[brj]

I can't sit still and watch online videos, I feel like I'm wasting time when I can scan a web page or an article in a minute and get the key points, and print it for later reading at the coffee shop if it needs more.

Can you summarize the "justification for those of us who never quite embraced sigmadelta dacs"?

I have a similar reaction to watching online videos, though I mitigate it by working on others tasks at the same time!

And then I emailed Resonessence Labs/ESS last October about access to the presentations shown in all 3 RMAF 2011 seminars, and they were nice enough to post them online:

http://www.esstech.com/index.php?p=support_downloads

Enjoy!

(And Kudos to ESS for making them available!)

[brj]

BTW looks like these are the slides:

http://www.esstech.com/pdf/noise-shaping-sigma-delta.pdf

Oops... looks like you found them already!

The additional two presentations listed in the higher level link I referenced in my last post are also worth viewing.

[wushuliu]

BTW looks like these are the slides:

http://www.esstech.com/pdf/noise-shaping-sigma-delta.pdf

Excellent. Thanks!

[Steve]

Although he fulfills his promise of avoiding any equations (kind of funny watching him struggle to do so), things
do get pretty technical by the end.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1CkyrDIGzOE

Thank you Wushuliu for posting this. Very informative with great explanations; with noise being variable,
time to respoind varies, transistion states, "human ear detects signals well below the noise level
of the DAC" etc. Of course music constantly varies the states.

Plenty of actual measurements were given, with comparisons etc.
 
Another is that at the 23 minute mark, Martin obviously refers to the Oohashi T,
Kawai N, Nishina E, Honda M, Yagi R, Nakamura S, Morimoto M, Maekawa T, Yonekura Y, Shibasaki H paper, which
used PET and EEG scans to demonstrate that when ultrasonic musical information is added to 20-20khz bandwidth
music, our brains perceived it. Wikipedia has an edited page or two and special interests in industry have attempted,
very unsuccessfully, to discredit the paper.

Another important point is the amount of information fed to the brain, video 3.2 terabytes, and probably audio,
which was astounding.

Newly discovered tiny muscles which influence the tiny cilia was also interesting.

New information is always welcome and thanks again Wushulia.

Cheers.

[Speedskater]

It seems that some of the ESS Technology papers have suddenly gone missing?
The ESS home page has the links, but the links are empty.

[nnck]

Very interesting video. Well explained, and makes you think a lot. Helps you realize just how much we DO and DON'T really know about how our brains interact with our senses.

[wisnon]

That was a fantastic lecture. A, now I must have a Sabre Dac! lol, and B) interesting stuff, coincides with what Bruno Putzeys was saying last year in the Ncore thread on DIYaudio, that there is not yet a complete measurement suite for audio and that we don't know everything. Anyway, looks like interesting times lie ahead for digital gear in general.

... I think I might have a Sigma Delta type system in my cdp. The lecture left me really wanting to try a Sabre dac.


edit: This is relevent too, I recall a paragraph in which Bruno said he was developing a dac and his goal is to exceed the ESS chips.

Cheapest way is probably the iFi iDAC.

[wisnon]

They are all Sigma Delta DACs now days , with the exception of the non-oversampling DACs.
Scotty

And the Field Programmable Gate Arrays, a la Chord and others....

[werd]

Thanks Wushuliu 

Got half way through and will finish it later. I think the older delta sigma dacs suffered due to the lack of the msb. Keeps the output hot. They don't get bass out well.

[Rclark]

Thanks Wisnon, I'll check that out. AudioGD looks interesting too.

[Folsom]

It makes interesting points. It explains why resolution increase and noise floor don't necessarily equal preferred sound. It isn't that we hear things they can't measure, it is the type of thing they are measuring that wasn't considered.

I mean my favorite DAC's to this day are good old NOS 1543. Cheap, but when done right are WORLD CLASS.

Him talking about DAC's is like me talking about The Beatles. It isn't the lyrics, the instruments, how they play them, or how they sing... The sonic qualities of Abby road hurt my ears; particularly Sgt. Pepper's I consider unlistenable.

SO to recap in simple terms. It isn't the levels of noise we hear, but the type of noise we hear, that affects our DAC experience. Much like how tubes give a preferred type of distortion.

This gives a lot of validity to ideas like the type of wood you hear etc matters.

[Rclark]

We are far from predisposed to believe. I'm as cynical as they come. watch the presentation it's excellent.

[Folsom]

Hey hey... like I said I still like 1543 DAC's, simple, old, cheap, magic.

ODAC is based on Saber, has great specs... Never read a review that'd make me want to own one.

I think taking the guys advice is best, listen, then decide.

[srb]

Hey hey... like I said I still like 1543 DAC's, simple, old, cheap, magic.

ODAC is based on Saber, has great specs... Never read a review that'd make me want to own one.

I guess we all have different ears.  Read a few reviews on the 1543 DACs that made me think I should own one.  Bought one, but the sound was nothing that I couldn't accomplish with a modern DAC and the amplifier's bass and treble controls turned down.

Steve

[Steve]

.

[sts9fan]

This is not the place to discuss the merits of sales presentations vs journals. If you have comments on the content, great. Otherwise go away.

[medium jim]

The best advice is to use your own ears!

Jim

[Freo-1]

 I think the current to voltage converter and analog stage has more influence on a DAC’s sound than anything else.

I've got four sources for converting D/A.  The first one is a Wavelength Audio Cosine NOS DAC, with a TDA 1543 Select Grade DAC, a passive I/V, and a 6GM8 buffer.  The second one is also a NOS type, a MHDT Havana balanced unit.  It also has a passive I/V stage, PCM 63 DAC's, and sports a pair of 2C51/5670 buffer tubes.  I prefer these units for CD playback.  DVD Audio is also supported by the Havana

For two channel SACD/Hi Res playback use, employ an Oppo BDP 95 with the Modwright Tube upgrade.  The Oppo of course uses the ESS 9018 DAC.  For multi channel playback use an Oppo BDP 105, this is an outstanding unit at its price point.  What IS cool about the Oppo units is they both decode .flac files from my NAS box via wireless.  Sounds pretty good, and makes it easy to entertain for playing background music.

There is not as much difference in sonic character as one would think between all these different DAC’s. The NOS DAC’s both subjectively sound smoother on CD’s than the Oppo units.  The MHDT is slightly preferable to the Cosine, but not across the board.

The tube output stages (IMHO) definitely make listening to digital more pleasant.

[medium jim]

I think the current to voltage converter and analog stage has more influence on a DAC’s sound than anything else.

I've got four sources for converting D/A.  The first one is a Wavelength Audio Cosine NOS DAC, with a TDA 1543 Select Grade DAC, a passive I/V, and a 6GM8 buffer.  The second one is also a NOS type, a MHDT Havana balanced unit.  It also has a passive I/V stage, PCM 63 DAC's, and sports a pair of 2C51/5670 buffer tubes.  I prefer these units for CD playback.  DVD Audio is also supported by the Havana

For two channel SACD/Hi Res playback use, employ an Oppo BDP 95 with the Modwright Tube upgrade.  The Oppo of course uses the ESS 9018 DAC.  For multi channel playback use an Oppo BDP 105, this is an outstanding unit at its price point.  What IS cool about the Oppo units is they both decode .flac files from my NAS box via wireless.  Sounds pretty good, and makes it easy to entertain for playing background music.

There is not as much difference in sonic character as one would think between all these different DAC’s. The NOS DAC’s both subjectively sound smoother on CD’s than the Oppo units.  The MHDT is slightly preferable to the Cosine, but not across the board.

The tube output stages (IMHO) definitely make listening to digital more pleasant.

+1

Jim

[stevenkelby]

The best advice is to use your own ears!

Jim

I disagree, you can't trust your ears!

Prove it to yourself here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0

Listening and measuring together, that's my advice