TAS 194: Bryston BDA-1 and Audio Research DAC7 USB DACs
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Comments
Mr. Alan Taffel
I have been following your reviews of Bryston BCD 1, Bryston DAC 1, and Audio Research DAC. Some of them getting many awards by you. You mention that the bryston makes even a budget transport sound near State of the art. What budget transport did you use to test this and what transport did you compare it with? Also you mention that these DAC's outshine your reference CD playback, What is your reference CD player. Please comment on that....thanks.
How does the PS Audio Perfect Wave unit compare to these units?
I'm dissapointed. 16bit USB transfer means that Bryston and ARC have thrown in something but does not know how to deal with it. Ayre and Wavelength for example, knows. They deliver 24/96 on the USB port with asynchronous transfer. And a bright sounding USB cable? Jitter I'd say. TAS should do better than this!
Erm...an electrical engineer with 22 years experience in areas ranging from radar systems engineering to mixed signal circuit design has no clue about a "bright sounding" USB cable. Would anyone care to inform me about what that is? Are you suggesting a cable carrying digital data is emphasizing higher frequency audio content? I'd really like to know how a passive cable carrying a DIGITAL signal could do such a thing since digital signal processing is required in such a system.
Let's be clear. The asychronous nature of the USB data transfer has nothing to do with what's clocked into a DAC. As an example which illustrates this in the extreme, the data recovered from a CD is in effect asynchonous to its accompanying DAC in a CD player. The original recording was done not only with an asynchronous clock but with one running in a completely different time zone than the playback system.
It is great to see more of these type products however, such USB products like this should have been offered 7 years ago with the introduction of USB2 and/or the availability of audio drivers supporting 96/24 over USB/SPDIF. Not to diminish these products, but why buy something on the bleeding edge of technology? Where is HDMI support for example? Any serious DAC in this product space needs HDMI support or an upgrade path for such support.
I agree with "Oh No" that it is incorrect to talk about a digital cable as "bright". Readers need to understand that if there are sonic differences between cables, it is the difference in the cable's inability to reliably transport digital information between the 2 respective pieces of equipment. Poorly designed equipment can also result in a situation where it can decode the signal from one USB/SPDIF cable better than another These DACs know if the digital bitstream is corrupted; it would be nice if they communicated situations such as high jitter rates so that users know they have this kind of problem and can correct it with a different cable, different cable routing, shorter cable, or marginal equipment.
I agree completely with the folks who argued earlier that there is no way a digital cable can be "bright." It can function correctly, or not. If it doesn't function properly, then of course it won't work at all. Neither USB nor firewire cables have the slightest effect on the sound, regardless of audiophile claims to the contrary.
Digital cables do indeed have sonic signatures. I have listened to both dull and bright cables. I wonder if you hear differences in analogue cables or perhaps your understanding of digital electronics needs to be rethought.
The analogue cable is subject to frequency based signal degradation since the transfer function is based in the frequency domain. i.e. higher frequencies have a higher impendance and more loss.
Digital signals pass or they don't, a 11000101011 is still 11000101011 at the other end of the cable if it worked correctly.
They're is no bright or dull in a digital transfer. if the transfer isn't working, you don't hear any sound.
Dear Anonymouse: I originally thought of digital cables the way you do - passing bits and bytes only. However, I have come to understand that like any conductor, such interconnects and their terminations (i.e., XLR, S/PDIF, USB, HDMI, etc.) can pass along other "artifacts" such as RFI and can contribute to jitter, "pre-echo", etc. (and dither re: video). Also, these different kinds of connectors have different bandwidth capacities, which can have direct sonic implications. Having said this, I'd still like some source of information about what the KEY variables are to WHY different connectors differ sonically. I wish my trusty audiophile writers at Stereophile, Absolute Sound, or for that matter, Home Theater and Sound would spell these matters out. Perhaps it is beyond their level of experience or such matters are not yet sufficiently understood so that they can be written about for the lay person like me to understand. I don't really think it's a "conspiracy" as some would say in these blogs - it may be a lack of rigor or will to invest the time to make it understandable. In any event, I remain disappointed that it's not easier to find information that explains these matters in a readily understandable way. Any follow-up thoughts?
If a cable carrying digital data has a "sonic signature", that that cable is introducing ERRORS in the data stream. In other words, if that same cable was used to transport data to your disk drive, your bank records would have ERRORS in them.
So NO, there is NO "sonic signature" or "brightness" in a cable that is delivering digital data to its receiver without ERRORS. If there is a "sonic signature" of such a cable carrying digital data, do not save your banking spreadsheets with it unless you intend for them to be wrong.
"Digital signals pass or they don't".
That's not true. If there are data errors in the transfer or there are differences in timing (eg. jitter), the receiving device does not go back and get it like a computer would with its hard drive. The data stream is real time. Now, whether there are substantive differences between two digital cables, I can't say. But "it passes or it doesn't" is not true.
It's a device, not a piece of art. Where are the specs of it. For that matter, where's the DEFINITION of it? This writer seems to be SELLING the device, not reviewing it objectively. I'm assuming, from the test and the comments, that a DAC is a Digital-to-Analog cable. I don't know why you need one, what benefits one gets (on a technical basis, not the subjective "bright" description). I take the output of my sound card and run it into a preamplifier, then to an amp. It sounds great. What's the point of a DAC?
oh pulleeeze,synchronous usb inputs and they want to sell it as a usb dac?no bill johnson,there is no santa claus.
thank god for gordon rankin
michele from rome
I just spent the afternoon listening to the DBA-1 and this is the best and most musical DAC in this price range that I have heard.I appreciate the many inputs and the fact that it can be remote controlled with a Harmony universal remote (someone got the codes from Bryston and passed them on to Logitech : it works). The only thing that makes me hesitate from buying it is the fact the the USB input is limited to 16/48. I have been looking at the 24/96 material now available for download and I was hoping to try it on eventually.
Someone mentioned that Wavelenght does a better job with USB. That might be true but I have heard the Proton and I was sorely disappointed : it's sound is terribly two-dimensional. Perhaps the Brick is better, but it's about the same price as the DBA-1 and it's USB only.
I just spent the afternoon listening to the DBA-1 and this is the best and most musical DAC in this price range that I have heard.I appreciate the many inputs and the fact that it can be remote controlled with a Harmony universal remote (someone got the codes from Bryston and passed them on to Logitech : it works). The only thing that makes me hesitate from buying it is the fact the the USB input is limited to 16/48. I have been looking at the 24/96 material now available for download and I was hoping to try it on eventually.
One option I'm contemplating is buying the Bryson and then using a USB to SPDIF adapter (like the Bel Canto USB Link) to connect my laptop to the Bryson. Some reviewers have reported great results with this approach. So far it seems to me like the best solution for someone who needs a DAC with more than USB, and it's still 1000$ cheaper than the DAC7.