It’s absolutely FABULOUS 
I love how @GoldenSound roasts both DAC deniers and summit-fi audiophiles in the same video. 
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How could you review this without giving exhaust gas measurements? I have one of these and the Sterling frammistan is last generation, which is cleaner after washing than the current generation.
I have to listen now to my other reviewer, The Lockpicking Lawyer
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Been comparing the amp section in the DX9 to a Aurouasound HEADA headphone amp. Initially, the HEADA amp section sounded noticeably better than the built in amp. I was running the DX9 in high gain. However, after switching the DX9 to low gain, the sound improved signifigantly. Now it’s very close to the HEADA, close enough where it’s hard to discern the differences. The lesson learned for me was to pay closer attention to matching up the DAC/AMP configuration. I was hearing congestion on louder passages with the DX9 in high gain withe volume at lower/normal levels. With the gain set to low, the DX9 now sounds very close to the high end HEADA.
That was fantastic. I lost track of how many times Golden said “isolators.” 
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Happy April 1, a little late. This also ties into the DAC discussion I think.
Brent and Dennis of Audio Unleashed give their take on Alain’s DAC poll.
You guys seen this listening test by Archimago last year? I just found out about it. Pretty damning evidence against “Appledongophiles”, though they themselves of course would never admit it. 
There was a trend towards preferring the objectively higher performing and more expensive devices: $20k Linn Klimax DSM/2 > $3k Linn Majik DS + Dynamik Power Supply > $10 Apple dongle among all 86 listeners who felt they heard a difference. (Section IV)**
That trend towards preferring the Linn streamers did seem to hit [statistical] significance when we consider those who had more confidence in their ranking and thought it might be at least “worth spending money” to upgrade.
This finding I think is also a nod to the idea that in a blind test, audiophiles do overall prefer higher-fidelity gear which correlates to better objective performance (like the 1kHz 0dBFS THD+N), at least in this test.
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What’s so damning about it? Most people don’t hear a noticeable difference, and for the minority that do, the difference is borderline statistically significant.
So yeah, there’s probably a real difference between DACs, but it’s in the realms of fine tuning the last few percent and not a game changer.
Here’s what Archimago says about DACs in a recent blog post:
The idea that modern DACs sound about the same is consistent across measurement results using what we generally know about the limits of human hearing, and for confirmation, once we do any kind of reasonable blinding, the listening responses are also consistent with measurements.
As consumers, I don’t see why the idea of transparency being quite easily achievable would be an issue at all since this means we’re free from wasting time worrying about whether our DAC is already transparent (reasonable devices of course, not the very cheap ones!). The only people unhappy presumably would be the audiophile “high end” industry not liking this idea being perpetuated because it cuts into whether and how much money they can extract from consumers, but that’s IMO their problem.
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Sorry, I may have been exposing myself too much to a certain type of Apple Dongle Suprematist/Sufficientist on ASR, a type who goes around advising every newcomer to buy whatever the latest $10-30 dongle Amir measured and placed at a good spot in his SINAD ranking, almost reflexively calling such a DAC/amp “audibly transparent” as if there was nada, none, zero difference to be heard by anyone anywhere if comparing against a higher performing DAC/amp (which they almost never admit are really combination DAC/amps, and will always just call “DACs”, to help support their narrative of perfect fidelity).
Against these people’s position, it’s damning evidence. Additional DAC/amp quality beyond the levels of the Apple Dongle, quality that can be heard by a sizeable percent of the audiophile population (over 80% in this experiment) is demonstrably a real thing. (And in fact to 57% of them it was the kind of difference that “may be worth” or is definitely worth spending money on.)
Does everyone need to go precisely to the next price tier in this exact test ($3000) to achieve summit-fi? Of course not, I’d bet that level of performance is already available sub-$500-ish. But not in the Apple Dongle price tier. Not yet anyway.
Having seen results from the $20-100 segment, I’m not sure if I agree that there’s nothing better than the Apple dongle in the lower price category. And with the “improvements” being quite small even with very expensive DACs, it would be nice to see another Archimago test pitting something like an Atom DAC against higher priced stuff.
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It would also be nice if he used more current DAC designs for the expensive DACs too. DAC Sample C is an almost 10 year old design and DAC Sample B is over 15 years old. Neither is available to purchase new anymore.
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But but but it’s not just with headphones. When I run my loudspeakers - doesn’t matter the EgglestonWorks Nico Evo or my venerable Rectilinear III Highboys on an Apple Dongle I think I can hear the DAC part doing fine, but maybe it’s the amp. Because they do sound louder, and the bass has more punch when I use the Sansui AU-919 with the Nicos and the Wyred4Sound (even though it’s a class D) with the Rectilinears.
Couldn’t a lot of this discussion be solved by doing level-matched null tests between different DACs? If two DACs null to the point where the only information left is outside the realm of human audibility, wouldn’t that imply they’re both transparent? I’m assuming perfect sample alignment, of course, which may be difficult to achieve in a test.
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Another interesting video: Can you hear this DAC?
Torben
I do love the people who spent thousands on DACS – and reviewers whose revenue streams depend on people believing DACs can sound radically different – digging in and insisting the testing is somehow flawed without ever producing a test which contradicts these results.
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There are multiple people with different reasons for wanting to keep up the DAC myth.
- Manufacturers obviously want you to believe DACs make a big difference so you’ll buy their new product. If a $100 DAC is perfectly transparent, what’s the point of a $10,000 one that is also perfectly transparent?
- Reviewers, especially those from the more traditional side of audiophile media, need you to believe so you’ll keep watching reviews. The constant lust over new gear is a major part of this hobby for a lot of people, and reviewers tap into that in order to generate views/clicks. They also need something to actually talk about in their reviews. If everything produces the same output, there’s no reason to talk about how some new DAC opened up the sound or creates much better bass texture.
- Forums need you to constantly chase the dragon so you’ll visit and they can leverage their user base for ads or access. If DACs sound the same, then the forum discussions get boring real quick.
- Big users on the aforementioned forums need you to believe so they can maintain their position in these places. They want you to read their DAC comparison threads and trust them as they wax poetic over every difference they heard between various esoteric products you’ll never be able to afford. If DACs sound the same, then the emperor has no clothes and now you can’t trust anything they said. I mean, think about it. Let’s say a trusted long time member of the community wrote a long-winded comparison between two DACs where they espoused the benefits of one over the other, but then we were able to figure out that the two DACs produced an audibly identical output. Why would you listen to this person ever again? If they couldn’t tell that these two DACs were the same, how could you possibly trust their opinions on any aspect of sound quality?
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Of course not, that would just show they perform the same, regardless of how close to or far from transparency they both are. 
I think what you want is to null some material as it comes out through some DAC vs. the original audio file, and even then you run into trouble not only with sample alignment but also separating out any ADC defects so you can focus only on DAC defects.
But there’s an even deeper issue IMO: what is the realm of human audibility (how many humans are you accepting in this realm) and how are you so sure you know where this realm’s borders lie wrt. the ability to detect FR flatness defects?
Big assumption. From what I’ve seen so far, this is not achievable with most audiophiles’ equipment and engineering knowledge, be they reviewers or not.
Our emperor has Scott-e-vest travel boxers with two pockets, and his choice of battered AC/DC or Metallica vintage tour shirts.
The evidence to date seems to show that listeners cannot reliability discen sonic differences between modern DACs when the outputs are level matched.
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