pablolie wrote: > I hope you are not including the ones provided in every computer, > smartphone or tablet as part of those. There are plenty of poorly or > cheaply designed DACs out there, then.... :-) > There exist many tiny and cheap devices which perform excellently both objectively (as measured by something like an RMAA test) as well as subjectively (properly conducted double-blind listening tests). An example is the Sansa Clip series of players. I believe Smartphone DACs have gotten a lot better. I haven't done too many testing myself, but objective tests on sites such as Anandtech make it likely many of the latest flagships (iPhone 6, HTC One M8, Galaxy S5) are transparent.
There are many onboard codecs which measure and test excellently. Same goes for the DACs in cheap, off the shelf Blu Ray player and AV receivers. Yes, there are badly built soundcards here and there. And, sometimes, such as in the Raspberry Pi, you find codecs which are outright primitive. But there are many DACs that cost below $5 which are transparent. > > But I have to say, considering the fact the DAC2 in my main system is > over 12x the cost of the little AE D1 in my computer setup, I am amazed > by the sound of the latter every day. But the latter also shows how a > properly designed DAC absolutely murders the cheap, built-in DAC in a > standard computer motherboard. The Benchmark DACs don't sound better than some cheap DACs found in PC motherboards. Transparent is transparent. The Benchmark DACs have their advantages, but sound quality is not one of them (at least not in the consumer-type application the OP requires). Your perceived difference in sound quality is likely a placebo effect. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ dafiend's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=60637 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=102252 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
