First dac . Topping d30 - Audioquest dragonfly black vs red .

[for_p1]

Yes, there are certainly recordings that sound better on boom boxes etc. than on high end systems. However, not all recordings have added distortion and not all are indeed modified to the producers taste as defined by the limitations imposed by the presumed playback system- sometimes it's an "artistic" choice (indeed I have designed pro CLX, PEQ and Aphex like "sound processors" that do exactly that)- and sometimes it's simply to accommodate the limitations of the recording medium involved. Many recordings, for example are de-essed to cover up imperfections that include the performer, the distortion/frequency response of mics etc. Hardly "perfect sound forever". Many classical music recordings are overly bright compared to the real listening experience, so a gentle roll off is often beneficial. LPS need specific frequency limitation and compression levels to overcome the inherent dynamic range limitations of the medium. Ultra low specd/measured distortion is not necessarily perceived as superior musically to a higher distortion alternative. SET amps are not just for old records- and "transparency" is a strange term as it can often be generated at the expense of musicality by providing a flat/raised HF response.
It was interesting that a prior commenter added the use of a " pure class A tube driven output stage" to the upgrade of the DAC which is pretty well the description of a SET design.
Besides, transparency per se. should be able to be measured in terms of the output S/N ratio and distortion, should it not. This prompts the question- do these superior solutions actually provide superior specs? If not, well surely the answer lies elsewhere or the distinction is moot. Indeed, why is it that many people prefer the sound of LPs to most, if not all, digital formats, when without exception the digital formats all measure better- lower distortion, flatter frequency response, probably better dynamic range.
So once again I ask, what are the attributes of these "high end" DAC solutions that makes them worth the extra cost- which can be 1-2 orders of magnitude greater than the measurably excellent Topping D50?

Better DACs do sound better. I used Teac 501 which I though is good. Then I got Oppo 205 and started using it as DAC. Immediate improvement was absolute silence with no signal. Teac has a minor hum heard when put ear next to speaker driver. There was NOTHING with Oppo in line. Next (and likely more important) was that one of Oppo filters made listening imperfectly mastered CDs less painful.

 

[wyn palmer]

Better DACs do sound better. I used Teac 501 which I though is good. Then I got Oppo 205 and started using it as DAC. Immediate improvement was absolute silence with no signal. Teac has a minor hum heard when put ear next to speaker driver. There was NOTHING with Oppo in line. Next (and likely more important) was that one of Oppo filters made listening imperfectly mastered CDs less painful.

The Topping is incredibly quiet when in use, quieter than my LP cartridge combo. It too comes with a variety of selectable filters, 7 I believe - including an optimal impulse response and a linear phase fast roll off. There's evidence to suggest that high sample rates and high cut off frequencies might actually be problematic due to IM in speakers- which is sort of a blast from the past.

 

[for_p1]

The Topping is incredibly quiet when in use, quieter than my LP cartridge combo. It too comes with a variety of selectable filters, 7 I believe - including an optimal impulse response and a linear phase fast roll off. There's evidence to suggest that high sample rates and high cut off frequencies might actually be problematic due to IM in speakers- which is sort of a blast from the past.

Oppo noise is 30dB below best phono preamp you can find. If DAC has the same noise as phono - it is worse than poor.

 

[wyn palmer]

Oppo noise is 30dB below best phono preamp you can find. If DAC has the same noise as phono - it is worse than poor.

I think we're getting a bit off track here.
The point is that for a quantised digital system the distortion plus noise theoretically is limited by the ideal SNR and SFDR, which in turn is largely limited by the number of bits. How does, for example, the Oppo, compare to the much cheaper D50 with respect to this?
I could provide you with the math if you don't know it, but that seems unnecessary.
In the case of the phono path the SNR is good enough that the perception of dynamic range is still excellent despite the absolute SNR being inferior to the DAC- and yes, the theoretical DAC noise floor is indeed 30 ish dB below that of the phono stage, and yet there is no psycho acoustic impression that digital systems have a superior dynamic range to analog ones, even phono, and certainly not quality analog tape which has, at best, a marginally better SNR than phono, and may actually have more stochastic noise.
So, back to the same question, again.
In what way, either measured or in some definable, specification centered way, is the Oppo superior to the cheap D50 DAC?
If the answer is that the difference is purely subjective, then in what subjective way is it better and what about the Oppo would result in that being better, taking into consideration that musical colorations due to the addition of things like tube output stages have been rejected. Saying that it has a better power supply or a better output stage doesn't count without some measure of, preferably, the objective, or even the subjective, benefits, and just saying "transparency" isn't sufficient.
In fact, as modern integrated analog circuits are generally designed to have greatly superior power supply rejection to their rather more basic discrete cousins or their very basic Tube precursors I would expect that an ESS DAC with a high performance opamp would greatly outperform a discrete output stage.
I'm simply trying to grasp why anyone would pay an order of magnitude more for something that has no measurable or objectively quantifiable benefit. Again, if the answer is the nebulous concept of "transparency" then what quantifiable aspect of SNR or SFDR is responsible for the improvement?

 

[Poultrygeist]

Not a day goes by that I don't enjoy the D30 and CCA combo. I have more expensive systems that sound better but their fun factor is not comparable due to the complexities of multiple amps, active X-overs and extended tube warm up time. With the D30/CCA I get red-book SQ streaming from low
resolution Pandora.

 

[Final_Baton]

Maybe I'm out to lunch. Maybe...

but to me the Dragonfly was not worth it. I had ordered one when they had pretty much just come out (it was the frist revision. So 1.2 I guess?) and I found the difference versus using my pc's 3.5mm analog out was minimal. So I returned it.

I mean, it was a liiiiiiiitle better. But I decided that I might as well pay $75 - $100 more and get a way better improvment. And I did.

Maybe to you it will be worth it to pay a fee as small as possible for Dragonfly and get a bit of improvment in SQ. But to me that move made no sense. YMMV.

I can't comment on the newer iterations though. Did they get noticeably better?

 

[SA7I]

Better DACs do sound better.

Did you mean to say that more expensive DACs sound better? At some point you will find snake oil. A good DAC shouldn’t cost an arm or a leg.

To the OP--keep in mind that the Dragonfly DACs are designed more as headphone DACs, so they have on-board amplification for those also.

Not necessarily.

“You can also use DragonFly as a traditional fixed-output source component (such as a CD player, DVD player, or Blu-ray player), connected to a standard input on a receiver or preamplifier. When used in this manner, DragonFly functions in fixed output mode, which allows the overall volume level to be adjusted with the audio/video system’s master volume control. For this application, both the music player’s volume control and the computer’s main (operating system) volume level should be set to maximum.”

https://www.audioquest.com/page/aq-dragonfly-series-faq.html

 

[for_p1]

Did you mean to say that more expensive DACs sound better? At some point you will find snake oil. A good DAC shouldn’t cost an arm or a leg.

I said exactly what I said: "Better DACs do sound better". Price has NO DIRECT correlation with quality.