6 ms·

Not to mention for audiophiles there is the extra concern about sound quality loss.

by vtange 9y ago

bb88 9y ago
The DAC on most consumer devices is not audiophile quality. Having had a mac book and a standalone USB DAC, there's really no comparison.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- koolba 9y ago
  Are you being serious or was that meant sarcastically? I genuinely can’t tell as your comment reminds me of hilarious HDMI cable reviews.
  - themacguffinman 9y ago
    Are you going to say something of substance or just act like a douche?
    - dang 9y ago
      Please don't be uncivil on HN regardless of how bad someone else's comment was. It would be a good idea to read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make sure you follow them when posting here. Your previous comment broke them as well.
  - btian 9y ago
    An audiophile quality DAC costs 20x what you see in smartphones. You also need an amp for audiophile quality headphones. Do you know any audiophiles who use phones to listen to music?
    - koolba 9y ago
      I don’t know any audiophiles period. Hence the lack of knowledge on the subject. I have a couple different sets of speakers and know that my larger ones sound better than the smaller ones (more “tinny” sound), but figured the core difference isn’t the quality of analog output on the source. Rather it’s the larger amplifier and larger size for bass generation.
    - misframer 9y ago
      I have a 2015 rMBP and its audio sounds as good as through my CEntrance DACport Slim. Maybe my headphones aren't audiophile quality (Grado SR80i, Sony MDR-7506)?
      - bb88 9y ago
        It's possible. I haven't used the CEntrance DACport Slim, but it looks promising. After looking it up I would set the DAC to the high gain setting and drop the volume lower. And the Grado's look like a good set of headphones. I would try listening to The King's Singers, which is an A Capella voice group that sings classical music. I can pick out individual voices in space from recordings that were recorded in the late 1980's. A good DAC won't smear them in space, and you can "lock on" to a voice and hear the tonal quality of it individually as if they were standing in front of you.
    - rorykoehler 9y ago
      For Bluetooth the problem is different. While most people will probably not consciously notice the poor audio quality after long hours of listening they will experience fatigue. This is less likely with lossless audio.
  - 21 9y ago
    That has also been my experience. I bought an external audio interface to connect a condenser microphone and was shocked at how much better it sounded compared with the audio output at the back of my desktop (Realtek 24 bit...). I noticed that audio interfaces tend to have a lot of big condensers on the inside. The kind which don't fit in a laptop, and especially in a phone. Now I'm not an electronics expert to comment on this, but I would guess that the big condensers are not in there just for the fun of it. Note that I'm talking about professional audio interfaces (the kind used by music producers, in the $100-$400 range), not audiophile ones (kilo$, buzz words)
  - bb88 9y ago
    I'm being completely serious. Typically a DAC has two components, the digital to analog part and an analog amplifier. So while the D2A won't typically be different, the audio amplification can vastly be different depending upon what you're trying to drive. Unfortunately you can't remove the audio amplification and replace it with another, unless you're willing to do surgery on your macbook, say. The best option is to buy a DAC with an amp that drives what you want it to. I have one that drives headphones that works like a charm, and I can hear not just the instruments clearer, but the location of the instruments recorded in stereo space better.
    - flyinghamster 9y ago
      I lucked out when I decided to upgrade my main system to a Ryzen 7. Not really considering audio, I had decided on an Asrock X370 Taichi board mainly because it was known to work with ECC RAM (and it indeed does according to dmesg), and was quite pleasantly surprised when I plugged my headphones into it for a listen. It sounded every bit as good as what I get from a Focusrite Saffire on another system, and even better, the headphone amp has much more power, making it much better for live, uncompressed classical choral recordings than the Focusrite. I can play them at concert volume and not get clipping in the loudest passages. No complaints from me about the DAC or amplifier stage on this motherboard. On the other hand, I haven't tried any recording with it, and for stereo recording my first thought would still be to reach for the Focusrite or my portable recorder and mic preamp, since I'd need 48V phantom power anyway.
  - com2kid 9y ago
    The interior of most PCs (and phones) are very noisy from an RF standpoint. I get hiss on my USB headphones (!!!) from just out poorly shielded the case on my computer is. That said, Apple had traditionally put very well isolated low noise DACs in their products. I'm not sure if that is still the case.
    - exikyut 9y ago
      Are you 100% sure it's not the USB DAC on your headphones? If you've inspected it, sure. If not, I would glare at it for a bit.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Isn't the story that they don't put any DACs in their products anymore? Or, more accurately, that the DACs have moved to the output devices (headphones, speakers).
- kabdib 9y ago
  I don't really have a problem with DACs on PCs, but the amount of noise present on most motherboards is terrible. (I can usually tell when my machine is compiling). A few years ago I bought some USB DACs and separate headphone amplifiers and it made a world of difference, even to my relatively ancient ears.
- mustacheemperor 9y ago
  At least the iPhone's DACs are absolutely audiophile quality, especially because the idea that "an audiophile quality DAC costs 20x what you see in smartphones" is patently ridiculous. There's no evidence at all that any good as in not flawed DAC will sound the same on nearly any, if not any system. At the very least, the audio quality degradation of most bluetooth devices has a worse impact than even your average middle tier Android phone's dac.
dpkonofa 9y ago
I consider myself an "audiophile" and have spent way too much money on nice equipment. That being said, once I started hanging out with people that call themselves audiophiles and have way more money that I do, I realized that most of these people can't even tell the difference in the sound quality and, frankly, there is no loss. One of the meetups I went to even had a contest for anyone that could tell which DAC was being used and another for anyone that could tell a FLAC apart from a 320kbps MP3. No one won the prize money. "Audiophiles" are, for the most part, full of shit, in my opinion and just need to justify spending ridiculous amounts of money on great looking audio equipment. Mind you, I'm also probably full of shit because everyone tells me that I can get exactly the same computer for half the cost of what I paid for my MacBook Pro and I'm yet to find anything that comes close. At least with the Apple stuff, there are objective things I can point to that justify the more expensive costs. With audio equipment, there's a slow curve up and then it just drops off once you get past a certain point.
- batiudrami 9y ago
  I don't buy into a lot of audiophile nonsense (and personally I don't think I can tell the difference between a 192kbps MP3 and uncompressed), however there is a clear and obvious quality issue with some Bluetooth devices, in addition to how terrible the pairing experience is.
- taneq 9y ago
  The Pareto principle is alive and thriving in the audiophile community. Anything beyond midrange is pure wank IMO (although I'll happily listen to 160kbps MP3 so you can probably disregard what I say. :P But this does seem to be borne out by a lot of double-blind testing, as you mention.) As for Apple products, you might get the same spec computer for half the cost but Apple has really nice build quality and integration (or at least did when I got my MacBook). It's the same spec but it's just nicer.
  - andybak 9y ago
    > I'll happily listen to 160kbps MP3 so you can probably disregard what I say. I'm with you several hundred percent. Didn't a serious of fairly rigorous tests way back conclude that nobody could tell the difference between a ~160kbps VBR MP3 and an uncompressed source (as long as a good MP3 encoder was used)? I think it was the Hydrogen Audio people behind it. I think they decided ~192kbs was the point where there wasn't any statistically significant evidence that anyone could tell the difference. And that's in ideal listening conditions when people are being asked specifically to listen out for differences. I think the margin for realistic listening situations is probably much wider.
MBCook 9y ago
My Aiepoda replaces a pair of $20 Sony over the ear headphones. They mostly sound better, the only difference being that the Sonys has bigger drivers and could do a better job on the low end. I never spend more than $60 on headphones (ignoring my noise cancelling Bose). Quality isn’t an issue. For something so small they sound quite good. For something so convenient they sound fantastic.

Not to mention for audiophiles there is the extra concern about sound quality loss.

by vtange 9y ago

Not to mention for audiophiles there is the extra concern about sound quality loss.

bb88 9y ago

The DAC on most consumer devices is not audiophile quality. Having had a mac book and a standalone USB DAC, there's really no comparison.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
koolba 9y ago
Are you being serious or was that meant sarcastically? I genuinely can’t tell as your comment reminds me of hilarious HDMI cable reviews.
- themacguffinman 9y ago
  Are you going to say something of substance or just act like a douche?
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't be uncivil on HN regardless of how bad someone else's comment was. It would be a good idea to read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make sure you follow them when posting here. Your previous comment broke them as well.
- btian 9y ago
  An audiophile quality DAC costs 20x what you see in smartphones. You also need an amp for audiophile quality headphones. Do you know any audiophiles who use phones to listen to music?
  - koolba 9y ago
    I don’t know any audiophiles period. Hence the lack of knowledge on the subject. I have a couple different sets of speakers and know that my larger ones sound better than the smaller ones (more “tinny” sound), but figured the core difference isn’t the quality of analog output on the source. Rather it’s the larger amplifier and larger size for bass generation.
  - misframer 9y ago
    I have a 2015 rMBP and its audio sounds as good as through my CEntrance DACport Slim. Maybe my headphones aren't audiophile quality (Grado SR80i, Sony MDR-7506)?
    - bb88 9y ago
      It's possible. I haven't used the CEntrance DACport Slim, but it looks promising. After looking it up I would set the DAC to the high gain setting and drop the volume lower. And the Grado's look like a good set of headphones. I would try listening to The King's Singers, which is an A Capella voice group that sings classical music. I can pick out individual voices in space from recordings that were recorded in the late 1980's. A good DAC won't smear them in space, and you can "lock on" to a voice and hear the tonal quality of it individually as if they were standing in front of you.
  - rorykoehler 9y ago
    For Bluetooth the problem is different. While most people will probably not consciously notice the poor audio quality after long hours of listening they will experience fatigue. This is less likely with lossless audio.
- 21 9y ago
  That has also been my experience. I bought an external audio interface to connect a condenser microphone and was shocked at how much better it sounded compared with the audio output at the back of my desktop (Realtek 24 bit...). I noticed that audio interfaces tend to have a lot of big condensers on the inside. The kind which don't fit in a laptop, and especially in a phone. Now I'm not an electronics expert to comment on this, but I would guess that the big condensers are not in there just for the fun of it. Note that I'm talking about professional audio interfaces (the kind used by music producers, in the $100-$400 range), not audiophile ones (kilo$, buzz words)
- bb88 9y ago
  I'm being completely serious. Typically a DAC has two components, the digital to analog part and an analog amplifier. So while the D2A won't typically be different, the audio amplification can vastly be different depending upon what you're trying to drive. Unfortunately you can't remove the audio amplification and replace it with another, unless you're willing to do surgery on your macbook, say. The best option is to buy a DAC with an amp that drives what you want it to. I have one that drives headphones that works like a charm, and I can hear not just the instruments clearer, but the location of the instruments recorded in stereo space better.
  - flyinghamster 9y ago
    I lucked out when I decided to upgrade my main system to a Ryzen 7. Not really considering audio, I had decided on an Asrock X370 Taichi board mainly because it was known to work with ECC RAM (and it indeed does according to dmesg), and was quite pleasantly surprised when I plugged my headphones into it for a listen. It sounded every bit as good as what I get from a Focusrite Saffire on another system, and even better, the headphone amp has much more power, making it much better for live, uncompressed classical choral recordings than the Focusrite. I can play them at concert volume and not get clipping in the loudest passages. No complaints from me about the DAC or amplifier stage on this motherboard. On the other hand, I haven't tried any recording with it, and for stereo recording my first thought would still be to reach for the Focusrite or my portable recorder and mic preamp, since I'd need 48V phantom power anyway.
- com2kid 9y ago
  The interior of most PCs (and phones) are very noisy from an RF standpoint. I get hiss on my USB headphones (!!!) from just out poorly shielded the case on my computer is. That said, Apple had traditionally put very well isolated low noise DACs in their products. I'm not sure if that is still the case.
  - exikyut 9y ago
    Are you 100% sure it's not the USB DAC on your headphones? If you've inspected it, sure. If not, I would glare at it for a bit.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Isn't the story that they don't put any DACs in their products anymore? Or, more accurately, that the DACs have moved to the output devices (headphones, speakers).
kabdib 9y ago
I don't really have a problem with DACs on PCs, but the amount of noise present on most motherboards is terrible. (I can usually tell when my machine is compiling). A few years ago I bought some USB DACs and separate headphone amplifiers and it made a world of difference, even to my relatively ancient ears.
mustacheemperor 9y ago
At least the iPhone's DACs are absolutely audiophile quality, especially because the idea that "an audiophile quality DAC costs 20x what you see in smartphones" is patently ridiculous. There's no evidence at all that any good as in not flawed DAC will sound the same on nearly any, if not any system. At the very least, the audio quality degradation of most bluetooth devices has a worse impact than even your average middle tier Android phone's dac.

dpkonofa 9y ago

I consider myself an "audiophile" and have spent way too much money on nice equipment. That being said, once I started hanging out with people that call themselves audiophiles and have way more money that I do, I realized that most of these people can't even tell the difference in the sound quality and, frankly, there is no loss. One of the meetups I went to even had a contest for anyone that could tell which DAC was being used and another for anyone that could tell a FLAC apart from a 320kbps MP3. No one won the prize money. "Audiophiles" are, for the most part, full of shit, in my opinion and just need to justify spending ridiculous amounts of money on great looking audio equipment. Mind you, I'm also probably full of shit because everyone tells me that I can get exactly the same computer for half the cost of what I paid for my MacBook Pro and I'm yet to find anything that comes close. At least with the Apple stuff, there are objective things I can point to that justify the more expensive costs. With audio equipment, there's a slow curve up and then it just drops off once you get past a certain point.

batiudrami 9y ago
I don't buy into a lot of audiophile nonsense (and personally I don't think I can tell the difference between a 192kbps MP3 and uncompressed), however there is a clear and obvious quality issue with some Bluetooth devices, in addition to how terrible the pairing experience is.
taneq 9y ago
The Pareto principle is alive and thriving in the audiophile community. Anything beyond midrange is pure wank IMO (although I'll happily listen to 160kbps MP3 so you can probably disregard what I say. :P But this does seem to be borne out by a lot of double-blind testing, as you mention.) As for Apple products, you might get the same spec computer for half the cost but Apple has really nice build quality and integration (or at least did when I got my MacBook). It's the same spec but it's just nicer.
- andybak 9y ago
  > I'll happily listen to 160kbps MP3 so you can probably disregard what I say. I'm with you several hundred percent. Didn't a serious of fairly rigorous tests way back conclude that nobody could tell the difference between a ~160kbps VBR MP3 and an uncompressed source (as long as a good MP3 encoder was used)? I think it was the Hydrogen Audio people behind it. I think they decided ~192kbs was the point where there wasn't any statistically significant evidence that anyone could tell the difference. And that's in ideal listening conditions when people are being asked specifically to listen out for differences. I think the margin for realistic listening situations is probably much wider.

MBCook 9y ago

My Aiepoda replaces a pair of $20 Sony over the ear headphones. They mostly sound better, the only difference being that the Sonys has bigger drivers and could do a better job on the low end. I never spend more than $60 on headphones (ignoring my noise cancelling Bose). Quality isn’t an issue. For something so small they sound quite good. For something so convenient they sound fantastic.