Are "vintage" DACs worthwhile, or is this a tech that does not age well?

In my mind, there's nothing to "overthink". It is highly overpriced for the performance level and seems to not get some of the basics correct. That line frequency bleeding through should absolutely not be there in an "end game" DAC. No fuzz on that. I don't care how it "sounds". The engineer in me will not get past that.

It should not be there. On the other hand it is at -116dB, unless you're listening your music at the threshold of pain on regular basis that mains noise won't be audible, and even if you do it won't be audible either as your hearing is likely already damaged.
 
It should not be there. On the other hand it is at -116dB, unless you're listening your music at the threshold of pain on regular basis that mains noise won't be audible, and even if you do it won't be audible either as your hearing is likely already damaged.

There are a lot of things that may not be "audible". High quality equipment should not have these issues - from any company. Just for the record, I do own some Schiit gear. I rather like the sound of the Mani phono preamp. It pairs well with several of my MM cartridges. I was actually considering the DAC in question until I saw some of the testing. What bothers me most is the low level linearity issues. This limits the performance to the range of far less expensive DACs. Disappointing.
 
I am getting offers to trade for a Theta dspro progeny. My current DACs are a Schitt Modi 2...

As I understand it, both of these DACs were designed by Mike Moffat. My guess is he’s learned something in all the years that passed between the two designs.
 
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I have no experience with old separate dac's but if they perform like the onboard dac's in vintage cd players I would pass. To my ears the newer players extract more detail without the harshness. I would imagine that comes from the improved (newer) dac more than the transport.
 
I have no experience with old separate dac's but if they perform like the onboard dac's in vintage cd players I would pass. To my ears the newer players extract more detail without the harshness. I would imagine that comes from the improved (newer) dac more than the transport.

That is too broad of a statement. A Denon DCD-1520 I happen to have is vintage by all means yet it is able to extract all sorts of details and more.
 
That is too broad of a statement. A Denon DCD-1520 I happen to have is vintage by all means yet it is able to extract all sorts of details and more.
Perhaps so and everyone hears differently. The Denon 1520 and it's bigger and heavier cousin the 1560 were a couple that I had that didn't make the grade here when compared to newer cdp's.
 
Perhaps so and everyone hears differently. The Denon 1520 and it's bigger and heavier cousin the 1560 were a couple that I had that didn't make the grade here when compared to newer cdp's.

I suppose there must have been some progress made between then and now. The real question is how much details you really need. IMO many modern DACs and CDPs overdo detail extraction which distracts from music, especially if the downstream gear is already revealing enough.
 
IMO many modern DACs and CDPs overdo detail extraction which distracts from music,

Don't take this the wrong way, but this is where the discussions start to go off the rails.

Detail extraction. Detail, in other words resolution, be it low level or high level resolution, waveform fidelity and linearity are easily specified and measured.

From day one, CD players have been able to extract a single sample impulse and reproduce it. Exactly what detail extraction over and above that, are you implying? Be as technical as you like in your answer. :)
 
I still have a AUNE T-1 DAC that uses a Mullard 6DJ8, still sounds good to me. I also have a Shiit Multibit and quite frankly can't tell the difference......... The AUNE is about 6 years old and the Shiit is a year old, go figure.
 
Don't take this the wrong way, but this is where the discussions start to go off the rails.

Detail extraction. Detail, in other words resolution, be it low level or high level resolution, waveform fidelity and linearity are easily specified and measured.

From day one, CD players have been able to extract a single sample impulse and reproduce it. Exactly what detail extraction over and above that, are you implying? Be as technical as you like in your answer. :)

I can try but while I'm technical enough to understand it I didn't bother to actually try to research the exact mechanics of how things work in modern DACs, so I'm prepared to be called on it. First of all I should have used quotes around it as in "detail extraction". These days we have DAC chips that can do, at least on paper, 24 and 32 bit of resolution. Fine. The first thing original 16 bit samples see is an upsampling interpolating digital filter, and on the output of which we have more samples and at wider bit-depth, and hence more details are "extracted". They are surely not the true details but close enough, causing the net effect of more detailed sound. And on day one, what did we have? 14-bit 4x oversampling DACs? Sure you could get 16 bit linearity close to what you have today, but modern chips can push it a bit further due to being able to convert deeper interpolated samples to analog levels at higher internal sampling rates.
 
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Whoops! And this is the third one he has measured! All the while Guttenberg over at Stereophile is singing it's praises. Hmmm

To be fair, I take Amir's findings with a grain of salt.

I'm all for a well-measuring DAC, but measurements in isolation aren't an absolute indicator of good sound IMHO.

If you'd like to read some impressions from the opposite end of the spectrum (i.e. the subjective and comparative impressions) check out the superbestaudiofriends forum. Crap name, but good reading. They prefer the sound of the Schiit and don't rate the well-measuring Topping gear (which Amir loves) much at all from a sonic standpoint.
 
To be fair, I take Amir's findings with a grain of salt.

I'm all for a well-measuring DAC, but measurements in isolation aren't an absolute indicator of good sound IMHO.

If you'd like to read some impressions from the opposite end of the spectrum (i.e. the subjective and comparative impressions) check out the superbestaudiofriends forum. Crap name, but good reading. They prefer the sound of the Schiit and don't rate the well-measuring Topping gear (which Amir loves) much at all from a sonic standpoint.

People prefer certain products for different reasons. In this case, the faithfulness of reproduction to the original source signal is revealed to be not nearly as good as some of the lower cost imported DACs. To be fair to Amir, he is only publishing test results. People can take them or leave them. He seems to be fair to each DAC he tests and has shown no bias for any particular brand as far as I can tell. In fact, he has gone out of his way to make sure the Schiit DAC is being tested fairly (measured 3 units so far with similar results). I have been over to superbestaudiofriends and tried to stick around for awhile. Not for me. Too much bias toward Schiit (who is the major sponsor) and not very much actual engineering tech talk (which I enjoy AND understand).
 
If you are only using your DAC for Redbook CD aka 16/44.1 LPCM, "Vintage" high-end converters can offer exceptional build and sound quality. I'd try that Theta if you can get it cheap. Look for units from the Golden CD Era, approx. 1989 to 1995.
 
People prefer certain products for different reasons. In this case, the faithfulness of reproduction to the original source signal is revealed to be not nearly as good as some of the lower cost imported DACs. To be fair to Amir, he is only publishing test results. People can take them or leave them. He seems to be fair to each DAC he tests and has shown no bias for any particular brand as far as I can tell. In fact, he has gone out of his way to make sure the Schiit DAC is being tested fairly (measured 3 units so far with similar results). I have been over to superbestaudiofriends and tried to stick around for awhile. Not for me. Too much bias toward Schiit (who is the major sponsor) and not very much actual engineering tech talk (which I enjoy AND understand).

It would seem that quite a few people have obtained contrasting test results on the Schiit gear, and question Amir's methodologies:

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...ments-deconstructing-asr-amirs-hack-job.6442/

The above thread, in part, makes accusations of bias and inconsistent/skewed testing methodologies.

Thanks for pointing out Schiit's vendor status on SBAF... I have only just noticed it! This appears to have occurred after 7 June 2018, which is worth bearing in mind... SBAF have loved the Schiit gear for a loooooong time before this.

I know that Amir is very much focused on measurements, but I'd also love to see his thoughts on how the various DACs actually sound via his ears, rather than only test results.
 
Amir is a polarizing person. He's been banned on a couple of Audio forums. Some say at best he's a well meaning amateur. Others say that he is an idiot with test equipment that has no clue how to use it properly. The ASR forum for the most part is anti-Schiit. The SBAF forum is very pro-Schiit, and Schiit is a vendor there. You need to take their biases into consideration on both sites.

I have a Schiit Bifrost Multibit DAC, and a Topping D30 DAC. I like them both. The Topping D30 is quite good for $100 and change. At that price it's certainly worth checking out.

-Dave
 
I know that Amir is very much focused on measurements, but I'd also love to see his thoughts on how the various DACs actually sound via his ears, rather than only test results.

Subjective comments are discouraged on his site. Measurements are all that matter.

-Dave
 
I'm just using Red book my self so I'm good with an older DAC as long as it's a really good one. My current favorite is a Parasound D/AC1000, very similar to the Adcom GDA-600 using the same PCM63P chips.

I have a Parasound D/AC-1100HD in my second system and it is quite good on Redbook CDs. It uses 4 Burr-Brown PCM63K chips. I've compared it to some of the recent lower-priced DAC units (stuff selling in the $200-$400 range) and have liked the Parasound better than nearly all of them.
 
I have a Parasound D/AC-1100HD in my second system and it is quite good on Redbook CDs. It uses 4 Burr-Brown PCM63K chips. I've compared it to some of the recent lower-priced DAC units (stuff selling in the $200-$400 range) and have liked the Parasound better than nearly all of them.

Despite what Parasound manual and website says the 1100, as well as the 1000, has 2 PCM63s, and I think they were the "J"-spec unless upgraded later. Only the 1500/1600 models used "K" chips out of the box and had 4 of them due to being fully balanced designs. Other than that I share your opinion and I own a D/AC-1000.
 
You know, I've never popped the cover off of that 1100 to check it out.

In my main system I use a Parasound D/AC-2000 using the Ultra Analog 20400A. I absolutely love its sound. I'm not adverse to dropping $1000 to $1500 to improve my system but the 2000 has stayed there for over 15 years now because I've not heard anything better on Redbook for under $1500.
 
You know, I've never popped the cover off of that 1100 to check it out.

In my main system I use a Parasound D/AC-2000 using the Ultra Analog 20400A. I absolutely love its sound. I'm not adverse to dropping $1000 to $1500 to improve my system but the 2000 has stayed there for over 15 years now because I've not heard anything better on Redbook for under $1500.

The 2000 is one of the best DACs made of its period I hear. I would not think twice if I saw one at an agreeable price. Objectively it is better than the Yggdrasil, for redbook anyway,
 
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