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In Reply to: RE: Gustard X-16 DAC compared to Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 DAC posted by magiccarpetride on March 08, 2024 at 13:32:18
This is a well known artifact of ESS DACs. I heard it when I purchased a Gustard X26 Pro. Initially, I was impressed with the X26 Pros transparency, dynamics and bass response. Soon afterwards, I noticed and just couldn't get past the glare.
Out went the X26 Pro and in came the AKM based SMSL VMV D2 (not D2R). The glare was gone and I have lived happily ever since. This was the first and only time I was a member of the DAC-OF-THE-MONTH Club.
Gerry
Follow Ups:
I've come to the realization that the implementation is more of a factor than the DAC chip itself......
The Gustard X26 Pro, which I still use, has a slight "solid state" cast, but I would not associate that with the DAC chip. It's a DAC that in my particular setup has a good synergy.
I've owned several ESS DACs and a few AKM based DACs. I've had excellent and not so great sound with both. With modern DAC chips it's more about the analog stage IMHO. In the hands of a good designer either chip can result in an excellent sounding DAC. I might also speculate that some DACs are designed by engineers with digital expertise but have little experience with quality analog.
Hi Abe,
I agree with you!
I used to think AKM DAC chips had the very best sound quality of all other brands. I loved the sound of my FiiO M15 with dual AK4499EQ DAC chips. Then came the fire at the AKM factory and FiiO had to switch to ESS DACs.
When I bought the new FiiO M17 with dual ES9938PRO DAC chips I was surprised at how much better it sounded than the M15, which had been classified as FiiO's Flagship DAP. Now, I have the new FiiO Flagship, the R9, which also contains dual ES9938PRO DAC chips and it sounds even better than the M17. When I go back and listen to my M15 with its AKM DACs, it just sounds a little too smoothed out, kind of like you describe the sound of DSD.
Happy Listening!
John Elison
those models also have different op amps, power supplies and the use of higher quality caps and silver plated OFC wire in the case of the R9.
The R9 alone employs separate multiple stage power supplies for digital and analog sections like my DAC. And can run 15V from the PL50 linear.
It's interesting that RME used AKM DAC chips until the fire at the AKM factory which forced them to switch to ESS/Sabre. The chips differ in some of their capabilities but RME wrote an article to explain how they were able to make their ESS/Sabre DACs sound very much like the ones that use AKM chips.
It is my understanding that AKM has since recovered from the factory fire.
Well, it wasn't a speedy switch-over. The AKM factory fire put FiiO out of business for over six months. It took a while to redesign their digital players for ESS DACs, but they did it and their players sound better now with ESS DACs.
I thought they would go back to AKM after AKM recovered, but so far, FiiO is sticking with ESS. I still really like the sound of my old M15 'Flagship' DAP with AK4499EQ DACs, but there's no question that the new R9 'Flagship' sounds noticeably better with ES9938PRO DACs. These chips provide eight DACs per channel connected in parallel. There's absolutely no noise and the sound quality is spectacular. Moreover, the functionality of the R9 is unsurpassed. It's like a Swiss army knife. It does virtually everything digital you can imagine at a price of only $1499. And it does everything very well. It's the heart of my new digital system.
Check it out !
How do those dacs compare with the DA-3000?
Cut to razor sounding violins
The DA-3000 sounds very good, but it's not really designed for playback. The DA-3000 is a digital recorder. It's therefore very limited for playback because of its tiny display and its small plug-in memory. Consequently, it's extremely inconvenient to use as a digital audio player. However, there was a short period of time that I used it for playback until I discovered FiiO digital players. They sound just as good if not better, and they're designed for playing digital albums. The new FiiO R9 is phenomenal as a digital player.
LOL. I WAS using the DA-3000 as a player for years. These days I am feeding it with a network connection and just using it as a dac. It is phenomenal especially when you factor in its price. And its pretty flexible with its ins and outs. If I need 24/192, its ready to go.
Ugh, now I need to compare it playing the same file internally vs. through the network. And if I end up having to use that tiny screen again I will hunt you down!
Cut to razor sounding violins
Abe - Good diplomatic answer and of course you're right. If I may paraphrase a famous line "Any audio component is only as good as it's weakest (significant) link".
Still, there's a reason many people have mentioned the ESS glare. Maybe it was started by a competitor, who knows? In any case, I refuse to be burned again. Also, see my response to Mel.
Gerry
nt
Open up your mind, in pours the trash. - Meat Puppets, 1987
. . sorry, you are decades behind the times.ESS chips have been used in some of the best DACs on the planet including DACs by Ayre, Mytec, Weiss and Meridian as well as my own Musetec.
Generally speaking the digital to analog stage means far less to the sound than the I-V conversion, low pass filters, gain stage, output buffers and, of course, power supply--all of these so often done on the cheap.
After all it's the chip or the FPGA that takes the lead in the advertising. To the naive buyer, nothing else seems to matter.
Edits: 03/10/24
I will address a couple of your points:
"sorry, you are decades behind the times."
And I'm sorry you felt the need to be defensive about your expensive DAC. Decades? While it's true that the ESS glare has been discussed for a number of years, it's still being discussed. See the May, 2022 Audio Science Review of your Musetec MH-DA005 DAC (link below). Especially about the ESS IMD hump. Don't get me wrong, I'm skeptical of ASR as much as the next guy but it was a valid test result.
"ESS chips have been used in some of the best DACs on the planet including DACs by Ayre, Mytec, Weiss and Meridian as well as my own Musetec."
Funny, I wouldn't buy a DAC from any of those companies. Especially, if it used an ESS chip.
"After all it's the chip or the FPGA that takes the lead in the advertising. To the naive buyer, nothing else seems to matter."
I'm far from a naive buyer. Matter of fact, I purposely chose my SMSL VMV D2 DAC because of its design and the many high quality parts they used. Including two Noratel UK power transformers, Nichicon capacitors, etc.
I gave the Gustard X-26 Pro a shot even though I was well aware of the supposed ESS glare and knew it used the ESS 9038 Pro chip. I took Sandu of SoundNews at face value when he wrote in his March, 2021 review (again, not decades ago) of the X-26 Pro "Is this the (IN)famous ESS glare...I don't think so.". Well, I heard it and it's not something I could live with long term.
I'll summarize my feelings about ESS DAC chips - Burn me once (pun intended), shame on me...
Gerry
Me thinks thou doth protest too much!The gravemen of my post was not that you have an inferior DAC, but that the chip means far less to performance than other factors. I think you were so stunned by my first line that you didn't read that far. IMO great DACs have been made with many different chips including the chips in yours and mine.
What you would or would not buy is of no particular interest to me. I do not sell DACs.
Yes, I know Amir doesn't like my DAC. Surprise: You're not the first one to point that out, but it's always good to hear.
Amir never listened to the DAC; neither, in fact, did the fellow who sent it to him. But Amir never listens to anything. All cables sound alike. All everything sounds alike.
I care not a wit about that review. Mine is the second DAC I bought from that maker. The first cost about what yours cost and it's a very fine DAC for the money. I've been enjoying the DAC for a long while now and there's a thread with over 1000 posts on Audiogon populated with many folks VERY pleased with the DAC.
You are quite right that great parts breed a great DAC. The Musetec has, among many other superior parts an "O" ring transformer with all silver plated single crystal copper wire, GAD gold-silver foil capacitors at about $100 each, a totally separate power system for the digital side using a separate transformenr and a bank of supercapacitors, and on and on. I'm guessing the parts in a DAC costing half as much won't come close. There are reasons for paying more for a DAC, but some do balk at paying more.
There are those who have argued here that paying the amount you paid for your DAC is quite foolish when Amir has measured DACs costing far less to have at least as good stats.
The designer of the Musetec, a music lover himself. has written that he designs by ear and not by measurement. He says designing for measurement is realtively easy for an engineer like himself. At various stages he says he made changes that could improve measurements but reversed them if the sound quality, as he heard it, was not as good. Over the course of this audio hobby, and some of us have been into it for a long time, that approach to design used to be lauded. The designer has given an example in the lack of any feedback in his analog stage. A lack of feedback is often advertised, and is generally understood to yield better sound quality but poorer measurements. Typical op amp chips with feedback are thought to yield a kind of clean but sterile sound, well recognized in several popular DACs on the market at many different price points.
And, by the way, your suggestion that another inmate who likes his DAC is fooled by his expectation is an insult. An apology is warranted.
Perhaps it is you that's fooled, by your own hubris.
Edits: 03/11/24 03/12/24
It's all good Mel. This back and forth is getting too serious and this hobby is supposed to be fun.I see that you are from the NYC area (I'm also in NY State) and there are much more important things to discuss. Like Saquon going to the Eagles. Also, there's this presidential election later this year. Maybe those are things we could agree on but at another time and place.
One point only for clarification. Raingerz didn't say that he owned both the Musetec and the Gustard X26 Pro, only that he auditioned them. I see now that he does own both.
Edits: 03/12/24 03/12/24
Nt
According to my audition, the Musetec to which Mel refers sounded head and shoulders above the Gustard X26 Pro, for whatever reason.
At more than two times the price, I hope so! Also, according to ASR, unless that was a blind comparison, you may have been influenced by expectation bias . I don't necessarily agree with that, I'm just saying.
Gerry
Just to add another data point or more....I have owned a handful of ESS/Sabre based DACs and a few AKM. There are good and bad sounding DACs regardless of which chip the designer chooses to use. I'm presently enjoying my 7 year old ESS/Sabre based DAC but I have an AKM DAC in the same rack and it literally takes me a couple seconds to switch via my preamp remote. And I do switch depending on the mood I'm in. But if I owned only one of these DACs I'd be completely satisfied.
Edits: 03/11/24 03/11/24
Maybe you are easily satisfied?
"Maybe you are easily satisfied?"
More easily satisfied than some golden ears whose sole pursuit in this hobby is to dissect the music at every sitting rather than simply enjoying it.
I've owned enough gear over the years to know what satisfies me. I also learned that there is no "best".
If you think these poor sounding digital products are satisfying and allow you to listen to music...well that's great for you. For me, they are simply poor sounding and this becomes painfully obvious when confronted with better sounding ones...or LP...or live music.
"these poor sounding digital products"
That's a pretty broad brush. Certainly there are cheap and poor sounding digital products but I've heard some in the several thousand dollar range too from so-called audiophile brands.
What's interesting to me these days is I don't have to rely on over priced audiophile brands to achieve outstanding sonics. We have a lot more to choose from now if we're willing to explore beyond the brands that regularly appear in old guard audio rags. That wasn't always the case.
In addition to that infamous SABRE glare (which I can only deal with if I lower the volume), last night I realized that Gustard's presentation is leaving me unengaged. Yes, everything that is encoded in those FLAC files is there, presented in clinically clear light, but somehow it sounds lifeless.
I don't want to start audiophile jihad here, but switching back to my Dr. Feickert Analog Woodpecker turntable with Kiseki NS Blue cartridge magically brings the sound back to life! It is not even funny how much better music sounds on my turntable. What gives?
If your system profile is up to date, then its possible its the maggies. They act like radio antennas and in that regard a turntable will indeed sound better because it produces less RFI.
It could also be that the focusrite is better shielded and is missing the glare. In the planar asylum there is a "choke tweak" that might help things. And IIRC inmate scruffy battled brightness and I think the mags were the issue but that was long ago and I could be wrong.
Cut to razor sounding violins
I have had the "choke tweak" on my 1.7s since purchase in 2013. I have thought about removing the tweak to see if any difference, but in the end have always figured if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Using the ESS chip based RME ADI/2 FS as dac/pre into Purify based amp. No glare anywhere, and it will play plenty loud.
I listen at 70-80 db most of the time as it sounds great at those levels and because I like my aging ears....
Hey that is great! FWIW, knowing what that choke tweak does I wouldn't ditch it either. It seems that pro gear plays nice with the mags. RME is supposedly the dac to get in its price range.
Cut to razor sounding violins
Interesting hypothesis. I have abandoned digital playback 7 years ago because I could not stomach that hard glare. Then, on a lark, I decided few weeks back to try digital playback with my Focusrite Scarlett interface (I am using it for recording myself via a condenser mic). Lo and behold, the glare is completely gone, and the DAC sounds very pleasant.I then went for an upgrade (Gustard) but shit, the glare is now back!
So, if Maggies are the culprit, they certainly do not pose any problem to Focusrite.
Edits: 03/09/24
My focusrite am2 is clean too. I am guessing that in a studio environment they take shielding more seriously than some audiophile brands since often there is a ton more equipment around. Good thing is you do have some good sound with digital
Cut to razor sounding violins
I've owned ESS SABRE-based disc players for 13 years: first the Oppo 95 and now the 105D. While I do find the players to have "transparency, dynamics and bass response" I haven't been bothered by the reported glare. I've also had the FPGA-based PS Audio DirectStream DAC for nine years. Both sound decidedly different.
The PSA DAC has sometimes been reported to be a little polite sounding more so with the earlier operating systems but not really with the Sunlight OS. The two DACs do not sound the same for sure but I've enjoyed both.
Personal preferences, the entire playback chain, and room acoustics obviously all factor into the listener's judgment. I feel your comments were made in good faith and could indeed be why the OP felt how he did.
This is all just my 2¢ but I try to avoid making general statements because of these varying factors.
Joe
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