Paul, what I love so much about your channel is that you never blame a competitor (instead speaking positive about them), and how you try to take out the heat of the controversial high end discussions. Just gorgeous!
You don't have to spend a lot to have excellent sound. The diminishing return hits hard for every percent of improvement, especially in DACs. Spend your budget for the hardware according to what speakers you have or intend to get and make sure everything in the chain is decent enough to support those speakers.
@@Harald_Reindl what's wrong with you? Shall I tell you your child is not your child? 'It's my son'. 'No, it's not'. You're being so random! You are right, I totally imagined. And also my dad, when tears sprung to his eyes. You are very silly. I'm happy you are not my doctor. 'My ears are bleeding'. 'No, they are not, I can judge by my imagined truths and untruths of things which I carry with me like a dogma of thinking I'm a scientific mind, other than those silly people who actually sense and perceive things, respecting like the actual human beings and their capabilities that they are. My statistics and perceived workings of the natural world and classical mechanics are against you, even though I'm neither a scientist or an expert'
@@Robinson8491 what's wrong with you? every bet when someone swicthes stuff and you don't know you couldn't distinct it - most of the differences you audiophiles here are in your head
I got my Benchmark 2 HGC for $900 used. You probably don't need to win the lottery to be able to afford one. Lots of reviewers really like some of the Chinese DACs at the same kind of price point. I'd love to be able to try a $50k DCS, but I'm happy where I'm at. I also had an Eversolo A6 for a couple of months and I prefer my Benchmark, but some people might prefer the Eversolo. It's good.
Great explanation there Paul....It makes a lot of sense to people who at least produce or make some products for resell but its rather much difficult to explain it to anyone who has never made anything or ran a business. Because for anyone to make genuine quality products...even the raw material or parts used also must be of high quality..and they are also expensive...
+ Basic manufacturing expenses. If you bulk build 100,000 of something, it's less expensive than singularly putting together 1,000 of the same product. Parts costs rise & well as labor cost.
Gotta love you man!!! I think you are one of the coolest dude in the audiophile world. You keep your videos short and concise. He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, he is a fool-shun him; he who knows not, and knows he knows not, he is simple-teach him; he who knows, and knows not he knows, he is asleep-wake him; he who knows, and knows he knows, he is wise-follow him.
I'd used to think so, until I got my ten year old tube output stage cd player with an old DAC chip, so supposedly 'worse'. I attached cd transport first digitally to my $200 topping E30 DAC; sounded great. Then I tried the same song on the tube internal output with the old chip: BLEW MY MIND! I couldn't believe it, let my dad listen to it: he almost cried couldn't believe it, sounded so much better than his original 70's Thorens record player. He said he couldn't even remember it sounding so good. It was a world of difference: I'm a believer now
It would be a very interesting thing to do. Especially if it was done in a way where you could try a broad spectrum of music and a few hundred people so you can allow for subjectivity. I recall recently a shoot-out on another channel where rack-mount ADC Pre-Amps were put against each other; the one that won the shootout was a cheap $200 unit from Behringer, and it was put against units costing orders of magnitude more.
I have no where near any kind of golden ear but I can easily here differences between dacs despite my initial skepticism. I've only owned about 5 DACs and other than the modi2 to 3 upgrade, iv heard differences. Going from the modi 3 to the bifrost was probably the biggest difference I've heard when switching DACs
Neat video! Most affordable legitimately high end DAC I've ever found was the Bifrost by Schiit Audio at $700. Not exactly cheap but nowhere near how expensive most companies are for "high end".
It's insane the lack of empathy I see in this video's comments. If I see value on a product, whatever it may be, and I think the price asked for it is worth that value, then good for me if I can afford it. If I don't see any value to it, I can simply ignore and move on. How hard is it to understand that each individual is unique, with different tastes, needs, wants, views, etc? When you close your mind to different possibilities, your learning becomes stagnant. Don't make assumptions, especially about what concerns others than yourself, and be ready to review and rethink problems you think to be already solved.
Wellll... I'm gonna poke you and say that the gentleman's snarky smile kinda annoyed me. I'm no audiophile or engineer. And the phrase "Because it sounds better" kinda annoys me. My immediate response is "because you said so?". I am not completely sure that it sounds better. Should I feel bad if I inadvertently prefer the sound of the cheaper system?
@@user-xg6zz8qs3q Of course you shouldn't feel bad about preferring what's cheaper. That's precisely my point. Each person will be happy with different things, and fortunately in 2022 there are options out there for everybody. However, in this video (and many others in this channel), Paul expresses his opinion and explains why he creates some of the audio products the way he does. Many appreciate it, agree with him, see value in his work, and ultimately purchase PS Audio gear (or any other brand that speaks to them and is within budget). The vast majority of people I've talked to that say there's no point in buying expensive audio products have never tried them on medium to long term. Will there be exceptions? Absolutely. There's no rule set in stone dictating what you must like. I just recommend people to experience everything by themselves before passing judgment.
@@igorcosta8559 Thank you for the measured response. The sales pitch "It sounds better" raises an alarm for me. But at the same time, Paul invested a lot of money and time into his DAC. So I'm conflicted! Just imagine someone re-inventing dishsoap and charging $15 for a bottle, in a time where Dawn Ultra is readily available for $4. But the salesman tells you that it washes better and that he elaborated the recipe over decades of research. (This is basically Amway BTW). That's how I feel about Paul and his DAC. My speech would change entirely if I could sample the DAC and make up my own mind.
I believe in something that I was told, many years ago. "Audio components will improve, as the price goes up, but the improvement is not linear" Will a $100 component be twice as good as a $50 unit? Possibly. Will a $1000 component be twice as good as a $500 component? Unlikely. Will a $10,000 component be twice as good as a $5000 component. Not a chance. After an undefined point, the results may improve but not in line with the increase in price.
With the exception of some lucky rich kids, most of us might have old ears that can't hear hi-fi by the time we're comfortable enough to spend on this hobby. 😁
Hi Paul, greetings from Vancouver Canada. I recently bought a D70s by Topping and for 650 bucks US 🇺🇸 and 850 in Canada 🇨🇦 it sounds very good and analogue. The D70s also breaths life back into CD's which is awesome. Does anyone remember those? I own over a thousand. Thanks for another great video. I really enjoy them.
You are right. D70s is great, not only it measures excellent but also it sounds exceptionally good. In fact it is better sounding DAC than top PS Audio DirectStream, Denafrips Pontus, dCS Bartok and many others price no concerned DAC's. CD's sound excellent with full, dense midrange, wide and 3D soundstage, highs are precise and clean (opposed to muddy R2R DAC's) and not emphasized in any way so you miss nothing in details. That is very analog like and fluid sounding DAC that gives smile on listener's face.
It’s pretty obvious that most of the commenters hate-watch Paul’s videos. I agree that some of what Paul says is absolutely being a salesman. It’s not useful to hear him say, “Gizmo A sounds better than Gizmo B, but it’s also a lot more expensive to make” without actually giving any reasons why. I do think it’s interesting to listen to him talk about production costs so we can do our own research and make an educated decision about whether stuffing extra components into a box actually improves performance, not just increases costs. I’m definitely in the camp that most audio equipment has way more components than they need. They’re not selling better performance; instead they’re just selling more components in a box.
I started watching paul's videos a couple of years ago, when he mostly gave useful information to noobs. Since then, sadly, he's turned more and more into a snake charmer feeding scientifically illiterate audio snobs with the BS they need to justify their spending addictions to themselves.
I don't believe that Paul is telling this because he is a salesman.I am for instance gratefull of the sales of the audio store who got me buying their cables, they are just right. One must have the ability to trust people as they know what they are talking about. I don't own PS Audio gear, I'm sure Paul would understand, I like the Accuphase/Audionote type of sound, I own a pair of Parasound amps which are decent yet I describe them being 'bubble-gum soundy' in my opinion.
@@edmaster3147 With all due respect, if you don't see Paul as a salesman then you might be the mark. One need not look any further than your willingness to purchase cables (likely expensive) from a dealer you "trust." Just something to consider.
@@YuengsNwings I am objecting to the intended negativity towards 'salesman'. There are many good and helpful people out there. In a sea of disinformation (very true in audio) there are blue spots. Lots of people consider themselfes experts, yet only in promoting their views and not facts. Proffesionals in audio are hard to come by and likely to work in that industry. I'm just a fool who tries to understand his own foolishness.
" It’s not useful to hear him say, “Gizmo A sounds better than Gizmo B, but it’s also a lot more expensive to make” without actually giving any reasons why." But he did. 2:35 " has way more components than they need" For lower end stuff, maybe. But this just isn't factually true for higher end gear. "They’re not selling better performance; instead they’re just selling more components in a box." This again is factually incorrect and you are literally doing what you complained about in the first part "without actually giving any reasons why." You can easily look up the facts for high end audio equipment and prove mathmatically how one item is "better" than the other. All that said, worth is up to the person. So trying to make any arguement against worth is stupid. The metrics are there which is something most of this comment section seems to overlook and argue based on opinions which are worthless outside of their own person.
About 10 years ago, I resurrected my turntable but the problem was I didn't have a Phono Amp, so I bought one, then another - both were absolute rubbish. It took me about 2 years to design and build my own, and a great deal of that effort went into the split-rail power supply - many large electrolytics, supply regs and coil filters. Surprising though considering how little current it draws. It sounds great, plus added flavour - I made it :) All the best, Beamer.
The "problem" these days is, that you can train your ears to hearing differences, which you couldn't hear before. If people only listen to inferior audio equipment, there will never be a learning curve. Ignorance is bless with this respect, because it saves you a lot of money. Let me give this example: When I started playing electric bass, all basses sounded the same, so I bought a cheap one. Only now, 8 years later, I hear diferences between the 3 basses I own, whereby the most expensive one sounds the best, and not solely because I know it is the most expensive one. It's about details that I am able to hear now. And learned to appreciate.
For delta sigma DACs, you can get incredible performance (Topping, SMSL) for not very much money. Having said that the biggest sounding improvement to my audio setup has been the addition of a Denafrips Ares II which is an R2R dacs that has its own beefy power supply so I can definitely understand Paul’s answer having experienced the difference myself.
When you look at the innards for the Ares II the thing that catches your eyes are all those capacitors for th power supply! My conclusion is stuff like that matters. The Ares II was the biggest change to the quality of sound I was getting out of my desktop system. It was not subtle…. It was transformative!! The Ares II is around $800 DAC. My guess is that upgrading to a Denafrips Pontus II at double the price will not double the performance so a law of diminishing eventually starts to come into play as the $$ goes up.
The amount of labor it takes to develop a really good DAC or amplifier is staggering. Every step you take beyond good costs a lot of money. How many circuits did you have to build and test before you found THE ONE? Then you have to go out and see if you can source the parts you need and order all the stuff it takes to make it whole - transformers, PWB's, chassis, etc. I worked for a small power supply house where we had a dozen different products on the floor ate same time and it takes a lot of work to get what you need at the right place at the right time. If a part becomes unavailable you can't just pick up a catalog and pick out a replacement, you have to run samples through a whole battery of tests to make sure it's characteristics fit your product - the manufacturer specs do not tell the whole story, the part has to be put through it's paces to make sure it can perform to your needs.
@@net_news Nobody is saying that cheap DACs can't be good but let's not pretend they compete with DACs significantly more expensive, especially if you've not heard any yourself.
@@jasonalec6573 didn't hear 50k USD DACs because I cannot afford them. But I have tried many 2k-3k DACs (Pontus, Chord Hugo, Musician, ecc) and I can say the differences with $100-$500 DACs (and even $20 DACs like the Apple dongle) are minimal and totally exaggerated by the hype of the youtube reviewers. Digital to Analog conversion is a solved problem, any device will do it perfectly even the cheapest ones.
@@net_news Directly comparing the sound of various DACs - at least, _with legitimacy_ - requires a good amp, good speakers/headphones, and good hearing by the listener. Though, sometimes the differences are relatively easy to discern.
No matter how hard you would explain it, I still can't figure out how our dear music is being transferred from one end to another through so many components, it simply is a miracle of life to me😄🤣👌🏼✌ same for computers actually...you know.
When you know you paid US$1000s for an audio product, your brain gets convinced it sounds better. I actually did a blind test on DACs and even cheap ones can win. A DAC with a leading AKM or ESS chips with carefully designed power supply and output stage can be made for under US$100. Ripple noise on the power rail is easily reduced without the need for a heavy power supply btw.
We have a winner!🤔🤫🤭😇 And somewhere with different Technologies there might be a little bit of a difference but not as much as people make it out to be in a blind test that is.
The point is all your expensive DACs also had a cheap $5 power output. That's where the difference between a regular source and a top source comes in: amplification quality
@@Robinson8491 Amplification quality in a DAC is not much of a BOM cost. Even if you use discrete high quality transistors, the cost is a few Dollars. And analog studios mix your music with a ton of op-amps, so one of those in a DAC output is like nothing compared to how many have been used in your music already (this also includes Octave Records). Either way, your DAC output can be super high quality for US$10 or less.
Why bother with freshly made food with high-quality ingredients? For 3.99, you can have a happy meal and it will taste okay and it will fill you up. Is there any need for a $220 steak? The same principle applies. Time, effort, quality, a nice touch of markup obviously, but most importantly, dedicated and time-consuming art research and development and most importantly, small niche companies don’t have the might of juggernauts like Amazon and Apple . Why built Ferraris? isn’t a Skoda enough? does the same job ..
What's wrong with my Burr Brown Pacific Microsonics hdcd chip in my hdcd player or the dac in my Denon sacd player? Hdcd was good enough so that the Dead, Joni Mitchell, The Beach boys, Neil Young released most of their catalogues with it.
I always enjoy your explanations, Paul. But this one is not so satisfactory. Although true for the most part, I think you could do better than stating "because it sounds better". There are many reasons why hifi DACs sound better and many of them are easily explained. But as I said, I enjoy your videos very much so keep them coming. Thanks!
This is the issue. Are you willing to pay for it? He's given a great explination. The time and effort to go that bit extra is what makes the price. Your comment is more one of affordability - deminishing returns. It's down to you as a consumer whether you feel its the price for you. And if you feel you can get better in a lower price then do it. Comments lke this make no sense to me its like you are saying "I would buy your stuff, but i feel its to expensive, so I'll detail why". Its like hi end anything. Pc v consoles for instance. You can pay what? 3 grand for a pc that isn't much better than a 500 bucs console. Why is that? And why do the pc buyers defends their decision?
Same reason that there are sellers offering vintage TDA1541 DAC chips for $100 a pair, ripped from old CD players selling for $50 or less: the price is whatever the market is willing to pay. In the case of audiophiles, a small number with more money than sense are willing to pay whatever it takes for bragging rights. Recording studios, on the other hand, are real-world businesses trying to turn a profit once the bills are paid, and buy what gets the job done.
@@VideoArchiveGuy Well, duh. Of course it's "as inexpensively as possible". Anything above 24/96 is pointless, for example. The differences can't be heard. Do give some examples of studios that don't care, based no doubt on your extensive personal experience.
@@thisisnev The fact that you think anything above 24/96 is pointless tells me you haven't been listening. Perhaps YOU can't hear the differences, that doesn't mean others can't. The vast majority of studios don't care as better sounding recordings won't sell extra copies and the producers are going to brick wall compress them anyway. They USED to mind you, now not so much. Octave is of course one of the few that does.
I've not yet heared the PS Audio dacs, but I've got hours in on a Topping D10s, Schiit Modi, Schiit Bifrost, an cheaper iFi, as well as some entry to mid-level pro gear. All these solutions really are very capable, but at the end of the day the best sounding dac of the ones I've heared was the one with the dedicated linear powersupply, which also was the most expensive. I can't speak for every DAC, because I don't have meaningfull experiense with every DAC, especially with the higher end of the spectrum, as I'm focusing on the analog side, but for the most part I've had an improvement when you spend more on the gear.
It s also important how good the signal is where the DAC has to work with. I bought a Simaudio MiND 180 renderer to stream HiRes audio and that was a big improvement on the sound
@@thepuma2012 Agree, I tested my Bifrost with both optical and usb, optical was better. It didn't suprise me that there is a difference, as the dac handles usb a bit differently than optical. What suprised me was the difference between the optical out from my pc versus optical out from the topping D10s fed via usb from the same computer. I tried to keep all settings in Windows equal (sample rate, exclusive mode etc...) and still there is quite a difference... I've been told many higher end dacs have circuitry to lessen the effect of lesser sources, but here I don't have first hand experience.
@@siguz6070 you have to taken into account the different kind of usb-connection type there are. USB 1 and 2 and also synchroon and a-synch. The last form is when the dac orders the computer when to zend data. The processing is timed in the dac with its accurate clock.
A lot of that cost is because the demand for analog equipment is low. So if you want a good tube compressor, you have to drop a couple grand. Even though these circuits were perfected decades ago, there is so little demand that cost are high for a company to produce products that serve a seriously small niche. The stereo market was so healthy at one point that you could get a great consumer level system for a couple hundred bucks a component. It wasn't going to be high end gear...but it was good quality, serviceable, and sounded great by any normal measure. The market for vintage analog stereo equipment is huge because the stuff sounds great since it's all analog, and it's totally serviceable. Most consumers today don't understand the importance of a good system and speakers moving air. They think the latest earbuds are good quality audio. How many people under a certain age have never sat in the equilateral triangle of a good system? Most. Even the box stores had a listening room with systems set up, so a customer could try different speaker and component combinations. It's like record stores. We need to bring all this back. Vinyl, jukeboxes, record stores, component stereo systems, etc. We traded all that for some digital marketing campaign and left behind perfection.
Then someone brought out a stereo for a little less, and the opposition did likewise, the race to the bottom had begun, cheap crap from various sources saturated the store shelves. Everyone just got a headache, kept their money and walked away. the mighty dollar and the bean counters ruin the day again. I now walk around the shops bored to death as all the nice HiFi etc. stores have run away. There is but one name left in my area, JB-HiFi, however they now are HiFi in name only, selling white goods and bluetooth speakers. It really does evoke the saying 'The good old days'
The gap in sound quality between so called "high end" (stupid $$$) and DAC's (say up to $1k) is so tiny now that any real qualitative differences heard are more than likely to do with your range of hearing and/or your personal perception of sound.
Something I was thinking about today when recalling the early days of VHS/VCR and specifically pirated movies which were all the rage back in the early 80s. Back then it often took YEARS before movies were released into the video rental domain. Crazy when you think there was huge demand from the public to see films they'd enjoyed - or missed but heard great things about. If the studios were too stupid to make money then by hook or by crook someone was going to get a copy on tape and that tape would be re-recorded a million times across the globe. Consequently these pirated recordings were TERRIBLE quality. I remember watching ET and the picture was so bad it was almost entirely black and white with the usual interference patterns and tracking issues. And don't forget these tapes were either NTSC (terrible) PAL (better) or SECAM (better still - but nowhere near half HD). But here's the curious thing - despite the atrocious picture quality when the credits rolled on ET I still thought it was a great film. My enjoyment was not conditional on the quality. Human beings have a remarkable ability to tolerate the most godawful material if that's the absolute limit you have available. But the moment you are exposed to something better - that's when you cash out and decide what you been watching or listening to just isn't good enough.
I'm sure PS Audio puts much effort in the design worrying about every little detail, uses the best available parts and lots of 'em and the cost is fairly justified. Just remember the music you're listening to was probably recorded through a much humbler audio interface. Does it make sense to playback music on a higher quality device than it was recorded on?
I advice you to compare different CD versions. Take for example a CD from the 80s and listen to the remaster from the 90s or even better from after 2000. You will hear a lot of more detail. Hopefully you will not get one of those loudness war remasters. They sound detailed but way hash. The point is that the DAC chips they use now to transfer the analogue tape from legacy recordings is superior to what it was. New, digital recordings if done right also sound fantastic.
you really want a device making the best of every recording, strangely recordings that sound poor on a 500$ Dac could sound amazing on a 5000$ DAC (for example more complex settings where it only starts to work when the reproduction is right)....most recordings are pretty decent....
@@nikosidis but if the transfer device has amazing measurements and is high end today to copy the original master tape to digital. Why bother shelling out $1k of a high end dac? It's like the people who spend thousands on a dac to listen to poorly recorded digital music or vinyl records. You could wait for the next recording from the master tape in 10 years that'll sound even better lmao
And, of course, the profit margin on the Hyundai can be much, much lower due to volume sales. Luxury goods have to be almost all profit for the manufacturer to pay the bills and shareholders.
Excellent explanation Paul, thank you. Your explanations are always clear and understandable. Oh, and your emailed thoughts for the day are stimulating as well!
If your ears are tuned enough to actually hear it, then treat them. I personally can’t hear the difference so I settle for my UA Audio Arrow interface. I can use software to modify things to my subjective taste so it’s totally brilliant. Use it to transfer Apple Music stuff to cassette on my Nakamichi 581 and play back through my Incatech Claymore on Q Acoustic 3050 speakers. Happy camper! 🤩 Not high end hi fi by today’s standards but very pleasing to my ears all the same
It's the power supply. The transformer is always a very expensive if not the most expensive part of a dac and amp. In my experience and ymmv as there are other ways to go about designing a dac but my preferred way is to have seperated and isolated as best as possible power for the digital and analog sections. I have heard a good few and the ones I loved seemed to all have that in common. They had separate isolated power for the digital and analog sections, usually 2 transformers. And this held true for delta sigma and r2r. And it makes sense when you think about it. Electricity flows like water. The voltage is the force pushing the water, the current is the amount of water and when you multiply voltage times current you get the power measured in watts. Like flowing water, if there are bottlenecks or times where there is not enough voltage to keep the flow consistent or linear then problems occur and you hear it. The dac sounds sibilant or not smooth or too sparkly on the treble. Capacitors and mosfets are like dams that capture and release the current to smoothen things out. This may be too simple for some who are engineers and have a higher understanding far beyond me and I'm sorry as I'm not as qualified as some to talk deeper on the subject but I have to say I doubt delta sigma chip designers or r2r dac designers are idiots. The people who design those parts are all very brilliant it's just how their brilliant chips are implemented that decides the sound mainly how they power said chips. I know schiit uses a cross shunt regulated power supply with dual transformers for the digital and analog sections. The cross shunt regulated part is to stop any ripples or distortion coming through. Tl;Dr version: moar transformers moar caps
I heard that electricity travels in fields, not even through wire, yet the electrons vibrating in the wire. The flow of current possibly be better discribed as a thunder storm. I always wonder, where are the electrons coming from and going to, as windmills capture wind and not elektrons. Very confusing subject.
@@edmaster3147 This makes everything even more interesting. I did not know that. So that means tubes really are filled with electron storms so in a way the sound is kinda pure.
@@V1ralB1ack the absence of the stuff that we call air makes what we call electricity in whatever form behave different, as does surrounding a wire with for instance water. About 120 years ago, little was known about this phenonomen. So it would be foolish to think humanity knows much yet, if it ever will. I'm haveing my fun currently with the early days radio's as I know so little and figure to start where the journey begun, a hundred years ago.
@Douglas Blake I like to explore on behalf of curiousity and common belief (even the Sience-belief) has a to a firstly be weighted value. I promote this. I look for more valid concepts and look where it leads. Thing with these kind of discussions on here is there is no reference to knowledge of the participants.
Costs a lot because we don't sell that many, and we need to recover the costs from parts, research and development. That's how simple it is. If you can't mass produce stuff, it's gonna be expensive.
Substantially the price of a commodity has little to do with its actual accounting cost. The price is the amount that the buyer is willing to pay for a given commodity - it is even said: the market equilibrium price (the equilibrium between supply and demand). In other words, there are enough people who will pay such a mountain of money ...
I remember how expensive VCR's ,DVD players ,BluRay players and flat screen televisions used to be . Once the market was saturated with product the price of these components plummeted . DAC's are a niche product that only serious audiophiles consider essential . Therefore they will continue to be fairly expensive . Nevertheless , the relentless pursuit to make them mainstream will drive the price down once the larger electronic companies decide they want their share of the market . The big fish will eventually devour the smaller one . I would suggest holding off on spending exorbitant sums of money on any new electronic tech . If you want to improve your system you should invest in an upgrade elsewhere and get an inexpensive DAC for now . In a few years you should be able to get a premium DAC for a fraction of what you will spend now . If the public rejects the technology and DAC's do not become mainstream kit your losses are minimal . Let's not forget that many consumers were more than satisfied with their DVD players and did not upgrade to BluRay . The price of BluRay players plummeted . Be patient .
didnt really explain why they cost so much, just "they sound better" the comparison shouldnt be between $4000 dac and $100, or the chip cost. It should be why do $4000+ dacs cost so much vs. $700 dacs
"didnt really explain why they cost so much" - Paul very quickly, briefly, implied that they sell very few of any high end model. And that is why his DACs can't be sold as cheaply as mass market products. Spreading out the development and manufacturing costs over say 1000 units versus 100k to a million units sold is the difference between niche products and mass market products.
Thanks Paul, you justified me buying my Behringer interface. If you're chasing the gold standard, get the PS analog to digital converter. If you're living in the "that's good enough" world, get the Behringer. It's all about budgets and what level of "pure sound" you're after. Of course if you get the gold standard, you'd better have good speakers so that that "purer sound" can be realized in your listening environment. I'm counting on people using my music while they wash dishes, do general house work, drive in noisy cars, or listen through earbuds or cell phone speakers. If I had all audiophiles, and their associated systems, listening to my music, I'd have to invest in more expensive recording equipment. For what most listeners are listening through, and in what environments they are listening in, I think that the economy one will work for me, and my recordings. Thanks for the explanation, Paul. That was interesting.
I believe the PS Audio is a digital to analog converter for listening only. It isn't an analog to digital converter for recording. So that's not what you need anyway. I think the other guy is right, though. If you value your music, your art, then you should make it in the highest quality you can. I don't know what is available these days, but I have a musician friend who bought an Alesis recorder many years ago that still sounds pretty good. Not exactly professional studio quality, but better than rock bottom.
@@brianmoore581 Then judge the quality of my recording for yourself, smarty pants... hee hee. Here's a link. I don't go for the highest quality gear. I go for the highest quality of playing an instrument, writing and singing. Lots of people still listen to Robert Johnson's recordings, despite being done on wire recorders, not because of the recording gear, but because of the soulfulness. If you've got 'em, put on a pair of Sony 7506 headphones and give this a listen. Any other good quality headphones should work to show the details of the recording, too. This was recorded with Sonar Home Studio 7, with a Behringer UMC202HD interface, with a $29 GLS audio ES57 microphone on the vocals (copy of a Shure SM57) and mastered for $5,using one the auto computer mastering services, and a guitar that cost no more than $200 (same for the bass guitar.) Oh, and the computer that it was recorded on is an $88 recycled HP computer with a Duo Core processor, loaded with Windows 10, bought from Fry's Electronics (when they existed.) I'd say, now a days, recording gear is amazing for the price. th-cam.com/video/ii2J0i8BCy4/w-d-xo.html
@@brianmoore581 Here's another one Brian. When you talk about bottom of the barrel, it isn't the Midas preamps on the Behringer that is bottom of the barrel. It's the ear buds, cell phone speakers, laptop speakers, etc. that listeners listen through, that are the bottom of the barrel. If you can't record something decent with a Berhinger interface, with Midas preamps, you can't do it. It ain't the Behringer that would be the limitation. th-cam.com/video/Nr2aFJvL2YI/w-d-xo.html
He never answered the question. A conversion process is a conversion process. If you want to say a conversion process with an added amplifier is better than one without, than just say so.
This was really interesting. I looked inside my Audiolab 8000DAC. It has x3 capacitors (not as large as the ones you use). These days you can pick one up in good working order for about £250 (UK). From your explanation it would sound like an excellent mid/low budget option that would give great improvement to most people. How far it is from your own system is probably not a fair comparison. Have you ever taken a look at the 8000DAC from the 1990's ? I wonder how you think it might compare to what's on offer out there today at a similar price point.
"Why do some high end DACs cost multiple times as much as PS Audio DirectStream?" - Because they are luxury items. Same economic truth applies to watches, hand bags, eye-glasses, etc.
So much of this is subjective, I've always liked the sound of Burr Brown DAC's but they rarely measure as well as the AKG chips, which I find too bright and a touch harsh...though undoubtedly detailed Currently I'm using the ESS 9038 based DAC in my amp, despite having a couple of $4-500 stand alone units, it just sounds more anologue to me.
When one considers there's out there Turntables costing over $ 100 k, a $ 10 k DAC seems like a ...bargain! As much as I don't like to admit it, there IS a noticeable sound difference in high quality DACs. If only I could afford them... 😯😯
At least the turntable has mechanical parts - DAC with a AKM chip and you are done, no matter the price and the 100k for a turntable is also to take away money from fools
Sorry Paul, not convinced. By far the most important factors for audio quality are the loudspeakers and room acoustics. The difference between a $500 and $5000 DAC is trivial or even imaginary compared to the very real difference between two speaker models. All loudspeakers produce high levels of distortion and coloration and your money is best spent on top quality speakers that sound good to your ears.
Paul has agreed that speakers make the biggest difference already. You don't buy an expensive DAC until you have optimized your speakers and room. Once I did that the difference between a highly rated Oppo 205 player/DAC and an Audio Research DAC 8 or PS Audio DirectStream DAC is easily heard.
Rob Watts *Hold my beer* Chord have worked out how to make a dac with your handful of parts on a small board (Qutest for example) That sounds high end thats for sure. So it can be done. Just expensive.
20 something years ago I thought I was an audiophile and knew good sound. I did for what was midline audio equipment. Then I helped build a couple of money is no object recording studios. Including a Sony Oxford mixing desk and input stages which at the time were absolutely state of the art in digital recording. They had the best in vintage microphones that captured the human voice to perfection. The control room had the best in both room and near field monitors. It was as perfect as technology could make it. Then they put it in ProTools and folded, spindled, and mutilated it. The only good thing that came from it though is that I learned all the horrors of codecs, processing, and artifacts. I can listen to new music on a good system and tell you what they did to it. Only rarely these days do you get a recording that truly deserves the system worth tens of thousands of dollars. Most are mixed for iPods and sound like it. They’ve even screwed up a lot of vinyl records in the recording or mastering. But when you do get that recording done well, it sure is worth it. If you got the cash.
How can I sound better if the specs are the same ? How is 'it sounds better' proven ? Shouldn't differences be measurable ? You will need to answer this question to get me to buy your equipment.
So what if you're a regular guy with a limited budget? Is it worth spending a big chunk of your budget on a DAC or is a cheaper audio interface a way to save a few bucks without a major sacrafice in sound quality?
DACs are expensive because of the old saying. " Fools and their money are soon parted" People go nuts going digital and then spend thousands more to turn the signals back to analogue
What you never see is someone demonstrate on a scope where a $3,000 DAC does something a $200 DAC can't. It should be easy to demonstrate the frequency degradation if there is any. It's always left to some talk of fancy components and declarations of superior sound. If the difference is audible, it should be easily shown on a scope. People get influenced by pricey things. You could still build a transistor the old way and make it look impressive and very expensive, but it's not going to perform any better than an IC transistor.
This perspective becomes valid only on the day you surgically replace your ears and neurological system with a scope. People don't listen with a scope, and what shows up on a scope do not tell you how something sounds.
@@divertiti -- It's your brain, with all the psychology involved in subjective cognition, that will "tell you how something sounds." If you've plunked down four or five figures for fancy DAC, it's more than likely your brain will "tell you" that it sounds better than the less pricey DAC it replaced. When the physiological and psychological limitations of human hearing are properly taken into account, both a little $200 DAC and its big $3k counterpart are very close to perfect -- the differences are literally 90+ percent in your head and so subtle that it's nearly impossible to say which is "better." That said, it's your money, so by all means carry on -- I say put the difference in price into speakers and/or listening room treatment rather a supposedly "better" DAC, but of course YMMV.
@@editorjuno That's not remotely true, and the only people who believe this non sense and parrot it back ad nauseum are ironically the very people who have never experienced high fidelity audio in a properly setup system. It's akin to a bunch of Prius owners who have never touched a supercar confidently declaring 70mph is 70mph no matter what vehicle, it's all the same.
@@divertiti -- I was there at the very beginnings of so-called "high-end" audio -- when companies like Audio Research and Conrad Johnson were offering gear they claimed was better than McIntosh and U.S.-built Marantz -- as a professional and frequent trade show attendee, and I could smell the b00|$hit even back then. That stench hasn't relented since. Just as it was back in the day -- and now that digital media have made the then-crucial phono preamp and FM tuner obsolescent for most of us -- the real improvements in hi-fi performance continue to found in loudspeaker design/placement and listening room acoustics, not tiny differences in amplification and (most recently) DACs.
@Douglas Blake That's 100% false. Jesus christ, that's like claiming a mechanic can look at a dyno graph and tell you how it feels to drive a car. Not even close in any circumstance
Paul, none of your DACs have specs surpassing CD qualities of dynamic range. Why? Do you tune by ear to determine if the design brings out all the nuances of 24Bit Hi-Fi music?
I am not sure what you mean here. Are you referring to the DS noise spec? Because it is a DSD based output there is an element of noise from the process of DSD that is to be expected. But for equipment to measure we have the state of the art Audio Precision equipment which is the same as what any lab or reviewer might have.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio I am talking about things such as your distortion specs. Take your DirectStream DAC for instance, you spec the THD as 70dB, and we know that CD gets us information totaling at least 96dB. So is that extra 26dB+ of low-level content in the music being masked by the distortion of the DAC? I know distortion isn’t the only factor in sound quality of a DAC, but isn’t the ability to let all of the musical content thru important? Or is my understanding of distortion/noise wrong? _________ Also, I noticed your DirectStream DAC is rated at only 2.818Vrms via balanced. There are many power amps nowadays they need much more than that to get their full rated wattage (they use lower gain than THX standard 29dB in order to improve performance). So while you probably have your DACs designed to pair well with your power amps, making them better compatible with other brands would be appreciated.
My Behringer UCA222 plugged into my HP laptop connects to my Angstrom 200 connects to my Technics 300w power amp beast connects to my Martin Logan Aerius (and Scripts with Quad 100w for matrix surround on some music). And sounds really great. Has done for about 8 years. All the kit is bought used, cost less than $1500 total. And my mate who has spent upwards of $45000 over the years never gets close to the sound quality. Just saying.
I just created 320-128=192 MP3 files on the same song using my Cubase software. The difference between 320 kBit and 319 kBit is huge. The difference between 319 kBit and 318 kBit is also huge, so the difference between 320 kBit and 318 kBit is two times huge... I think I just ran out of adjectives.... I kept going in my tests down to 128 kBit, each 1 kBit difference being huge as well. So, I conclude that the difference between 320 kBit and 128 kBit is 192 times huge. The amount of detail, soundstage, imaging, etc., between each 1kBit is huge. I think I am ready to upgrade my cables to hear more huge differences :)
I don't doubt that "some" of the high end expensive DACs deliver greater sound quality. I've heard some of them, but they are simply out of my budget for a very minimal improvement in sound quality, and I consider my ears very well tuned. Overall I believe it is just because it is a specialty item. When you place that specialty label on it for example, "wedding cake”, does a wedding cake really taste better than if you use the same ingredients and bake it yourself assuming you already know how to bake? I know apples and oranges but companies tend to jack up prices when they label an item "pro" or it may cater to a certain niche audience. It doesn't mean necessarily mean that the product or service is any better. Those products are there for people who can afford and are willing to purchase them for status whether it is really worth it or not.
That is the key point. Does a DAC that costs 1000 times more than another (let's say MSB Select vs. Schiit Modi) sound 1000 times better? I think everybody would agree that the answer is an absolute "No". Like other "elites", some audiophile lives play out in the realm of diminishing returns and so far into it that people consider 10x prices for 0.1% improvements. Not for me, for sure, but to each their own...
Just like designer clothes, designer dogs, designer drugs, we also got designer circuits, all of which command a certain level of premium. Fortunately, should a poor man be bold enough, he can in fact assemble his own custom DAC @ designer quality. Quick and dirty example would be to simply grab a $20 amazon DAC, gut it, and put the PCB into a DIY enclosure, nix the wall wart, and put a nice toroid transformer & bridge rectifier into the mix. Youd be surprised to how good that can sound, seriously!
A small experiment. I've just seen a review of a 28 quid dac, that is really good apparently. Let's see how many people will be rocking a 28 quid dac in their systems (even over things like a topping). Because why send more for the same thing right??
Professional audio studio: spend most of the effort and money on room treatment, good amount on speakers and amplifiers... DACs? well.. not until you fix the basics... Audiophiles: crazy amount of money on DAC, but room treatment: well...often totally overlooked... maybe something like few thin, but good looking absorbers or something...
Let's do the testing and compare that tube DAC with a Topping DAC for linearity, sinad, dynamic range and THD. Or compare it to a latest generation mid level receiver for that matter, like the Denon X3600. The reality is that this pricey and unnecessary mess of a signal path fulfills a niche in the market for people who don't feel assured unless they spend a lot of money on every component. And of course Paul is happy to comply, as I would be also.
For price, performance and utility, I chose a Topping D70S as an alternative to the more resolving delta sigma dacs as well as the R2R dacs. It is sufficiently detailed, resolving, gives good space and stage. Not completely flat and has some depth while a bit less than R2Rs, it offers alot of options. And I got it on sale. Keces E40 Topping D70S Marantz CD6006 (used as transport) Focal 807W Blue Jeans Cables A reasonably priced, audiophile enough system that works well together for me. There are alot of choices, when you find SQ you like, journey's end...for a time at least.
This video will, already has, garner the usual complaints about high end audio products. Many people will not take the time to appreciate that high end audio is in many ways about luxury. And that luxury items are such because of the time and material used on them, which is why in high-end audio reviewers often comment on how well built a given product may be. Paul will sell his products by the hundreds, perhaps a few thousands (for his most popular products), compared to mass-market manufacturers. PS Audio tries to straddle the market between the mass-producers and the ultimate boutique makers of custom audio gear, and that includes DACs, and their prices reflect such. Sure, diminishing returns sets in very quickly with these digital to analog converters. Could a music lover spend their money elsewhere and make a bigger change in their listening experience? Of course (not the least of which is the room/building in which they listen to music.) But if someone wants to pursue the ultimate in their audio experience then who am I to tell them to settle for a $600 DAC (the sweet spot in performance/$) instead of buying the most luxuriant DAC the market can offer?
Completely agree that it is a luxory issue. If you put all that stuff and spend the time to make it work even with inferior components such as vacuum tubes, than it must cost more, even if it has objectively worse specs.
People don't realize how much R/D goes into higher end audio products. Yes, the parts are cheap, but there is a ton of research that is needed for unique internal designs. That research costs time and money.
@@nihilityjoey Exactly. Any intelligent and decent "higher-end" business wants to retain its skilled workforce (high turnover is costly) and keep them happy and healthy. Providing fair wages, and possibly other benefits, are absolutely a part of the final product costs.
The R&D done today in audio is a fraction of what was done from the 1960s to the 1980s. The difference is that it was done then by large corporations with well-funded and organised R&D departments, paid for by mass sales. It gave us digital audio, direct drive and stable electronics. Today's R&D consists of little more than tweaks to existing technology.
"we do because we do" sums it up nicely. Much like "it is what it is". Spoken by those who have nothing to add to the conversation. R&D is a tax credit to these small niche market manufacturers. It takes two years to design an input stage ... "because it sounds better" than saying "because we do". Bottom line is it hits listeners in the feels when they think they spent money on better sound. Thus the audiophile market exists.
On the pro audio world it's the difference between a Lab Gruppen Amp and a Yamaha Amp (Nothing wrong with yamaha at all) but the components in the yamaha though good are off-the-shelf parts. Lab Gruppen would use pristine top end componants probably harder to find and certainly parts which are specialized and price it acourdingly! !!!
Hmm..you started answering the question but veered away from the core part of the ask. You started to itemize the cost but once you got to the power supply (and after) you stopped giving the cost of the build. I can’t figure out how a company can ask $10,000+ for a DAC that can’t cost much more than $500 to produce. Like many things in hi-fi land the ratio of cost:quality makes little to no sense.
Paul, what I love so much about your channel is that you never blame a competitor (instead speaking positive about them), and how you try to take out the heat of the controversial high end discussions. Just gorgeous!
Thanks! Hard sometimes but hey, there's no reason to denigrate someone else. Plenty of great gear out there to play with.
You don't have to spend a lot to have excellent sound. The diminishing return hits hard for every percent of improvement, especially in DACs.
Spend your budget for the hardware according to what speakers you have or intend to get and make sure everything in the chain is decent enough to support those speakers.
Spend your money on what your ears are capable of hearing. If you can't hear the difference DON'T waste your money.
Then I guess you never really heard a good source. Can even hear the difference on my $300 vintage Kefs. World of difference
@@Robinson8491 no, you can't
@@Harald_Reindl what's wrong with you? Shall I tell you your child is not your child? 'It's my son'. 'No, it's not'. You're being so random!
You are right, I totally imagined. And also my dad, when tears sprung to his eyes. You are very silly. I'm happy you are not my doctor. 'My ears are bleeding'. 'No, they are not, I can judge by my imagined truths and untruths of things which I carry with me like a dogma of thinking I'm a scientific mind, other than those silly people who actually sense and perceive things, respecting like the actual human beings and their capabilities that they are. My statistics and perceived workings of the natural world and classical mechanics are against you, even though I'm neither a scientist or an expert'
@@Robinson8491 what's wrong with you? every bet when someone swicthes stuff and you don't know you couldn't distinct it - most of the differences you audiophiles here are in your head
When I win the lottery, I'll find out how awesome high end dacs sound like..🤣🤣🤣
Trust me, you don't want to get involved in high-end audio. You'll soon be poor again!
Do check the return policy, u might need it
And then you’ll be back on public assistance 😂😂😂
Go to a local hifi store and take a listen for yourself…
I got my Benchmark 2 HGC for $900 used. You probably don't need to win the lottery to be able to afford one. Lots of reviewers really like some of the Chinese DACs at the same kind of price point. I'd love to be able to try a $50k DCS, but I'm happy where I'm at. I also had an Eversolo A6 for a couple of months and I prefer my Benchmark, but some people might prefer the Eversolo. It's good.
Great explanation there Paul....It makes a lot of sense to people who at least produce or make some products for resell but its rather much difficult to explain it to anyone who has never made anything or ran a business. Because for anyone to make genuine quality products...even the raw material or parts used also must be of high quality..and they are also expensive...
+ Basic manufacturing expenses.
If you bulk build 100,000 of something, it's less expensive than singularly putting together 1,000 of the same product.
Parts costs rise & well as labor cost.
Of course there is a difference. It's a blessing to not hear the difference because you can save money!
Exactly. I wish i was as deaf as these people who can't hear a difference.
@@HailKingCeezer hahahahaha
Gotta love you man!!! I think you are one of the coolest dude in the audiophile world. You keep your videos short and concise. He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, he is a fool-shun him; he who knows not, and knows he knows not, he is simple-teach him; he who knows, and knows not he knows, he is asleep-wake him; he who knows, and knows he knows, he is wise-follow him.
I'd love to see a double-blind test video featuring a range of DACs. I think the results would be more evenly spread/random than you might think.
I'd used to think so, until I got my ten year old tube output stage cd player with an old DAC chip, so supposedly 'worse'. I attached cd transport first digitally to my $200 topping E30 DAC; sounded great. Then I tried the same song on the tube internal output with the old chip: BLEW MY MIND! I couldn't believe it, let my dad listen to it: he almost cried couldn't believe it, sounded so much better than his original 70's Thorens record player. He said he couldn't even remember it sounding so good. It was a world of difference: I'm a believer now
It would be a very interesting thing to do. Especially if it was done in a way where you could try a broad spectrum of music and a few hundred people so you can allow for subjectivity. I recall recently a shoot-out on another channel where rack-mount ADC Pre-Amps were put against each other; the one that won the shootout was a cheap $200 unit from Behringer, and it was put against units costing orders of magnitude more.
I have no where near any kind of golden ear but I can easily here differences between dacs despite my initial skepticism. I've only owned about 5 DACs and other than the modi2 to 3 upgrade, iv heard differences. Going from the modi 3 to the bifrost was probably the biggest difference I've heard when switching DACs
Not at all. On a resolving system, you will hear a big difference. I sold my PSA DSD DAC after acquiring my Nagra DAC, night and day,
@@Fluterra The difference is about great engineering and not the BOM cost. Excellent DACs don’t need expensive parts.
Paul, I am a huge follower of Zeos so you know my budget. I still learn something from each of your talks here. Thank you, D From Stl.
Neat video! Most affordable legitimately high end DAC I've ever found was the Bifrost by Schiit Audio at $700. Not exactly cheap but nowhere near how expensive most companies are for "high end".
It's insane the lack of empathy I see in this video's comments. If I see value on a product, whatever it may be, and I think the price asked for it is worth that value, then good for me if I can afford it. If I don't see any value to it, I can simply ignore and move on. How hard is it to understand that each individual is unique, with different tastes, needs, wants, views, etc? When you close your mind to different possibilities, your learning becomes stagnant. Don't make assumptions, especially about what concerns others than yourself, and be ready to review and rethink problems you think to be already solved.
Wellll... I'm gonna poke you and say that the gentleman's snarky smile kinda annoyed me. I'm no audiophile or engineer. And the phrase "Because it sounds better" kinda annoys me. My immediate response is "because you said so?". I am not completely sure that it sounds better. Should I feel bad if I inadvertently prefer the sound of the cheaper system?
@@user-xg6zz8qs3q if you rpefer the ound of cheaper systems then why does the price of higher end systems concern you at all?
@@user-xg6zz8qs3q Of course you shouldn't feel bad about preferring what's cheaper. That's precisely my point. Each person will be happy with different things, and fortunately in 2022 there are options out there for everybody. However, in this video (and many others in this channel), Paul expresses his opinion and explains why he creates some of the audio products the way he does. Many appreciate it, agree with him, see value in his work, and ultimately purchase PS Audio gear (or any other brand that speaks to them and is within budget). The vast majority of people I've talked to that say there's no point in buying expensive audio products have never tried them on medium to long term. Will there be exceptions? Absolutely. There's no rule set in stone dictating what you must like. I just recommend people to experience everything by themselves before passing judgment.
@@igorcosta8559 Thank you for the measured response. The sales pitch "It sounds better" raises an alarm for me. But at the same time, Paul invested a lot of money and time into his DAC. So I'm conflicted! Just imagine someone re-inventing dishsoap and charging $15 for a bottle, in a time where Dawn Ultra is readily available for $4. But the salesman tells you that it washes better and that he elaborated the recipe over decades of research. (This is basically Amway BTW). That's how I feel about Paul and his DAC. My speech would change entirely if I could sample the DAC and make up my own mind.
@@user-xg6zz8qs3q No, there is nothing wrong with that. Do you enjoy everyone's spaghetti? NO
I believe in something that I was told, many years ago. "Audio components will improve, as the price goes up, but the improvement is not linear"
Will a $100 component be twice as good as a $50 unit? Possibly. Will a $1000 component be twice as good as a $500 component? Unlikely. Will a $10,000 component be twice as good as a $5000 component. Not a chance. After an undefined point, the results may improve but not in line with the increase in price.
Because people are really gullible, that's why. True story.
With the exception of some lucky rich kids, most of us might have old ears that can't hear hi-fi by the time we're comfortable enough to spend on this hobby. 😁
Amen to that, VERY true and almost ironic
Definitely
Hi Paul, greetings from Vancouver Canada. I recently bought a D70s by Topping and for 650 bucks US 🇺🇸 and 850 in Canada 🇨🇦 it sounds very good and analogue. The D70s also breaths life back into CD's which is awesome. Does anyone remember those? I own over a thousand. Thanks for another great video. I really enjoy them.
You are right. D70s is great, not only it measures excellent but also it sounds exceptionally good. In fact it is better sounding DAC than top PS Audio DirectStream, Denafrips Pontus, dCS Bartok and many others price no concerned DAC's. CD's sound excellent with full, dense midrange, wide and 3D soundstage, highs are precise and clean (opposed to muddy R2R DAC's) and not emphasized in any way so you miss nothing in details. That is very analog like and fluid sounding DAC that gives smile on listener's face.
I think those dacs are r2r which sounds superior than standard dacs@@marcinwasilewski5414
It’s pretty obvious that most of the commenters hate-watch Paul’s videos. I agree that some of what Paul says is absolutely being a salesman. It’s not useful to hear him say, “Gizmo A sounds better than Gizmo B, but it’s also a lot more expensive to make” without actually giving any reasons why. I do think it’s interesting to listen to him talk about production costs so we can do our own research and make an educated decision about whether stuffing extra components into a box actually improves performance, not just increases costs.
I’m definitely in the camp that most audio equipment has way more components than they need. They’re not selling better performance; instead they’re just selling more components in a box.
I started watching paul's videos a couple of years ago, when he mostly gave useful information to noobs. Since then, sadly, he's turned more and more into a snake charmer feeding scientifically illiterate audio snobs with the BS they need to justify their spending addictions to themselves.
I don't believe that Paul is telling this because he is a salesman.I am for instance gratefull of the sales of the audio store who got me buying their cables, they are just right. One must have the ability to trust people as they know what they are talking about. I don't own PS Audio gear, I'm sure Paul would understand, I like the Accuphase/Audionote type of sound, I own a pair of Parasound amps which are decent yet I describe them being 'bubble-gum soundy' in my opinion.
@@edmaster3147 With all due respect, if you don't see Paul as a salesman then you might be the mark. One need not look any further than your willingness to purchase cables (likely expensive) from a dealer you "trust." Just something to consider.
@@YuengsNwings I am objecting to the intended negativity towards 'salesman'. There are many good and helpful people out there. In a sea of disinformation (very true in audio) there are blue spots. Lots of people consider themselfes experts, yet only in promoting their views and not facts. Proffesionals in audio are hard to come by and likely to work in that industry. I'm just a fool who tries to understand his own foolishness.
" It’s not useful to hear him say, “Gizmo A sounds better than Gizmo B, but it’s also a lot more expensive to make” without actually giving any reasons why."
But he did. 2:35
" has way more components than they need"
For lower end stuff, maybe. But this just isn't factually true for higher end gear.
"They’re not selling better performance; instead they’re just selling more components in a box."
This again is factually incorrect and you are literally doing what you complained about in the first part "without actually giving any reasons why." You can easily look up the facts for high end audio equipment and prove mathmatically how one item is "better" than the other.
All that said, worth is up to the person. So trying to make any arguement against worth is stupid. The metrics are there which is something most of this comment section seems to overlook and argue based on opinions which are worthless outside of their own person.
About 10 years ago, I resurrected my turntable but the problem was I didn't have a Phono Amp, so I bought one, then another - both were absolute rubbish. It took me about 2 years to design and build my own, and a great deal of that effort went into the split-rail power supply - many large electrolytics, supply regs and coil filters. Surprising though considering how little current it draws. It sounds great, plus added flavour - I made it :) All the best, Beamer.
Man this is the first time I’ve seen anyone actually answer this question. Pretty cool.
He never answered the question.
A/B test them, if they sound the same as they often do, buy the cheaper one....
The "problem" these days is, that you can train your ears to hearing differences, which you couldn't hear before. If people only listen to inferior audio equipment, there will never be a learning curve. Ignorance is bless with this respect, because it saves you a lot of money. Let me give this example: When I started playing electric bass, all basses sounded the same, so I bought a cheap one. Only now, 8 years later, I hear diferences between the 3 basses I own, whereby the most expensive one sounds the best, and not solely because I know it is the most expensive one. It's about details that I am able to hear now. And learned to appreciate.
Yes, a DAC doesn’t need to cost much to sound awesome.
@@polarbear3427
That's a very good observation and probably even trickles down to this situation discussed here!
For delta sigma DACs, you can get incredible performance (Topping, SMSL) for not very much money. Having said that the biggest sounding improvement to my audio setup has been the addition of a Denafrips Ares II which is an R2R dacs that has its own beefy power supply so I can definitely understand Paul’s answer having experienced the difference myself.
Just watch out. You'll have someone come tell you you are not really hearing what you think.
@@nihilityjoey Yeah, they’ll say “don’t you believe your lying ears.”
@@user181 No, they'll say "Don't believe your confirmation bias."
@@thisisnev conformational bias only applies to those with something to gain.
When you look at the innards for the Ares II the thing that catches your eyes are all those capacitors for th power supply! My conclusion is stuff like that matters. The Ares II was the biggest change to the quality of sound I was getting out of my desktop system. It was not subtle…. It was transformative!! The Ares II is around $800 DAC. My guess is that upgrading to a Denafrips Pontus II at double the price will not double the performance so a law of diminishing eventually starts to come into play as the $$ goes up.
The amount of labor it takes to develop a really good DAC or amplifier is staggering. Every step you take beyond good costs a lot of money. How many circuits did you have to build and test before you found THE ONE? Then you have to go out and see if you can source the parts you need and order all the stuff it takes to make it whole - transformers, PWB's, chassis, etc.
I worked for a small power supply house where we had a dozen different products on the floor ate same time and it takes a lot of work to get what you need at the right place at the right time. If a part becomes unavailable you can't just pick up a catalog and pick out a replacement, you have to run samples through a whole battery of tests to make sure it's characteristics fit your product - the manufacturer specs do not tell the whole story, the part has to be put through it's paces to make sure it can perform to your needs.
if that's true, no $100 would be possible. And there are plenty of $100 DACs, even $20 DACs like the Apple dongle. And they are incredible good.
@@net_news Nobody is saying that cheap DACs can't be good but let's not pretend they compete with DACs significantly more expensive, especially if you've not heard any yourself.
@@jasonalec6573 didn't hear 50k USD DACs because I cannot afford them. But I have tried many 2k-3k DACs (Pontus, Chord Hugo, Musician, ecc) and I can say the differences with $100-$500 DACs (and even $20 DACs like the Apple dongle) are minimal and totally exaggerated by the hype of the youtube reviewers.
Digital to Analog conversion is a solved problem, any device will do it perfectly even the cheapest ones.
@@net_news Directly comparing the sound of various DACs - at least, _with legitimacy_ - requires a good amp, good speakers/headphones, and good hearing by the listener. Though, sometimes the differences are relatively easy to discern.
@@net_news I'm glad someone else gets it too. The reality is you can get state of the art DACs for $100. Schiit and Topping come to mind.
Excellent question /AND (as always) corresponding answer. I also had THAT exact question. Thank you Paul. 💥
Love your channel. Thank you for such a great answer
from that you can clearly see your genuine desire to produce not just Great But Great sounding products.
You have to love honesty ! And someone has to pay for current and future R&D !
Good answer Paul.
No matter how hard you would explain it, I still can't figure out how our dear music is being transferred from one end to another through so many components, it simply is a miracle of life to me😄🤣👌🏼✌ same for computers actually...you know.
i have 2 of the 8 channel focusrite saffires, this video is exactly for me, thank you paul
When you know you paid US$1000s for an audio product, your brain gets convinced it sounds better. I actually did a blind test on DACs and even cheap ones can win. A DAC with a leading AKM or ESS chips with carefully designed power supply and output stage can be made for under US$100. Ripple noise on the power rail is easily reduced without the need for a heavy power supply btw.
We have a winner!🤔🤫🤭😇 And somewhere with different Technologies there might be a little bit of a difference but not as much as people make it out to be in a blind test that is.
The point is all your expensive DACs also had a cheap $5 power output. That's where the difference between a regular source and a top source comes in: amplification quality
@@Robinson8491 Amplification quality in a DAC is not much of a BOM cost. Even if you use discrete high quality transistors, the cost is a few Dollars. And analog studios mix your music with a ton of op-amps, so one of those in a DAC output is like nothing compared to how many have been used in your music already (this also includes Octave Records). Either way, your DAC output can be super high quality for US$10 or less.
@@ThinkingBetter You are absolutely right. In fact, modern op-amps are a lot more transparent than almost any discrete solution out there.
For most people, 100 bucks DAC might be good enough. But if you want the most perfect analogy output, 1000 dollars DAC is what you go for.
Why bother with freshly made food with high-quality ingredients? For 3.99, you can have a happy meal and it will taste okay and it will fill you up.
Is there any need for a $220 steak? The same principle applies.
Time, effort, quality, a nice touch of markup obviously, but most importantly, dedicated and time-consuming art research and development and most importantly, small niche companies don’t have the might of juggernauts like Amazon and Apple .
Why built Ferraris? isn’t a Skoda enough? does the same job ..
Happy meals are not $3.99 that’s for sure. Lol.
Because Executives of High End DAC companies drive to work Teslas not KIA's . :-) :-) :-)
My Kia costs more than a Tesla, but I understand your comment was ceo specific.
Not that people who work hard don't deserve nice stuff but that was still funny.🤣🤣🤔🤫
I 'hear' KEF speakers sound like doo, doo. ;-)
What's wrong with my Burr Brown Pacific Microsonics hdcd chip in my hdcd player or the dac in my Denon sacd player? Hdcd was good enough so that the Dead, Joni Mitchell, The Beach boys, Neil Young released most of their catalogues with it.
I always enjoy your explanations, Paul. But this one is not so satisfactory. Although true for the most part, I think you could do better than stating "because it sounds better". There are many reasons why hifi DACs sound better and many of them are easily explained. But as I said, I enjoy your videos very much so keep them coming. Thanks!
The old saying that it sounds better is just like somebody saying that person is nicer than the other person. I mean what does that really signify?🙄
This is the issue. Are you willing to pay for it? He's given a great explination. The time and effort to go that bit extra is what makes the price. Your comment is more one of affordability - deminishing returns. It's down to you as a consumer whether you feel its the price for you. And if you feel you can get better in a lower price then do it. Comments lke this make no sense to me its like you are saying "I would buy your stuff, but i feel its to expensive, so I'll detail why". Its like hi end anything. Pc v consoles for instance. You can pay what? 3 grand for a pc that isn't much better than a 500 bucs console. Why is that? And why do the pc buyers defends their decision?
I was about to say the exact same thing. Thanks for pointing it out first. 👍
Wonderfully warm video that is also informative. Congrats!
Thank you, Peter. This comment really brightened my day.
Same reason that there are sellers offering vintage TDA1541 DAC chips for $100 a pair, ripped from old CD players selling for $50 or less: the price is whatever the market is willing to pay. In the case of audiophiles, a small number with more money than sense are willing to pay whatever it takes for bragging rights. Recording studios, on the other hand, are real-world businesses trying to turn a profit once the bills are paid, and buy what gets the job done.
"What gets the job done" is too often as inexpensively as possible.
Some studios care; many do not.
@@VideoArchiveGuy Well, duh. Of course it's "as inexpensively as possible". Anything above 24/96 is pointless, for example. The differences can't be heard.
Do give some examples of studios that don't care, based no doubt on your extensive personal experience.
@@thisisnev The fact that you think anything above 24/96 is pointless tells me you haven't been listening. Perhaps YOU can't hear the differences, that doesn't mean others can't.
The vast majority of studios don't care as better sounding recordings won't sell extra copies and the producers are going to brick wall compress them anyway.
They USED to mind you, now not so much.
Octave is of course one of the few that does.
Good thing modern electrolytes are more durable than vintage ones. I would not want to re-cap that.
Are they, though? We won't know this for sure for a few decades yet!
I've not yet heared the PS Audio dacs, but I've got hours in on a Topping D10s, Schiit Modi, Schiit Bifrost, an cheaper iFi, as well as some entry to mid-level pro gear. All these solutions really are very capable, but at the end of the day the best sounding dac of the ones I've heared was the one with the dedicated linear powersupply, which also was the most expensive.
I can't speak for every DAC, because I don't have meaningfull experiense with every DAC, especially with the higher end of the spectrum, as I'm focusing on the analog side, but for the most part I've had an improvement when you spend more on the gear.
It s also important how good the signal is where the DAC has to work with. I bought a Simaudio MiND 180 renderer to stream HiRes audio and that was a big improvement on the sound
@@thepuma2012 Agree, I tested my Bifrost with both optical and usb, optical was better. It didn't suprise me that there is a difference, as the dac handles usb a bit differently than optical. What suprised me was the difference between the optical out from my pc versus optical out from the topping D10s fed via usb from the same computer. I tried to keep all settings in Windows equal (sample rate, exclusive mode etc...) and still there is quite a difference... I've been told many higher end dacs have circuitry to lessen the effect of lesser sources, but here I don't have first hand experience.
@@siguz6070 you have to taken into account the different kind of usb-connection type there are. USB 1 and 2 and also synchroon and a-synch. The last form is when the dac orders the computer when to zend data. The processing is timed in the dac with its accurate clock.
Thanks.
A lot of that cost is because the demand for analog equipment is low. So if you want a good tube compressor, you have to drop a couple grand. Even though these circuits were perfected decades ago, there is so little demand that cost are high for a company to produce products that serve a seriously small niche. The stereo market was so healthy at one point that you could get a great consumer level system for a couple hundred bucks a component. It wasn't going to be high end gear...but it was good quality, serviceable, and sounded great by any normal measure. The market for vintage analog stereo equipment is huge because the stuff sounds great since it's all analog, and it's totally serviceable.
Most consumers today don't understand the importance of a good system and speakers moving air. They think the latest earbuds are good quality audio. How many people under a certain age have never sat in the equilateral triangle of a good system? Most. Even the box stores had a listening room with systems set up, so a customer could try different speaker and component combinations. It's like record stores. We need to bring all this back. Vinyl, jukeboxes, record stores, component stereo systems, etc. We traded all that for some digital marketing campaign and left behind perfection.
Then someone brought out a stereo for a little less, and the opposition did likewise, the race to the bottom had begun, cheap crap from various sources saturated the store shelves. Everyone just got a headache, kept their money and walked away. the mighty dollar and the bean counters ruin the day again.
I now walk around the shops bored to death as all the nice HiFi etc. stores have run away. There is but one name left in my area, JB-HiFi, however they now are HiFi in name only, selling white goods and bluetooth speakers.
It really does evoke the saying 'The good old days'
The gap in sound quality between so called "high end" (stupid $$$) and DAC's (say up to $1k) is so tiny now that any real qualitative differences heard are more than likely to do with your range of hearing and/or your personal perception of sound.
typical assertion.
Paul you skirted around the question.
For comparison a new Ferrari for a high end DAC?
Reconcile that please.
Something I was thinking about today when recalling the early days of VHS/VCR and specifically pirated movies which were all the rage back in the early 80s. Back then it often took YEARS before movies were released into the video rental domain. Crazy when you think there was huge demand from the public to see films they'd enjoyed - or missed but heard great things about. If the studios were too stupid to make money then by hook or by crook someone was going to get a copy on tape and that tape would be re-recorded a million times across the globe. Consequently these pirated recordings were TERRIBLE quality. I remember watching ET and the picture was so bad it was almost entirely black and white with the usual interference patterns and tracking issues. And don't forget these tapes were either NTSC (terrible) PAL (better) or SECAM (better still - but nowhere near half HD). But here's the curious thing - despite the atrocious picture quality when the credits rolled on ET I still thought it was a great film. My enjoyment was not conditional on the quality. Human beings have a remarkable ability to tolerate the most godawful material if that's the absolute limit you have available. But the moment you are exposed to something better - that's when you cash out and decide what you been watching or listening to just isn't good enough.
I'm sure PS Audio puts much effort in the design worrying about every little detail, uses the best available parts and lots of 'em and the cost is fairly justified. Just remember the music you're listening to was probably recorded through a much humbler audio interface. Does it make sense to playback music on a higher quality device than it was recorded on?
I've used this argument many times and I get a bunch of nonsense back in return from Audio pro's.🤔🤫😇
Listen to what makes you happy whether that be a $100 or $10,000 DAC.
I advice you to compare different CD versions. Take for example a CD from the 80s and listen to the remaster from the 90s or even better from after 2000. You will hear a lot of more detail. Hopefully you will not get one of those loudness war remasters. They sound detailed but way hash. The point is that the DAC chips they use now to transfer the analogue tape from legacy recordings is superior to what it was. New, digital recordings if done right also sound fantastic.
you really want a device making the best of every recording, strangely recordings that sound poor on a 500$ Dac could sound amazing on a 5000$ DAC (for example more complex settings where it only starts to work when the reproduction is right)....most recordings are pretty decent....
@@nikosidis but if the transfer device has amazing measurements and is high end today to copy the original master tape to digital. Why bother shelling out $1k of a high end dac?
It's like the people who spend thousands on a dac to listen to poorly recorded digital music or vinyl records.
You could wait for the next recording from the master tape in 10 years that'll sound even better lmao
The difference in price is like why a Bugatti costs millions and a Hyundai is around twenty thousand, it's how and what it's made from.
And, of course, the profit margin on the Hyundai can be much, much lower due to volume sales. Luxury goods have to be almost all profit for the manufacturer to pay the bills and shareholders.
Excellent explanation Paul, thank you. Your explanations are always clear and understandable. Oh, and your emailed thoughts for the day are stimulating as well!
If your ears are tuned enough to actually hear it, then treat them. I personally can’t hear the difference so I settle for my UA Audio Arrow interface. I can use software to modify things to my subjective taste so it’s totally brilliant. Use it to transfer Apple Music stuff to cassette on my Nakamichi 581 and play back through my Incatech Claymore on Q Acoustic 3050 speakers. Happy camper! 🤩 Not high end hi fi by today’s standards but very pleasing to my ears all the same
It's the power supply. The transformer is always a very expensive if not the most expensive part of a dac and amp. In my experience and ymmv as there are other ways to go about designing a dac but my preferred way is to have seperated and isolated as best as possible power for the digital and analog sections. I have heard a good few and the ones I loved seemed to all have that in common. They had separate isolated power for the digital and analog sections, usually 2 transformers. And this held true for delta sigma and r2r. And it makes sense when you think about it.
Electricity flows like water. The voltage is the force pushing the water, the current is the amount of water and when you multiply voltage times current you get the power measured in watts. Like flowing water, if there are bottlenecks or times where there is not enough voltage to keep the flow consistent or linear then problems occur and you hear it. The dac sounds sibilant or not smooth or too sparkly on the treble. Capacitors and mosfets are like dams that capture and release the current to smoothen things out.
This may be too simple for some who are engineers and have a higher understanding far beyond me and I'm sorry as I'm not as qualified as some to talk deeper on the subject but I have to say I doubt delta sigma chip designers or r2r dac designers are idiots. The people who design those parts are all very brilliant it's just how their brilliant chips are implemented that decides the sound mainly how they power said chips. I know schiit uses a cross shunt regulated power supply with dual transformers for the digital and analog sections. The cross shunt regulated part is to stop any ripples or distortion coming through.
Tl;Dr version: moar transformers moar caps
I heard that electricity travels in fields, not even through wire, yet the electrons vibrating in the wire. The flow of current possibly be better discribed as a thunder storm. I always wonder, where are the electrons coming from and going to, as windmills capture wind and not elektrons. Very confusing subject.
@@edmaster3147 This makes everything even more interesting. I did not know that. So that means tubes really are filled with electron storms so in a way the sound is kinda pure.
@@V1ralB1ack the absence of the stuff that we call air makes what we call electricity in whatever form behave different, as does surrounding a wire with for instance water. About 120 years ago, little was known about this phenonomen. So it would be foolish to think humanity knows much yet, if it ever will. I'm haveing my fun currently with the early days radio's as I know so little and figure to start where the journey begun, a hundred years ago.
@@edmaster3147 Fascinating. Although I know long ago the church insisted objects move the same through any medium which is pretty stupid.
@Douglas Blake I like to explore on behalf of curiousity and common belief (even the Sience-belief) has a to a firstly be weighted value. I promote this. I look for more valid concepts and look where it leads. Thing with these kind of discussions on here is there is no reference to knowledge of the participants.
That's why Ferrari & Toyota exist.
Are those Denafrips DACs (say ares II or Pontus II) really all that? I’ve heard mixed reviews and am confused about the R2R vs… debate.
Costs a lot because we don't sell that many, and we need to recover the costs from parts, research and development. That's how simple it is. If you can't mass produce stuff, it's gonna be expensive.
Thank you. It is just that simple!!!
Paul is a great man!
Substantially the price of a commodity has little to do with its actual accounting cost. The price is the amount that the buyer is willing to pay for a given commodity - it is even said: the market equilibrium price (the equilibrium between supply and demand).
In other words, there are enough people who will pay such a mountain of money ...
Wonderful little economics lesson. HiFi audio industry is certainly a fascinating test case in consumer demand
I remember how expensive VCR's ,DVD players ,BluRay players and flat screen televisions used to be . Once the market was saturated with product the price of these components plummeted . DAC's are a niche product that only serious audiophiles consider essential . Therefore they will continue to be fairly expensive . Nevertheless , the relentless pursuit to make them mainstream will drive the price down once the larger electronic companies decide they want their share of the market . The big fish will eventually devour the smaller one . I would suggest holding off on spending exorbitant sums of money on any new electronic tech . If you want to improve your system you should invest in an upgrade elsewhere and get an inexpensive DAC for now . In a few years you should be able to get a premium DAC for a fraction of what you will spend now . If the public rejects the technology and DAC's do not become mainstream kit your losses are minimal . Let's not forget that many consumers were more than satisfied with their DVD players and did not upgrade to BluRay . The price of BluRay players plummeted . Be patient .
So true 👍
I agree, but I think it's already happening. DACs up to $1k can easily hold their own against DACs costing $20k plus.
Boutique DACs will always have a flavour they bring. main stream stuff will alway be built on a budget.
@@genkifd That doesn't mean they are better. They are just different.
@@pedrocols ive cant comment as i dont own these new budget chinese amps to comment
didnt really explain why they cost so much, just "they sound better"
the comparison shouldnt be between $4000 dac and $100, or the chip cost. It should be why do $4000+ dacs cost so much vs. $700 dacs
Parts, assembly, overhead, profit...
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 Guttenberg was an Audio salesman and it shows.
@@hugobloemers4425 😀 Steve is the consummate salesman. Not many people catch on until late. I watch him everyday , cant help it😅
@Lassi Kinnunen 81
Seems like you put some thought into this.🙄🤔🤗😇
"didnt really explain why they cost so much" - Paul very quickly, briefly, implied that they sell very few of any high end model. And that is why his DACs can't be sold as cheaply as mass market products. Spreading out the development and manufacturing costs over say 1000 units versus 100k to a million units sold is the difference between niche products and mass market products.
Thanks Paul, you justified me buying my Behringer interface. If you're chasing the gold standard, get the PS analog to digital converter. If you're living in the "that's good enough" world, get the Behringer. It's all about budgets and what level of "pure sound" you're after. Of course if you get the gold standard, you'd better have good speakers so that that "purer sound" can be realized in your listening environment. I'm counting on people using my music while they wash dishes, do general house work, drive in noisy cars, or listen through earbuds or cell phone speakers. If I had all audiophiles, and their associated systems, listening to my music, I'd have to invest in more expensive recording equipment. For what most listeners are listening through, and in what environments they are listening in, I think that the economy one will work for me, and my recordings. Thanks for the explanation, Paul. That was interesting.
Well, you dont have to get the cheapest either…its not a competition
I believe the PS Audio is a digital to analog converter for listening only. It isn't an analog to digital converter for recording. So that's not what you need anyway.
I think the other guy is right, though. If you value your music, your art, then you should make it in the highest quality you can. I don't know what is available these days, but I have a musician friend who bought an Alesis recorder many years ago that still sounds pretty good. Not exactly professional studio quality, but better than rock bottom.
@@Baloneycake4114 Hey, you're talking to a musician, we're generally not known our high income levels. It ain't a competition. It's reality.
@@brianmoore581 Then judge the quality of my recording for yourself, smarty pants... hee hee. Here's a link. I don't go for the highest quality gear. I go for the highest quality of playing an instrument, writing and singing. Lots of people still listen to Robert Johnson's recordings, despite being done on wire recorders, not because of the recording gear, but because of the soulfulness. If you've got 'em, put on a pair of Sony 7506 headphones and give this a listen. Any other good quality headphones should work to show the details of the recording, too. This was recorded with Sonar Home Studio 7, with a Behringer UMC202HD interface, with a $29 GLS audio ES57 microphone on the vocals (copy of a Shure SM57) and mastered for $5,using one the auto computer mastering services, and a guitar that cost no more than $200 (same for the bass guitar.) Oh, and the computer that it was recorded on is an $88 recycled HP computer with a Duo Core processor, loaded with Windows 10, bought from Fry's Electronics (when they existed.) I'd say, now a days, recording gear is amazing for the price. th-cam.com/video/ii2J0i8BCy4/w-d-xo.html
@@brianmoore581 Here's another one Brian. When you talk about bottom of the barrel, it isn't the Midas preamps on the Behringer that is bottom of the barrel. It's the ear buds, cell phone speakers, laptop speakers, etc. that listeners listen through, that are the bottom of the barrel. If you can't record something decent with a Berhinger interface, with Midas preamps, you can't do it. It ain't the Behringer that would be the limitation. th-cam.com/video/Nr2aFJvL2YI/w-d-xo.html
Good explanation.
Back in the 90s DACs was only rich mans or studio owned .. but now everyone is able to get decent DACs
He never answered the question. A conversion process is a conversion process. If you want to say a conversion process with an added amplifier is better than one without, than just say so.
This was really interesting. I looked inside my Audiolab 8000DAC. It has x3 capacitors (not as large as the ones you use). These days you can pick one up in good working order for about £250 (UK). From your explanation it would sound like an excellent mid/low budget option that would give great improvement to most people. How far it is from your own system is probably not a fair comparison. Have you ever taken a look at the 8000DAC from the 1990's ? I wonder how you think it might compare to what's on offer out there today at a similar price point.
Fan of Objectivism are we?
Since Paul was talking about DAC's maybe Paul could have walked us through the main board of an actual PS Audio DAC ?
Why do some high end DACs cost multiple times as much as PS Audio DirectStream?
"Why do some high end DACs cost multiple times as much as PS Audio DirectStream?" - Because they are luxury items. Same economic truth applies to watches, hand bags, eye-glasses, etc.
I learned the "$" hard way. I had to have dac with clock to play my cd transport. Best, D.
im not informed on audio much but i do know electricity i believe more volts is just louder no?
So much of this is subjective, I've always liked the sound of Burr Brown DAC's but they rarely measure as well as the AKG chips, which I find too bright and a touch harsh...though undoubtedly detailed
Currently I'm using the ESS 9038 based DAC in my amp, despite having a couple of $4-500 stand alone units, it just sounds more anologue to me.
When one considers there's out there Turntables costing over $ 100 k, a $ 10 k DAC seems like a ...bargain!
As much as I don't like to admit it, there IS a noticeable sound difference in high quality DACs.
If only I could afford them... 😯😯
there are 100k dacs too
At least the turntable has mechanical parts - DAC with a AKM chip and you are done, no matter the price and the 100k for a turntable is also to take away money from fools
Holy Hell, that BHK has alotta filter capacitance! 14 caps per channel, and cannot help but assume they are @ min 10K microfarad. CRAZY!!
Sorry Paul, not convinced. By far the most important factors for audio quality are the loudspeakers and room acoustics. The difference between a $500 and $5000 DAC is trivial or even imaginary compared to the very real difference between two speaker models. All loudspeakers produce high levels of distortion and coloration and your money is best spent on top quality speakers that sound good to your ears.
Paul has agreed that speakers make the biggest difference already. You don't buy an expensive DAC until you have optimized your speakers and room. Once I did that the difference between a highly rated Oppo 205 player/DAC and an Audio Research DAC 8 or PS Audio DirectStream DAC is easily heard.
Rob Watts *Hold my beer*
Chord have worked out how to make a dac with your handful of parts on a small board (Qutest for example) That sounds high end thats for sure. So it can be done. Just expensive.
20 something years ago I thought I was an audiophile and knew good sound. I did for what was midline audio equipment. Then I helped build a couple of money is no object recording studios. Including a Sony Oxford mixing desk and input stages which at the time were absolutely state of the art in digital recording. They had the best in vintage microphones that captured the human voice to perfection. The control room had the best in both room and near field monitors. It was as perfect as technology could make it. Then they put it in ProTools and folded, spindled, and mutilated it. The only good thing that came from it though is that I learned all the horrors of codecs, processing, and artifacts. I can listen to new music on a good system and tell you what they did to it. Only rarely these days do you get a recording that truly deserves the system worth tens of thousands of dollars. Most are mixed for iPods and sound like it. They’ve even screwed up a lot of vinyl records in the recording or mastering. But when you do get that recording done well, it sure is worth it. If you got the cash.
How can I sound better if the specs are the same ? How is 'it sounds better' proven ? Shouldn't differences be measurable ? You will need to answer this question to get me to buy your equipment.
So to summerize-the more Research &Development into a Dac the less in perportion to the time and cost building it you get out of it!
So what if you're a regular guy with a limited budget? Is it worth spending a big chunk of your budget on a DAC or is a cheaper audio interface a way to save a few bucks without a major sacrafice in sound quality?
DACs are expensive because of the old saying. " Fools and their money are soon parted" People go nuts going digital and then spend thousands more to turn the signals back to analogue
What you never see is someone demonstrate on a scope where a $3,000 DAC does something a $200 DAC can't. It should be easy to demonstrate the frequency degradation if there is any. It's always left to some talk of fancy components and declarations of superior sound. If the difference is audible, it should be easily shown on a scope. People get influenced by pricey things. You could still build a transistor the old way and make it look impressive and very expensive, but it's not going to perform any better than an IC transistor.
This perspective becomes valid only on the day you surgically replace your ears and neurological system with a scope. People don't listen with a scope, and what shows up on a scope do not tell you how something sounds.
@@divertiti -- It's your brain, with all the psychology involved in subjective cognition, that will "tell you how something sounds." If you've plunked down four or five figures for fancy DAC, it's more than likely your brain will "tell you" that it sounds better than the less pricey DAC it replaced. When the physiological and psychological limitations of human hearing are properly taken into account, both a little $200 DAC and its big $3k counterpart are very close to perfect -- the differences are literally 90+ percent in your head and so subtle that it's nearly impossible to say which is "better." That said, it's your money, so by all means carry on -- I say put the difference in price into speakers and/or listening room treatment rather a supposedly "better" DAC, but of course YMMV.
@@editorjuno That's not remotely true, and the only people who believe this non sense and parrot it back ad nauseum are ironically the very people who have never experienced high fidelity audio in a properly setup system. It's akin to a bunch of Prius owners who have never touched a supercar confidently declaring 70mph is 70mph no matter what vehicle, it's all the same.
@@divertiti -- I was there at the very beginnings of so-called "high-end" audio -- when companies like Audio Research and Conrad Johnson were offering gear they claimed was better than McIntosh and U.S.-built Marantz -- as a professional and frequent trade show attendee, and I could smell the b00|$hit even back then. That stench hasn't relented since. Just as it was back in the day -- and now that digital media have made the then-crucial phono preamp and FM tuner obsolescent for most of us -- the real improvements in hi-fi performance continue to found in loudspeaker design/placement and listening room acoustics, not tiny differences in amplification and (most recently) DACs.
@Douglas Blake That's 100% false. Jesus christ, that's like claiming a mechanic can look at a dyno graph and tell you how it feels to drive a car. Not even close in any circumstance
Paul, none of your DACs have specs surpassing CD qualities of dynamic range. Why? Do you tune by ear to determine if the design brings out all the nuances of 24Bit Hi-Fi music?
I am not sure what you mean here. Are you referring to the DS noise spec? Because it is a DSD based output there is an element of noise from the process of DSD that is to be expected. But for equipment to measure we have the state of the art Audio Precision equipment which is the same as what any lab or reviewer might have.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio I am talking about things such as your distortion specs. Take your DirectStream DAC for instance, you spec the THD as 70dB, and we know that CD gets us information totaling at least 96dB. So is that extra 26dB+ of low-level content in the music being masked by the distortion of the DAC?
I know distortion isn’t the only factor in sound quality of a DAC, but isn’t the ability to let all of the musical content thru important?
Or is my understanding of distortion/noise wrong?
_________
Also, I noticed your DirectStream DAC is rated at only 2.818Vrms via balanced. There are many power amps nowadays they need much more than that to get their full rated wattage (they use lower gain than THX standard 29dB in order to improve performance). So while you probably have your DACs designed to pair well with your power amps, making them better compatible with other brands would be appreciated.
My Behringer UCA222 plugged into my HP laptop connects to my Angstrom 200 connects to my Technics 300w power amp beast connects to my Martin Logan Aerius (and Scripts with Quad 100w for matrix surround on some music). And sounds really great. Has done for about 8 years. All the kit is bought used, cost less than $1500 total. And my mate who has spent upwards of $45000 over the years never gets close to the sound quality.
Just saying.
Because you always get what you pay for, if you want quality, you're going to pay the price...
ya do cuz that be your biz!
I just created 320-128=192 MP3 files on the same song using my Cubase software. The difference between 320 kBit and 319 kBit is huge. The difference between 319 kBit and 318 kBit is also huge, so the difference between 320 kBit and 318 kBit is two times huge... I think I just ran out of adjectives.... I kept going in my tests down to 128 kBit, each 1 kBit difference being huge as well. So, I conclude that the difference between 320 kBit and 128 kBit is 192 times huge. The amount of detail, soundstage, imaging, etc., between each 1kBit is huge. I think I am ready to upgrade my cables to hear more huge differences :)
I'd be interested to see a blind test here
@@dnbmania To be honest, I trusted my dog for the job. She has very good hearing, plus she is an audiophile. 😄
Why are high end DACs so expensive? Because audiophiles are suckers. P.T. Barnam.
To make snake oil sellers richer.... That's all.
The answer is the same for any product. It costs what it does because people will pay it.
I don't doubt that "some" of the high end expensive DACs deliver greater sound quality. I've heard some of them, but they are simply out of my budget for a very minimal improvement in sound quality, and I consider my ears very well tuned. Overall I believe it is just because it is a specialty item. When you place that specialty label on it for example, "wedding cake”, does a wedding cake really taste better than if you use the same ingredients and bake it yourself assuming you already know how to bake? I know apples and oranges but companies tend to jack up prices when they label an item "pro" or it may cater to a certain niche audience. It doesn't mean necessarily mean that the product or service is any better. Those products are there for people who can afford and are willing to purchase them for status whether it is really worth it or not.
That is the key point. Does a DAC that costs 1000 times more than another (let's say MSB Select vs. Schiit Modi) sound 1000 times better? I think everybody would agree that the answer is an absolute "No". Like other "elites", some audiophile lives play out in the realm of diminishing returns and so far into it that people consider 10x prices for 0.1% improvements. Not for me, for sure, but to each their own...
So basically you are saying buy the stuff you can afford?
@@mcplutt Absolutely, and that's true for everything not just audio equipment.
Just like designer clothes, designer dogs, designer drugs, we also got designer circuits, all of which command a certain level of premium. Fortunately, should a poor man be bold enough, he can in fact assemble his own custom DAC @ designer quality. Quick and dirty example would be to simply grab a $20 amazon DAC, gut it, and put the PCB into a DIY enclosure, nix the wall wart, and put a nice toroid transformer & bridge rectifier into the mix. Youd be surprised to how good that can sound, seriously!
A small experiment. I've just seen a review of a 28 quid dac, that is really good apparently. Let's see how many people will be rocking a 28 quid dac in their systems (even over things like a topping). Because why send more for the same thing right??
Professional audio studio: spend most of the effort and money on room treatment, good amount on speakers and amplifiers... DACs? well.. not until you fix the basics...
Audiophiles: crazy amount of money on DAC, but room treatment: well...often totally overlooked... maybe something like few thin, but good looking absorbers or something...
Two years to engineer. Get different engineers. The ones you got aren’t any good.
If your DAC's were cheaper, then someone would bring out a more expensive one, and everyone would want that because it must be better.
Because marketing and dumb consumers.
Let's do the testing and compare that tube DAC with a Topping DAC for linearity, sinad, dynamic range and THD. Or compare it to a latest generation mid level receiver for that matter, like the Denon X3600. The reality is that this pricey and unnecessary mess of a signal path fulfills a niche in the market for people who don't feel assured unless they spend a lot of money on every component. And of course Paul is happy to comply, as I would be also.
For price, performance and utility, I chose a Topping D70S as an alternative to the more resolving delta sigma dacs as well as the R2R dacs. It is sufficiently detailed, resolving, gives good space and stage. Not completely flat and has some depth while a bit less than R2Rs, it offers alot of options. And I got it on sale.
Keces E40
Topping D70S
Marantz CD6006 (used as transport)
Focal 807W
Blue Jeans Cables
A reasonably priced, audiophile enough system that works well together for me.
There are alot of choices, when you find SQ you like, journey's end...for a time at least.
Perhaps a car analogy works here? All will get you A to B, but…
Simple answer is, precision is hard.
Just wait until the viewers find out what digital converters in scientific and metrology cost.
Excellent!!
“but we do because we do” you should put that on a coffee mug!
This video will, already has, garner the usual complaints about high end audio products. Many people will not take the time to appreciate that high end audio is in many ways about luxury. And that luxury items are such because of the time and material used on them, which is why in high-end audio reviewers often comment on how well built a given product may be. Paul will sell his products by the hundreds, perhaps a few thousands (for his most popular products), compared to mass-market manufacturers. PS Audio tries to straddle the market between the mass-producers and the ultimate boutique makers of custom audio gear, and that includes DACs, and their prices reflect such.
Sure, diminishing returns sets in very quickly with these digital to analog converters. Could a music lover spend their money elsewhere and make a bigger change in their listening experience? Of course (not the least of which is the room/building in which they listen to music.) But if someone wants to pursue the ultimate in their audio experience then who am I to tell them to settle for a $600 DAC (the sweet spot in performance/$) instead of buying the most luxuriant DAC the market can offer?
Completely agree that it is a luxory issue. If you put all that stuff and spend the time to make it work even with inferior components such as vacuum tubes, than it must cost more, even if it has objectively worse specs.
People don't realize how much R/D goes into higher end audio products. Yes, the parts are cheap, but there is a ton of research that is needed for unique internal designs. That research costs time and money.
Then you have wages to pay.
@@nihilityjoey Exactly. Any intelligent and decent "higher-end" business wants to retain its skilled workforce (high turnover is costly) and keep them happy and healthy. Providing fair wages, and possibly other benefits, are absolutely a part of the final product costs.
The R&D done today in audio is a fraction of what was done from the 1960s to the 1980s. The difference is that it was done then by large corporations with well-funded and organised R&D departments, paid for by mass sales. It gave us digital audio, direct drive and stable electronics. Today's R&D consists of little more than tweaks to existing technology.
"we do because we do" sums it up nicely. Much like "it is what it is". Spoken by those who have nothing to add to the conversation. R&D is a tax credit to these small niche market manufacturers. It takes two years to design an input stage ... "because it sounds better" than saying "because we do". Bottom line is it hits listeners in the feels when they think they spent money on better sound. Thus the audiophile market exists.
On the pro audio world it's the difference between a Lab Gruppen Amp and a Yamaha Amp (Nothing wrong with yamaha at all) but the components in the yamaha though good are off-the-shelf parts. Lab Gruppen would use pristine top end componants probably harder to find and certainly parts which are specialized and price it acourdingly! !!!
Hmm..you started answering the question but veered away from the core part of the ask. You started to itemize the cost but once you got to the power supply (and after) you stopped giving the cost of the build. I can’t figure out how a company can ask $10,000+ for a DAC that can’t cost much more than $500 to produce.
Like many things in hi-fi land the ratio of cost:quality makes little to no sense.