations, i.e. using opamps instead of discrete no-feedback buffers, using SMPS instead of a beefy linear supply, etc.
- If a product is perceived as having a weakness then reviewers jump on that train and never get off.My comment earlier about not measuring what goes on between the ears was about psychology - is the listener in a good mood, did the listener have a poor night's sleep, is the listener more critical in the morning, afternoon or evening, has he/she had, or not had, a shag recently, is a reviewer rushing to meet a deadline, how large is the ego of the reviewer and where does this product fit into their world view of the audio hierarchy, etc?
Why is the Topping D90 even a concern to you? Because it measures better than your own choice of DAC so you have to find something to criticize?
Edits: 02/22/24 02/22/24 02/22/24
Or, the most obvious, the reveiwers all hear the same deficiency and it is not up to them to find out the exact technical reason just what they hear.
You are also involved in this discussion so what is it to you if I critique something? Are you a Toopping D90 owner who feels burnt by my suggestions?
This is a bigger picture discussion around measurements and audibility. There are people on this forum who think if it measures perfectly, that you are truly hearing the recordings but based on my experience and hearing this just can't be true unless most recordings are truly wretched.
I also don't think you can really create things like soundstage and imaging in a recording that doesn't have the information...or at least it will sound always the same regardless of the recrording.
I have a friend who had a Topping DAC and when he heard something that sounded much better (that for sure measured worse) but was much more expensive, he still jumped on it and bought it. He was not a big spender on audio and now that DAC is comfortably the most expensive component he owns.
That is, not the soundstage dependent of room setup and speaker positioning, but that varies with as single component, which is the sort morricab is talking about.
" Soundstage depth is an artifact created by less accurate reproduction" .
Many people including me have heard the phenomenon produced by tube devices, referred to as "depth" or "image layering", (thanks to AbeCollins for the latter phrase).
I came to this conclusion over a decade ago by comparing a tube preamp with s/s preamps and passive volume control; none of the latter produced that effect.
I believe the tube-produced "depth" is an artifact created by tube distortion, possibly 2nd/3rd order distortion also responsible for tube "warmth".
Dmitri Shostakovich
That is NOT what I am talking about.
I am talking about swapping in a DAC in a system and hearing the change in soudnstage from that swap.
And how do you explain then when the same tube amp or tube DAC give DIFFERENT soundstage depth and image dimensionality with each recording? Compared with an amp or DAC that has a flat soundstage and a flat image with each recording? Which one sounds more like an artifact to you?
Even with gear that doesn't result in a totally flat soundstage and a totally flat image, if that is truncated vs. gear that results in maximum contrast in this perception...how can you say the maximally differentiated is due to "artifacts" whereas the "pure" gear is more homogenized? Doesn't make logical sense honestly.
Since the Topping D90SE has SOTA specs in terms of low distortion but has a "totally flat" soundstage, what is different about the more dimensional DAC?
A plausible conclusion is that it has something to do with distortion ... or "magic".
FWIW, my Topping D90, (original non-MQA with AKM DACs), doesn't seem to be lacking in dimensionality -- if it's on the recording.
Dmitri Shostakovich
The other Toppings I heard had flat soundstage compared to better sounding DACs, therefore, when a couple of reviewers say the soundstage is relatively flat I am inclined to believe them because of my experience with other models in their lineup and the similarity of design concept.
As I mentioned in other posts the flatness of a soundstage seems to be a function of high frequency content. If there is distortion or accentuation (some reviewers thought he D90se could be considered a bit "bright"). Loudness cues affect the perception of depth. Louder things are closer and high frequency content also drops with distance. If that is accentuated then that can truncate the soundstage and make images sound flat.
I once had a preamp for test that was a tube/mosfet hybrid. I owned an amp from this company that was also a hybrid, which had very good soundstage depth/width and solid 3d imaging (it was a very good hybrid in fact...one of the best of that type I know). The preamp, however, was FLAT, FLAT and FLAT sounding. Remove the preamp and replace it with basically anything else I had (they were all tube preamps) on hand and the depth and 3d imaging returned. The weird thing was that it sounded pretty good otherwise, but the soundstage flatness was disconcerting as it was so obvious. Finally, I concluded that there was something in the treble that was accentuating loudness (and therefore distance) cues that resulted in the unfortunate outcome. Did it have a lot more or less distortion than the other products? Probably not...but it seemed to have something in the range that regulates this perception.
So I'd suggest, (humbly), that tube DACs as a broad class are going are going to sound different for s/s DAC, (assuming both are "well-designed").
That's a generalization of course, but we do know "in general" that tubes create fewer high order harmonics and lower low order harmonics.
Dmitri Shostakovich
FETs, used more like triodes will also be able to preserve soundstage and imaging information. I just bought a Phasemation EA-220 phonostage, which is all SS. It is class A, all discrete JFETs with no added negative feedback. It sounds naturally warm and has good soundstage depth and imaging is pretty 3D...similar to a decent tube phonostage.
So, it probably measures a lot like a triode phonostage because the design concept is similar. It sounds natural, full, resolved and with good "visual" properties. Is it the best in these areas? No of course not as it is still an inexpensive product, relative to their own line and other high end gear that takes much more care with the power, circuitry and features (it has none...just MM and MC).
I have had some SS DACs that used discrete class A or literally just took the signal off the R2R chip and these, while not exactly tube like, are a far cry from the these SINAD wars DACs.
If they sound better in any way it's because of some measurable quality: what is that? (Because it's not magic.)
BTW, I'm no longer buying that negative feedback is a big bugaboo that must be avoidable at all costs.
Nothing you said so far has persuaded me that you aren't just another guy who likes tube-style distortions. Arcane technical explanations don't convince me otherwise.
Dmitri Shostakovich
They do measure differently (and depending how you use them) and morricab linked to an interesting paper somewhere in this thread about this topic.
The real question, though, is can those differences be perceived, and how, and is what is perceived as better actually better e.g. though those active devices sound nice in that topology in your listening room, would you really want them inside the airport radar that is guiding home your family from a trip or inside a medical imager looking for the source of that pain you keep having?
Those examples are completely beside the point of an audio circuit... where human perception is involved it is a far fuzzier situation.
Jason Stoddard (one of the founders of Schiit) has a good article on the subject on feedback in audio gain circuits (whether amp, preamp, or DAC, etc.) that he's posted on Head-Fi as part of his continuing series. Link below.
Bruno Putzeys' article, The F-word , see link below.
I can't penetrate all the technical info, but I've read it and understood what I've could.
Practically speaking I didn't need much more convincing than when I found my very-high feedback Purifi 1ET400A-based amp sounded better than my low-feedback Pass Labs X150.5 amp
Dmitri Shostakovich
They have different transfer functions.
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