Seems to be a lot of confusion in the comments. IMHO he said 3 basic things. 1. They are releasing a new DAC and a new preamp in the Stellar line 2. The DAC uses one ESS Pro chip and they are paralleling the 8 channels into 2x4 3. Any DAC's sound performance depends on the power supplies, the output stage and the clock. He comments in detail about the output stage. IMHO they likely used Darren to employ some of the design chops from his phono preamp and repurpose it in the DAC output stage and in the new preamp. He described using all discrete FET design tuned by ear to be a good value proposition at the Stellar pricepoint. Time will tell how well this DAC performs. All ESS DACs have a sound signature, but can vary greatly based on these factors.
@@ryanamendt8363 I can't comment on PS Audio DACs. Never heard one. I thought the DirectStream was well regarded. But making design choices by listening is certainly the way you get from good to exceptional.
Update. I heard a DirectStream DAC driving FR20 speakers last week. The whole thing sounded quite good. At a show so in a room with noise so hard to say if it is good or exceptional. Here is a soundclip I took on my phone. ruclips.net/video/b3wLiPlUKv0/видео.html
"The measurers" love to slag on PS Audio for their DAC measurements - but just try listening to one. All of their past DACs are some the most pleasant, musical sounding DACs you will find, even the oldest and cheapest ones.
The Audio-GD H7 / H7E DAC has for a long time had eight PCM1704UK chips. Four chips for Left channel and another four chips for Right channel. "Dual Differential balanced design" AFAIK.
the problem w/ bungee cords is perturbation of the local gravity field by dense components being moved about (almost imperceptibly) when source material is played at high volume. this phenomenon is particularly noticeable when the source happens to yield incoherent gravity waves, such as discovered by Moby Grape with The Lake & (somewhat less successfully, but of greater duration) Beatles Revolution #9.
No, actually we don't use tubes on any output stage. We do use some vacuum tubes on several input stages, such as our BHK amps and preamps, but all output stages are solid state (in the MK2 DAC we transformer couple the output)..
Paul, are there any chip vendor engineering references I can read about paralleling audio DACs? The "octo" DACs I have seem and worked with are meant for 8 discrete channels. I never saw an app note about paralleling them. Would love read more about it.
Why should they when an engineer could freely decide which of those DAC instances he uses for what channel. It's also possible to use 8 DACs for e. g. 8 audio channels.
The more DACs you add to your hifi system, the better the sound. My listening room is so full of DACs I can hardly move. I am going without food to buy more.
Its not really dacs, its basically 2 dacs, each channel each DAC has 4 cores. Like a CPU, youndont really have 16 processors, you have 16 core CPU's working together.
@@tacofortgens3471 The only thing that is staving are your DAC Chips. They are staving for more company for the addition of a new Stellar Gold 8 Core chip.
I assume the output stage sums the 2x4 dacs outputs and averages the common mode noise? Isn't all the noise just adding on top of each other since the dacs reside in the same chip, creating 'higher quality' noise?
How much improvemnt to SINAD? 1 or 2db perhaps on an already minus 120db? The threshhold of hearing is minus115 db so I don't see how any improvement would be heard.
yeah some years ago we reached and surpassed the piont of human perception. any improvement in specs on paper is useless on ears. just marketing. i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer speced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen.
Several DAC chips was very common 20 years ago regarding designs based upon Wolfson chips. I think most of Arcams FMJ series CD-players and most of their DVD-players has many chips. It’s just one way of trying to build a good DAC. There are several ways of building a good DAC. Engineering is a lot about compromising between costs, technical solutions, features, different customers demand different things. PS Audio tries to make products them self would like to own with high value in most of their products. The designs and technical solutions vary. This does not mean that previous solutions was inferior in any way. Many of the most well regarded high end DACs follow in the technical footsteps of PS Audios DirectStream Ted design, with brands such as Meitner, Mola Mola and others. Chips, amount of chips or no chip at all are just a way of doing things. Other things like noice, vibration, output stage, quality of power and others can have the same or even more influence on the finished products sound / performance. Sum: It’s nice that Paul educates people. This thread do not need people that says that somethings are better than others.
Accuphase DC-1000 uses 2 ESS9038. Each one chip provides 8 parallel DAs for each channel. Thus I guess you are talking 8 channels of a 9038 chip, instead of 8 9038 chips?
Wow, not even the Chinese squeeze 4 ESS per Channel into a DAC. All I have seen so far is one per channel max. Or are we not talking about the 9038/39, which already have 8 channels on chip?
@@razisnNot sure. It is confusing. He was talking about the power supply complexity and special output stage. None of that is necessary with a standard 8 chan ESS. It is actually very easy to combine all channels as all the chinese DACs show.
@@hermannschmidt9788 Listen to what he says regarding the 'chip'... Btw not all DACs utilize all the channels of the PRO chips... but the manufacturers won't tell you that..
@@hermannschmidt9788 I would bet anything against that.. unless they're not using the PRO chips but the 2-channel mobile ones. 1 Pro vs 4 Q2M, which is the best configuration would depend on the implementation. In theory using separate chips for L/R channels can result in better crosstalk figures. In practice, it is very easy to screw it up..
Can you add a dac or two to add some warmth and liveliness to the sound? If the tech is really this great, as you say, it should be able to do that as well. You could put the vintage market out of business, if it does not cost an arm and a leg. But it probably would..
@@TheDanEdwards Can you suggest something? I'd be fine with that, except the dac filters and eq I have used cannot save a dac/amp if it is too sterile for me.
I don't understand. It's digital and thus perfect. Even Red Book is 90db S/N and you want to double that? And double it again with 4? Digital is perfect to begin with.
some years ago we reached and surpassed the piont of human perception. any improvement in specs on paper is useless on ears. just marketing. i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer specced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen... and please dont be fooled by price.
i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer speced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen.
@@endrizo I heard some well known you tubers comparing DACs from same manufacturer using 4497 and 4499 and difference due to more advanced architecture and more complex chip package was clearly heard and was significant in favour of AK4499 .
They actually it's marketing 101. 8 is a bigger number than one but the human ears no one can tell the difference. Hence countless manufacturers having one single dac chip in their dacs and they still sound fantastic.
@@Pete.across.the.street if you've been in this game long enough you know there comes a point where different components aren't going to make a difference. I have three rigs into my place and there is Sonic Bliss in all of them. No need to switch out any components. You must be one of Paul's fanboys
@@ryanschipp8513 of course you can't tell the difference if you don't even try it. What does having three systems have to do with anything? No need to be smug just because you have no intest in a product.
@@Pete.across.the.street I have 3 different dacs...one chip inside....sound glorious. No deficiencies. I don't care if Paul's dac has 16 chips per side. There comes a point where audio can't get any better. I'm calling him out.
Are you trying to be funny? As he said, it is a single chip, just w/8 discrete dac’s on the chip for 4/channel. Most chip based dac’s employ 2 chips, 1 per channel but obviously ESS has developed this new chip which Paul’s engineers are using, in part to reduce labor and materials costs for this ‘budget entry level’ offering. I’ve personally never heard an ic chip based dac worth a damn but we listen 85-90% to vinyl and tape source thus digital is very low priority.
sadly in audio markering rules.. not the ears. some years ago we reached and surpassed the piont of human perception. any improvement in specs on paper is useless on ears. just marketing. i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer specced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen... and please dont be fooled by price.
What would be the closest thing to an analog equivelent of a DAC? I know analog is different. Would it be the stylus, the cantilever, the generator, the preamp? This stuff about cd playback needing more warmth. Is it just people who've never heard a good cd player who think that?Just because a cd playback system costs 20 or 40 grand, doesn't mean it's great sounding. Design, good parts and good ears=great cd playback. I do have one tube thing in the system that I'm using now, and cd playback has no problem with warmth at all. Most solid state amplification that I've heard does sound miserly and greedy with warmth. Even more so I think, than digital. If you want to hear the most realistic reproduction of a piano including it's low registers, you might have to veer toward tubes. Of course it depends on the music. With someone like McCoy Tyner, who uses the lower register keys a lot, he sounds better on tubes. Chick Corea might sound acceptable on solid state. So what is the instrument that sounds best with tubes. Easy one!...Flute. Piano is a strong runner up.
Super side note, notice this trend with Oppo CD players? Reviewers be like” ahh, well to review these £200000 speakers, £50000 amp etc I thought why not mix it up and thrown in a £200 CD player. I mean.
IMHO the DAC creates the music from stored information and outputs a buffered analogue signal that could drive an output amp. So I'd argue the analogue equivalent is the turntable and the phono preamp. Vinyl is the storage media and it is recorded in a way that the phono preamp must decode with a RIAA circuit and amplify to be able to drive the power amp.
I have a Stellar GCD, which you have discontinued. It rtetailed under $2k. Now the next gen at more than 2x the cost? Sorry but you've priced yourself out of the "Stellar" price points. I like your stuff but not that much. You've abandoned your less financially capable customers. And don't even tell me to look at the sprout .
Don't be bitter at them just because you are poor. Lots of things cost twice what they did when the gain cell came out and most of those things haven't been improved.
some years ago we reached and surpassed the piont of human perception. any improvement in specs on paper is useless on ears. just marketing. i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer specced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen... and please dont be fooled by price.
So..All the other DAC’s you bought were never that good. ?? They were just mediocre. Your super Human hearing detected it..?? How much money did you spend for those mediocre DAC’s..? GM comes out with a new improved spark plug. Now you have to buy a new different V-8 motor for your car.. makes obvious sense. You get a half percent improvement in your gas mileage.
My thoughts exactly. It's a bunch of baloney. It's simply marketing. There are countless manufacturers using one Dac chip and they sound great. He alluded to wasteful. That's exactly what they made
Please describe your listening experience with the gear that you are knocking. What did you like? What did you dislike? How does the Stellar DAC sound, compared to the Stellar Gold DAC? Please also list the associated equipment that you used in your listening tests.
@davidfromamerica1871 will not answer questions that exposes his BS. He chooses to trash that which he never heard. @davidfromamerica1871 pokes fun at people that made purchases, when @davidfromamerica1871 never listened to those items. The reason that @davidfromamerica1871 makes fun of people and equipment, is because @davidfromamerica1871 is green with envy. Such equipment is out of @davidfromamerica1871's reach, and so @davidfromamerica1871 trashes the equipment and the people that purchased that equipment. By @davidfromamerica1871 trashing the equipment (that he never heard), he tries to convince himself that he is not missing anything. By @davidfromamerica1871 trashing the people that purchased that equipment (that he never heard), he tries to convince himself that those people are not enjoying anything that he can't enjoy. This is childish envy from a grown man. @davidfromamerica1871 is so childish, that he actually posts comments, publicly, revealing his childish envy. Think about it: @davidfromamerica1871 trashes equipment he never heard. @davidfromamerica1871 trashes people he has never met or knows. Brilliant people design and build that equipment. It takes them years to improve their products. And @davidfromamerica1871 pisses on their accomplishments. Complete strangers to @davidfromamerica1871 save their hard earned money, and one day buy that equipment, and @davidfromamerica1871 trashes them, too. @davidfromamerica1871 is an envy troll.
Interesting Paul. So all the countless manufacturers that make a Dac only uses one chip sound is just okay? I'm calling marketing BS. I have a Nuprime Dac 10 right now that I've been using for years and it sounds glorious. I detect nothing that tarnishes the sound. They use one Dac chip. Then you go on to say that it's going to sound way better than your other gear that you've sold people? So the other gear you made you purposely made it sound mediocre so that you can make something that sounds fantastic later on? We aren't stupid. There is a definitive point where Electronics get so good that there's no getting better to the human ear. In 2023 we are at that point. Now it's all in the recording itself, the speakers, and the room
Why don't you listen to it before you call BS? They didn't purposely make anything mediocre, technology advances and things become better. It has always worked that way. Maybe you are not as smart as you think if you didn't know that and really think that the Nuprime DAC 10 is better. Not that it is a bad dac, but it pales in comparison to multi chip dacs. Stop trying to delude yourself.
Some twisting of logic there by you accusing Paul of purposely making something lesser, so he he could come out with something better in the future. Do you know exactly how good of a device Paul was capable of making back then? People do learn along the way. Not wanting an argument. Actually that brings up an interesting point though. Someone who worked for a very famous audio company, years ago, said that their middle of the line integrated amp somehow sounded better than the more expensive models above it. They considered degrading it, so that anyone upgrading from the middle of the line amp to their more expensive amps would't be disappointed, feel cheated, and no longer buy from their brand.
@ryan. I am not knowledgeable enough on dacs to know if there's any gimmickry or not. Usually less is actually more, but not always. Seperate instead of integrated is often better in audio. One of PS Audio's older preamps that I had, I used with an amp that had level controls on it. Connecting the preamp to amp going through Record Out on the preamp was a leap in sound quality versus connecting the preamp via it's own output jacks. By going through record out instead, it bypassed a lot of the signal path in the preamp. It actually sounded like a whole better preamp. The preamp didn't have tone controls, so the only useful thing it bypassed was my ability to adjust balance (via the preamp).
![GEEK TIMË [OFFICIAL AUDIO]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ry-6RvkH880/mqdefault.jpg)
I do hope you know how much I enjoy these videos, thanks so, so much!
Seems to be a lot of confusion in the comments. IMHO he said 3 basic things.
1. They are releasing a new DAC and a new preamp in the Stellar line
2. The DAC uses one ESS Pro chip and they are paralleling the 8 channels into 2x4
3. Any DAC's sound performance depends on the power supplies, the output stage and the clock. He comments in detail about the output stage. IMHO they likely used Darren to employ some of the design chops from his phono preamp and repurpose it in the DAC output stage and in the new preamp. He described using all discrete FET design tuned by ear to be a good value proposition at the Stellar pricepoint. Time will tell how well this DAC performs. All ESS DACs have a sound signature, but can vary greatly based on these factors.
Tuning by ear is a joke. All previous dacs from this company have high noise and distortion.
@@ryanamendt8363 I can't comment on PS Audio DACs. Never heard one. I thought the DirectStream was well regarded. But making design choices by listening is certainly the way you get from good to exceptional.
Update. I heard a DirectStream DAC driving FR20 speakers last week. The whole thing sounded quite good. At a show so in a room with noise so hard to say if it is good or exceptional. Here is a soundclip I took on my phone.
ruclips.net/video/b3wLiPlUKv0/видео.html
I for one would love to see a technical breakdown of that bad boy, especially the output stage
Yes please, a video about the output stage and more detail on the electronics
"The measurers" love to slag on PS Audio for their DAC measurements - but just try listening to one. All of their past DACs are some the most pleasant, musical sounding DACs you will find, even the oldest and cheapest ones.
My Weiss DAC205 has 8 Delta Sigma chips (4 per channel), It's incredible!
The Audio-GD H7 / H7E DAC has for a long time had eight PCM1704UK chips. Four chips for Left channel and another four chips for Right channel. "Dual Differential balanced design" AFAIK.
Please do detailed presentation of the new products when they release.
The DAC in my CD player has quad 24-bit Burr-Brown DACs. You’re on the right track…;-)
GM ☕️Paul.
Just curious..what’s the price point for this new DAC …I’m intrigued 🧐
I prefer running DACs as monoblocks hanging from the ceiling by Bungie cords to remove vibrations.
I hope you had the presence of mind to buy Audiophile grade Bungee cords.
@@davidfromamerica1871 They were $14k/meter in their flaccid state. Does that qualify?
and always using 7 grand per meter power cables
the problem w/ bungee cords is perturbation of the local gravity field by dense components being moved about (almost imperceptibly) when source material is played at high volume. this phenomenon is particularly noticeable when the source happens to yield incoherent gravity waves, such as discovered by Moby Grape with The Lake & (somewhat less successfully, but of greater duration) Beatles Revolution #9.
@@grumpy9478 Bella Fleck with Flight of the Cosmic Hippo will cause some pretty good gravity waves.
Cant you guys make a diy project That We Could build ourselves?
The output stage is still a mystery on the Steller Gold. I could easily be wrong but the output stage on their reference DACs uses tubes.
No, actually we don't use tubes on any output stage. We do use some vacuum tubes on several input stages, such as our BHK amps and preamps, but all output stages are solid state (in the MK2 DAC we transformer couple the output)..
Excellent!
Let's hear how it's measured against
Topping D70 CL OCTO.
Be blessed, healthy, free and prosper.
Paul, are there any chip vendor engineering references I can read about paralleling audio DACs? The "octo" DACs I have seem and worked with are meant for 8 discrete channels. I never saw an app note about paralleling them. Would love read more about it.
You should ask the vendor
@@Pete.across.the.street I thought did? Isn't PS audio the vendor here? But, I will also ask some of the DAC chip manufactures engineering support.
Wouldn't the chip manufacturers integrate the paralleling up procedure into the one dac if there was any worthwhile benefit?
Why should they when an engineer could freely decide which of those DAC instances he uses for what channel. It's also possible to use 8 DACs for e. g. 8 audio channels.
You should ask the manufacturers
They did. It is one big chip with 8 separate dac “chips” inside. And they also make a smaller single version. That’s what’s in most other DAC’s. ✌️
The more DACs you add to your hifi system, the better the sound. My listening room is so full of DACs I can hardly move. I am going without food to buy more.
living is easy with eyes closed.....
@@googoo-gjoob Do you bump into walls often?
@@artyfhartie2269, nice try
Its not really dacs, its basically 2 dacs, each channel each DAC has 4 cores.
Like a CPU, youndont really have 16 processors, you have 16 core CPU's working together.
@@tacofortgens3471
The only thing that is staving are your DAC Chips. They are staving for more company for the addition of a new Stellar Gold 8 Core chip.
TDA 1543 X 8 DAC-AH NOS, ancient tech but very good.
I assume the output stage sums the 2x4 dacs outputs and averages the common mode noise? Isn't all the noise just adding on top of each other since the dacs reside in the same chip, creating 'higher quality' noise?
Why would you assume that?
@@Pete.across.the.street No reason. Double differential outputs and a summing stage is also possible but would make the circuit very complex.
Accuphase adopted that approach a long time ago.
I've watched 2099. No wait!
What happened to fpga?
Great video !
DACs they way uh huh uh huh I like it uh huh uh huh!
Maybe you come up with a Sprout Gold 😊
I thought Ted Smith was your digital guy.
How much improvemnt to SINAD?
1 or 2db perhaps on an already minus 120db?
The threshhold of hearing is minus115 db so I don't see how any improvement would be heard.
yeah some years ago we reached and surpassed the piont of human perception. any improvement in specs on paper is useless on ears. just marketing.
i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer speced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen.
To be fair, no dac by PS audio has come close to that ratio.
Several DAC chips was very common 20 years ago regarding designs based upon Wolfson chips. I think most of Arcams FMJ series CD-players and most of their DVD-players has many chips. It’s just one way of trying to build a good DAC. There are several ways of building a good DAC. Engineering is a lot about compromising between costs, technical solutions, features, different customers demand different things. PS Audio tries to make products them self would like to own with high value in most of their products. The designs and technical solutions vary. This does not mean that previous solutions was inferior in any way. Many of the most well regarded high end DACs follow in the technical footsteps of PS Audios DirectStream Ted design, with brands such as Meitner, Mola Mola and others. Chips, amount of chips or no chip at all are just a way of doing things. Other things like noice, vibration, output stage, quality of power and others can have the same or even more influence on the finished products sound / performance. Sum: It’s nice that Paul educates people. This thread do not need people that says that somethings are better than others.
No, PS Audio dacs have high levels of noise and distortion while those other brands don't. Paying four figures for that isn't value.
"This thread do not need people that says that somethings are better than others." And your statement above states WHAT EXACTLY???
Will they compensate for jitter any better?
They are all clocked together in one chip, so just one source.
Accuphase DC-1000 uses 2 ESS9038. Each one chip provides 8 parallel DAs for each channel. Thus I guess you are talking 8 channels of a 9038 chip, instead of 8 9038 chips?
It's DACs all the way down.
So you are using one ESS Pro chip which has 8 dac channels, utilising all 8 (4+4 in stereo). What's the news?
Wow, not even the Chinese squeeze 4 ESS per Channel into a DAC. All I have seen so far is one per channel max. Or are we not talking about the 9038/39, which already have 8 channels on chip?
I think they are just using one ESS PRO chip which has 8 channels. This video is a joke.
@@razisnNot sure. It is confusing. He was talking about the power supply complexity and special output stage. None of that is necessary with a standard 8 chan ESS. It is actually very easy to combine all channels as all the chinese DACs show.
@@hermannschmidt9788 Listen to what he says regarding the 'chip'... Btw not all DACs utilize all the channels of the PRO chips... but the manufacturers won't tell you that..
@@razisnI listened again and I think they are actually using 4 chips. Well, I guess we have to wait for some images of the circuit board.
@@hermannschmidt9788 I would bet anything against that.. unless they're not using the PRO chips but the 2-channel mobile ones. 1 Pro vs 4 Q2M, which is the best configuration would depend on the implementation. In theory using separate chips for L/R channels can result in better crosstalk figures. In practice, it is very easy to screw it up..
Can you add a dac or two to add some warmth and liveliness to the sound? If the tech is really this great, as you say, it should be able to do that as well. You could put the vintage market out of business, if it does not cost an arm and a leg. But it probably would..
"add some warmth and liveliness to the sound?" - DSPs can do that, though purists cringe at the idea of modifying a recording.
@@TheDanEdwards Can you suggest something? I'd be fine with that, except the dac filters and eq I have used cannot save a dac/amp if it is too sterile for me.
I don't understand. It's digital and thus perfect. Even Red Book is 90db S/N and you want to double that? And double it again with 4? Digital is perfect to begin with.
some years ago we reached and surpassed the piont of human perception. any improvement in specs on paper is useless on ears. just marketing.
i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer specced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen... and please dont be fooled by price.
Lol, he doesn't understand.
Ok….this is just like an advert.
So bad you did not decide to go with latest and by far greatest AK4499 x 2 from AKM.
It is better than any ESS ...
Wasn't it pretty much unobtainable following an incident at a chip foundry?
@@user-od9iz9cv1w AKM factory fire is long history , new AK4499 is the best sounding DAC chip now and it is obtainable for distribution.
What makes it better?
i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer speced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen.
@@endrizo I heard some well known you tubers comparing DACs from same manufacturer using 4497 and 4499 and difference due to more advanced architecture and more complex chip package was clearly heard and was significant in favour of AK4499 .
The Stellar gold dac would be the "V8" version of the Stellar series.
They actually it's marketing 101. 8 is a bigger number than one but the human ears no one can tell the difference. Hence countless manufacturers having one single dac chip in their dacs and they still sound fantastic.
You can't tell the difference, says the person that hasn't heard it yet 🙄
@@Pete.across.the.street if you've been in this game long enough you know there comes a point where different components aren't going to make a difference. I have three rigs into my place and there is Sonic Bliss in all of them. No need to switch out any components. You must be one of Paul's fanboys
@@ryanschipp8513 of course you can't tell the difference if you don't even try it. What does having three systems have to do with anything? No need to be smug just because you have no intest in a product.
@@Pete.across.the.street I have 3 different dacs...one chip inside....sound glorious. No deficiencies. I don't care if Paul's dac has 16 chips per side. There comes a point where audio can't get any better. I'm calling him out.
In audio, less seems more instead of more is more....
Friend, I am satisfied with one dac chip. Less is More 😌 Less dac chip = more better sound. More dac chip = less quality sound and lower sound stage
Are you trying to be funny?
As he said, it is a single chip, just w/8 discrete dac’s on the chip for 4/channel. Most chip based dac’s employ 2 chips, 1 per channel but obviously ESS has developed this new chip which Paul’s engineers are using, in part to reduce labor and materials costs for this ‘budget entry level’ offering.
I’ve personally never heard an ic chip based dac worth a damn but we listen 85-90% to vinyl and tape source thus digital is very low priority.
sadly in audio markering rules.. not the ears.
some years ago we reached and surpassed the piont of human perception. any improvement in specs on paper is useless on ears. just marketing.
i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer specced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen... and please dont be fooled by price.
What would be the closest thing to an analog equivelent of a DAC? I know analog is different. Would it be the stylus, the cantilever, the generator, the preamp? This stuff about cd playback needing more warmth. Is it just people who've never heard a good cd player who think that?Just because a cd playback system costs 20 or 40 grand, doesn't mean it's great sounding. Design, good parts and good ears=great cd playback. I do have one tube thing in the system that I'm using now, and cd playback has no problem with warmth at all. Most solid state amplification that I've heard does sound miserly and greedy with warmth. Even more so I think, than digital. If you want to hear the most realistic reproduction of a piano including it's low registers, you might have to veer toward tubes. Of course it depends on the music. With someone like McCoy Tyner, who uses the lower register keys a lot, he sounds better on tubes. Chick Corea might sound acceptable on solid state. So what is the instrument that sounds best with tubes. Easy one!...Flute. Piano is a strong runner up.
Analog switches with a resistor ladder is the equivalent. But that's probably not what you're looking for.
Super side note, notice this trend with Oppo CD players? Reviewers be like” ahh, well to review these £200000 speakers, £50000 amp etc I thought why not mix it up and thrown in a £200 CD player. I mean.
IMHO the DAC creates the music from stored information and outputs a buffered analogue signal that could drive an output amp. So I'd argue the analogue equivalent is the turntable and the phono preamp. Vinyl is the storage media and it is recorded in a way that the phono preamp must decode with a RIAA circuit and amplify to be able to drive the power amp.
I have a Stellar GCD, which you have discontinued. It rtetailed under $2k. Now the next gen at more than 2x the cost? Sorry but you've priced yourself out of the "Stellar" price points. I like your stuff but not that much. You've abandoned your less financially capable customers. And don't even tell me to look at the sprout .
Don't be bitter at them just because you are poor. Lots of things cost twice what they did when the gain cell came out and most of those things haven't been improved.
I do care, need video.
LOL
some years ago we reached and surpassed the piont of human perception. any improvement in specs on paper is useless on ears. just marketing.
i doubt you or anyone can hear any difference. their specs are way beyond human perception. let alone any minuscule difference between them. also sometimes a poorer specced dac sounds nicer to the ear than a champion in numbers. specs aint that important.. you have to listen... and please dont be fooled by price.
So all dacs that have came out in the past year or so all sound the same?
So..All the other DAC’s you bought were never that good. ?? They were just mediocre. Your super Human hearing detected it..?? How much money did you spend for those mediocre DAC’s..?
GM comes out with a new improved spark plug. Now you have to buy a new different V-8 motor for your car.. makes obvious sense. You get a half percent improvement in your gas mileage.
My thoughts exactly. It's a bunch of baloney. It's simply marketing. There are countless manufacturers using one Dac chip and they sound great. He alluded to wasteful. That's exactly what they made
Please describe your listening experience with the gear that you are knocking.
What did you like? What did you dislike?
How does the Stellar DAC sound, compared to the Stellar Gold DAC?
Please also list the associated equipment that you used in your listening tests.
@davidfromamerica1871 will not answer questions that exposes his BS.
He chooses to trash that which he never heard.
@davidfromamerica1871 pokes fun at people that made purchases, when @davidfromamerica1871 never listened to those items.
The reason that @davidfromamerica1871 makes fun of people and equipment, is because @davidfromamerica1871 is green with envy.
Such equipment is out of @davidfromamerica1871's reach, and so @davidfromamerica1871 trashes the equipment and the people that purchased that equipment.
By @davidfromamerica1871 trashing the equipment (that he never heard), he tries to convince himself that he is not missing anything.
By @davidfromamerica1871 trashing the people that purchased that equipment (that he never heard), he tries to convince himself that those people are not enjoying anything that he can't enjoy.
This is childish envy from a grown man.
@davidfromamerica1871 is so childish, that he actually posts comments, publicly, revealing his childish envy.
Think about it:
@davidfromamerica1871 trashes equipment he never heard.
@davidfromamerica1871 trashes people he has never met or knows.
Brilliant people design and build that equipment. It takes them years to improve their products. And @davidfromamerica1871 pisses on their accomplishments.
Complete strangers to @davidfromamerica1871 save their hard earned money, and one day buy that equipment, and @davidfromamerica1871 trashes them, too.
@davidfromamerica1871 is an envy troll.
Interesting Paul. So all the countless manufacturers that make a Dac only uses one chip sound is just okay? I'm calling marketing BS. I have a Nuprime Dac 10 right now that I've been using for years and it sounds glorious. I detect nothing that tarnishes the sound. They use one Dac chip. Then you go on to say that it's going to sound way better than your other gear that you've sold people? So the other gear you made you purposely made it sound mediocre so that you can make something that sounds fantastic later on? We aren't stupid. There is a definitive point where Electronics get so good that there's no getting better to the human ear. In 2023 we are at that point. Now it's all in the recording itself, the speakers, and the room
Why don't you listen to it before you call BS? They didn't purposely make anything mediocre, technology advances and things become better. It has always worked that way. Maybe you are not as smart as you think if you didn't know that and really think that the Nuprime DAC 10 is better. Not that it is a bad dac, but it pales in comparison to multi chip dacs. Stop trying to delude yourself.
Some twisting of logic there by you accusing Paul of purposely making something lesser, so he he could come out with something better in the future. Do you know exactly how good of a device Paul was capable of making back then? People do learn along the way. Not wanting an argument. Actually that brings up an interesting point though. Someone who worked for a very famous audio company, years ago, said that their middle of the line integrated amp somehow sounded better than the more expensive models above it. They considered degrading it, so that anyone upgrading from the middle of the line amp to their more expensive amps would't be disappointed, feel cheated, and no longer buy from their brand.
@@sidesup8286 actually my point was more of the 8 dacs in his new dac being a gimmick.
@ryan. I am not knowledgeable enough on dacs to know if there's any gimmickry or not. Usually less is actually more, but not always. Seperate instead of integrated is often better in audio. One of PS Audio's older preamps that I had, I used with an amp that had level controls on it. Connecting the preamp to amp going through Record Out on the preamp was a leap in sound quality versus connecting the preamp via it's own output jacks. By going through record out instead, it bypassed a lot of the signal path in the preamp. It actually sounded like a whole better preamp. The preamp didn't have tone controls, so the only useful thing it bypassed was my ability to adjust balance (via the preamp).
@@sidesup8286 well I have three rigs in my house. All three Dacs use one chip. They all sound phenomenal. PS audio is playing the numbers game.