Post by sylvian August 26, 2015 (1 of 40)
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I recently put back the old Philips DVP9000-S (Cineos) SA-CD/DVD player into short service again in order to hear the stereo presentation of those recently released single layer SA-CDs:
As you might know, this mid-range player has been built around Cirrus Logic CS 4398 DAC which is capaple to present native DSD unlike many others competitors of that time..
I must admit that CS-4398 is subjectively warmer (= less analytical) than for example Wolfson DACs family (mind that Wolfson Scotland has been bought by Cirrus Logic in April last year).
The hint came from the information that Astell & Kern has replaced the core of their portables production line (Wolfsons WM 847x) by Cirrus Logic 4398.
I do not know if this is true but it brought me right here:
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/660326.pdf
AD 1955 is also natively capable of DSD 64 as well as DSD 128.
I own its predecessor AD 1855 in my Denon CDR-1000 (best comercially recorder ever made for RBCD and HDCD) which has great sound for old Red book specification - especially if you happen to play very good dynamic recordings through it.
My search for information about DACs used in my components brought me here:
http://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/the_complete_d_a_dac_converter_list/
Completeness of this list might be put into question, since I know of some diy converters built by local inventors. But datasheets of those comercially availabe ones speaks clearly, IMHO.
While ESS Saber family DACs are deeply analytical (which is fine for me) those older Cirrus Logic DACs are more "musical" or less analytical which is welcomed for presentation of sterile recordings - we are talking about the artificial enhancement here.
Nevertheless it is obvious that other components coupled with DACs are also very important. But first you might wish to pay attetion to DAC and its capability.
Verdict: The game of high-end is becoming more complicated because you must choose different type of machinery for different types of music. And the source of the recording is also important.... so for me it is now clear why some classical titles are better sounding when ESS Sabre is used and also why some older stereo-only recording are better throu Cirrus logic.....
I have no device available to me to organize serious measurements of the analohue signal stemming from those DACs - just ears......but I already know why there is so much dispute going on around some releases.
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Post by windhoek August 26, 2015 (2 of 40)
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Very interesting topic David and one relevant to my own situation. I used to have an OPPO 105 which had ESS Sabre DACs and as a music player, I'm afraid it didn't do it for me. It was a great gadget that do a whole load of tricks enjoyably well, but for me, stereo playback wasn't one of them, so I sold it and bought the cheaper 103D.
For the last six months or so, I've been using my Marantz NR1504 AVR as stereo and multichanel DAC and even though it as fairly cheap, it's worked well; but it's main purpose is to process multichannel audio and although I'm happy to keep it for that purpose, I'd like a dedicated stereo DAC.
If Teddy Pardo made DSD capable DACs, I'd almost certainly buy one to match my Teddy amp and Teddy phono stage, both of which I'm very satisfied with, but he doesn't. That means the Chord 2Qute DAC is in the frame. I'd consider a Chord Hugo, but apparently the Hugo works best via Optical and as my mac mini is connected to my AVR via Optical, I'd prefer a DAC that works best with USB - apparently the strength of the 2Qute.
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Post by Zammo August 26, 2015 (3 of 40)
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Extensive list on that link, though I can't see any MSB DACs listed.
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Post by sylvian August 26, 2015 (4 of 40)
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windhoek said:
Very interesting topic David and one relevant to my own situation. I used to have an OPPO 105 which had ESS Sabre DACs and as a music player, I'm afraid it didn't do it for me. It was a great gadget that do a whole load of tricks enjoyably well, but for me, stereo playback wasn't one of them, so I sold it and bought the cheaper 103D.
I am very sorry to hear that:
105 and 105 D are capable players built with intention to present recordings as they are.....certainly not through built-in headphones amp which cannot do it.
but if you connect balanced stereo outputs directly to poweramp of the good built and parts you would be surprised by its presentatuin:
My first recording put into subjective test was TELARC Sorcerer's Apprentice by Edouardo Lalo - a treat for everyone, IMHO. Second disc was DIRE STRAITS (debut) and third was back to classical Three-cornered Hat by Falla in famous Pons rendition.
So far so good.
Then came BD-As(stereo tracks of course)
Tears for Fears: Hurting
DVORAK: symphonies 6-9 (Marine ALSOP)
DEEP PURPLE: Made in Japan
They are all sterile unlively-undead. And there is no way how to get them sound better. This might be due to PCM presentation in comparison to DSD. I repeat: I have no measurement device at my disposal to do correct spectrogram from such subjective test.
I also cannot judge the way the signals are handled when switched from direct DSD to direct PCM (when there is no DSD signal available).
Then came the most recent SHM-SA-CDs:
All thre U.K. Albums
VDGG: Still Life + Godbluff
Both Penguin Cafe orchestra albums
Joaquín Rodrigo: Concierto Aranjuez (DGG stereo) not the recent Pentatone release
As I said, I was not so convinced as with the first three abovemntioned ones.
So I hooked the old Cineos from my vault to the Integra pre-amp and then to the same PA.
All of them shines through CS-4398 DAC (mind that Integra was set to direct mode as well as Phillips DVP 9000 S in order to prevent any unwanted interferrence by additional circuitry).
In the end I had returned to the first three titles from this test just to assure I have not been misled by predjudice.
I finished with Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues transcriptions for organ (Michiel Ras) which is undoubtedly originated in DSD and right after that I hooked up back to OPPO>Integra>PAs and do it again.
DSD recording of organ (which has most dynamics of all instruments) is sounding precisely the same way either through ESS Sabre or CS 4398. No wonder.
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Post by sylvian August 26, 2015 (5 of 40)
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Zammo said:
Extensive list on that link, though I can't see any MSB DACs listed.
That's why I argued its completeness :-)))
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sylvian said:
I must admit that CS-4398 is subjectively warmer (= less analytical) than for example Wolfson DACs family (mind that Wolfson Scotland has been bought by Cirrus Logic in April last year).
Since the quality of the sound produced by any player is largely the product of the analogue electronics, I'm wondering about your assertion concerning the Wolfson vs. Cirrus Logic DAC's. I have an Arcam player with the Wolfson 8741 DAC and the player sounds more warm/musical than anaytical to me.
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Post by mekduk August 27, 2015 (7 of 40)
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Touchy issue and can boil down to personal preference. Some like ladder type for PCM (Texas Instruments), some like it on CS4398 on DSD (like on Marantz KI Pearl) or Sabre DAC (good for both formats - like many DACs out there, one excellent implementation can be seen on Mytek). Some manufacturers even go proprietary like dCS and MSB. In any case, other parts of your system will play parts too.
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mekduk said:
Touchy issue and can boil down to personal preference. Some like ladder type for PCM (Texas Instruments), some like it on CS4398 on DSD (like on Marantz KI Pearl) or Sabre DAC (good for both formats - like many DACs out there, one excellent implementation can be seen on Mytek). Some manufacturers even go proprietary like dCS and MSB. In any case, other parts of your system will play parts too.
When you use a player with the DAC and analogue electronics built in, there is no way to tell the characteristics of the DAC, although you can certainly know the characteristics of the player.
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Post by sylvian August 28, 2015 (9 of 40)
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Euell Neverno said:
Since the quality of the sound produced by any player is largely the product of the analogue electronics, I'm wondering about your assertion concerning the Wolfson vs. Cirrus Logic DAC's. I have an Arcam player with the Wolfson 8741 DAC and the player sounds more warm/musical than anaytical to me.
Agree on the ciruitry followed DAC:
But you compared your WM8471 with what?? Please?
I am listening to different types of music through different types of machinery every day and I have started this thread mainly for that reason, that I was surprised by the fact that Astell & Kern start to use CS 4398 instead of WM847x,
in their products......
WM 8470 is used either in AK100 first edition as well as in Fiio X3 and they both differ slightly: I would say AK 100 has better amp but even with the latest firmware cannot handle DSD the way X3 can! SO I am using AK for PCM and X3 for DSD.
But back to Arcam: A friend of mine has used Arcam rDAC in his setup until he has been overwhelmed by the recent CASEA DAC which using AD 1955 so he decided to "upgrade" his hardware.
I do not know if the analogue part of rDAC is the same build and quality as your FMJ 37 (sheet is not available). But if you put some recently released SHM-SA-CDs into comparison with other hardware (lets say of earlier built) you will be probably surprised as I am. And maybe not.
The truth is that there is lots of ads offering Arcam devices for sell around here. And the truth is that still greater part of hi-end community prefer to employ stand alone DAC in their set-up around here.
I have been using Onkyo CS5VL which is built around WM 8470 together with Oppo BDP 83SE before I bought Oppo BDP 105 D and used it for stereo only playback of RBCD as well as Stereo only SA-CDs. I have been surprised that my old DENON CD-R 1000 have presented RBCDs with less digital grain & without glare like Onkyo has done. Of course these are mid-range hardware so one cannot expect much. I have become a slightly dissatisfied with Onkyo performance even if I tried to set different filtering (which Onkyo allows) very hard.
Since Onkyo has the headphone output (very important for night listening session) I have been also very dissatisfied of the performance in comparison with X3 portable player. So I sold it.
On the other hand: another friend of mine has sold his OPPO BDP 105EU and replace it with PD-D9-J which is built around twin WM8471s and he us very satisfied with it.
We probably cannot find the right answer why different DACs handle the same signal differently. But my preferrence will always be for neutral performance, because music matters.
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sylvian said:
Agree on the ciruitry followed DAC:
But you compared your WM8471 with what?? Please?
What I am saying is that I cannot compare the DAC to anything, because the DAC is not stand-alone. The FMJ CD37, which has now been superseded by a newer model, is not of the ilk most would classify as "analytical."
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