Explain to me about DAC's

[eljr]

I am trying to understand what makes a $10,000 CD player better than a $1,300 universal player.

Here is what I am contrasting. McIntosh sells the MCD1100 for $10,000.

Oppo sell's the 105 for $1,300.

They both use the same DAC. Difference here is that McIntosh uses 4 DAC chips per channel. The OPPO uses one for stereo. That is 8 to one. Does this help the sound? How?

What about other factors?

How do things like power supplies (type and quality) , clock accuracy, configuration of dacs, chassis rigidity, etc. effect the sound.

Why is the McIntosh superior in all these areas and how does that translate to better sound?

Is this better sound measurable? Is it within human hearing limitations to be an audible difference?


It seems no one knows. At least not message board posters as I can't get an answer anywhere. Figured I'd try here.

 

[markw]

No definitive answer. A lot of bits and pieces all go into the making of a piece of gear and the dac is but a small part of the equation.

This is a hobby heavily driven by beliefs and some people are swayed by their beliefs in spite of logic and science. And, a lot of people believe that the more they pay, the thicker the face plate, or the better looking the gear is, the better it is.

 

[Irvrobinson]

I am trying to understand what makes a $10,000 CD player better than a $1,300 universal player.

Here is what I am contrasting. McIntosh sells the MCD1100 for $10,000.

Oppo sell's the 105 for $1,300.

They both use the same DAC. Difference here is that McIntosh uses 4 DAC chips per channel. The OPPO uses one for stereo. That is 8 to one. Does this help the sound? How?

What about other factors?

How do things like power supplies (type and quality) , clock accuracy, configuration of dacs, chassis rigidity, etc. effect the sound.

Why is the McIntosh superior in all these areas and how does that translate to better sound?

Is this better sound measurable? Is it within human hearing limitations to be an audible difference?


It seems no one knows. At least not message board posters as I can't get an answer anywhere. Figured I'd try here.

Most of what makes a $10K CD player better than a $1300 universal player will have everything to do with looks, feel, and ergonomics, and, at least in my opinion, very little to do with audible performance. The analog section might be better, but the Oppo's looks pretty good. I've seen the MCD1100, and it makes the Oppo look like a cheap piece of junk. Most of the McIntosh chassis, and the drawer mechanism, is aluminum and glass, while the Oppo is plastic and sheet metal. The controls feel different. The McIntosh's chassis layout looks like artwork, and it's full of what looks like higher quality components. McIntosh will support the 1100 forever, and since they've been around forever (>50 years) it's likely they'll always be there to fix it. And it's made in New York rather than China.

The quad-balanced stuff for the DAC is just a standard feature of the Sabre ES90185 8-channel DAC. It's a strapping mode, not some arduous design effort by McIntosh. Not only does the Oppo use the same DAC, it uses two of them, one dedicated for quad-balanced mode in stereo, and the other for 7.1. The Sabre DAC was intended to be a specification tour de force, and I understand the 8-channel mode reduces noise by about 6db, which is a lot, except that it's 6db below the competition, which is at about -114db. Once you get down to -114db I doubt any improvement is audible.

If all you care about is sound and value I'd get the Oppo. The McIntosh is for people who love fine machinery and are willing to pay a lot for great ergonomics. If that's you, go for the McIntosh. If not, I suspect the Oppo will sound about the same.

 

[eljr]

The quad-balanced stuff for the DAC is just a standard feature of the Sabre ES90185 8-channel DAC. It's a strapping mode, not some arduous design effort by McIntosh. Not only does the Oppo use the same DAC, it uses two of them, one dedicated for quad-balanced mode in stereo, and the other for 7.1. The Sabre DAC was intended to be a specification tour de force, and I understand the 8-channel mode reduces noise by about 6db, which is a lot, except that it's 6db below the competition, which is at about -114db. Once you get down to -114db I doubt any improvement is audible.

.

Good info here.

How can the analoge be better in the McIntosh?
and what about, "How do things like power supplies (type and quality) , clock accuracy, configuration of dacs, chassis rigidity, etc. effect the sound?"

all you spoke to was the DAC.

thanks

 

[markw]

How can the analoge be better in the McIntosh?

I think Irv pretty much answered that question here.

If all you care about is sound and value I'd get the Oppo. The McIntosh is for people who love fine machinery and are willing to pay a lot for great ergonomics. If that's you, go for the McIntosh. If not, I suspect the Oppo will sound about the same.

 

[Irvrobinson]

How can the analoge be better in the McIntosh?
and what about, "How do things like power supplies (type and quality) , clock accuracy, configuration of dacs, chassis rigidity, etc. effect the sound?"

all you spoke to was the DAC.

thanks

Analog circuitry is more subject to noise, grounding, layout, power supply, and component selection factors than digital circuitry. Line-level op-amps vary a bit in current output and power dissipation, and the best ones cost a bit and run hot. Frankly, I doubt that Oppo skimped much here, but McIntosh is well-known for really over-engineering analog line stages. It's possible, but not likely, that the 1100 has slightly better analog stage performance. It also likely that McIntosh is using a more over-engineered power supply. Chassis rigidity isn't a sound quality factor, it's an ergonomics factor. I'd bet the McIntosh will last longer, just based on probably using more expensive capacitors, but does anyone really want a digital component to last 20 years? (Hmmm... I do wish my old Levinson No39 CD player was more reliable. It was a pleasure to use and a work of art. Better than the 1100 in those regards.)

 

[Irvrobinson]

Analog circuitry is more subject to noise, grounding, layout, power supply, and component selection factors than digital circuitry.

Now that I look at it, I really don't like this comment as written. I should have said something like analog circuit signal quality varies more by those design factors than digital circuitry. Digital circuitry performance is the same once you meet minimum signal quality criteria, while analog signal quality varies directly by the factors listed, and probably a few others I left off. (I'm tripping over my tongue this morning...)

 

[Swerd]

I am trying to understand what makes a $10,000 CD player better than a $1,300 universal player.

What about other factors?

Is this better sound measurable? Is it within human hearing limitations to be an audible difference?

It seems you are seriously considering buying a 10 kilobuck CD player. And you are wondering about other factors in CD players (besides DACs) that can lead to better sound, both audible and measurable.

Forget CD players. Spending that kind of money on speakers is much more likely to lead to better sound. I wonder if you are willing to consider this, but even if you are willing to spend that much money, spending it on any CD player, no matter what the build quality, will not lead to as significant improvement in sound as spending the same amount on improved speakers.

You also never mentioned your present speakers.

 

[eljr]

Irv
First, thanks for the answers.

Now, how can we know for sure if this particular mcIntosh unit is indeed a better analogue build?

Also, do I understand you correct? All a better build would facilitate is less noise.

 

[eljr]

It seems you are seriously considering buying a 10 kilobuck CD player. And you are wondering about other factors in CD players (besides DACs) that can lead to better sound, both audible and measurable.

Forget CD players. Spending that kind of money on speakers is much more likely to lead to better sound. I wonder if you are willing to consider this, but even if you are willing to spend that much money, spending it on any CD player, no matter what the build quality, will not lead to as significant improvement in sound as spending the same amount on improved speakers.

You also never mentioned your present speakers.

Thanks but can you answer any of my questions?

 

[Irvrobinson]

Now, how can we know for sure if this particular mcIntosh unit is indeed a better analogue build?

You can't be sure except by measuring it, but I think it is unlikely to measure significantly better than the Oppo 105, and even if it does I think the Oppo is good enough that the difference will almost certainly be inaudible. There is even a chance that the 1100 will be worse.

Also, do I understand you correct? All a better build would facilitate is less noise.

In theory, there could be differences in how the analog output stage drives other components, but I highly doubt the difference, if any, is audible when using a pre-amp or pre-pro. One more significant difference, the McIntosh is rated to drive power amplifiers directly. The Oppo 105D doesn't appear to have that capability. By driving an amplifier directly you could get slightly better measured performance, but again, I doubt it would be audible with a good pre-amp or pre-pro.

You seem to be looking for ways that the MCD1100 can be objectively better, electronically, than the Oppo. I doubt the 1100 is better from a performance perspective. I still contend the differences are far more likely to be in ergonomics and mechanical build quality. Note that I'm not trying to diminish the value of those differences one bit; personally I think they're important. But the McIntosh seems very unlikely to sound better than the Oppo for about 8x the price.

 

[eljr]

IRV

Thanks for the reply again.

Yes, I am trying to understand why the Oppo, even if minutely, would not sound as good as the McIntosh.

Why is McIntosh using 4 Dac chips per channel? What are they trying to accomplish?

If the McIntosh were to measure better, what would be the likely reason? (inaudible or not, sorry novice here)

 

[TLS Guy]

Even so, a BD player in the $100 to $150 range will have an analog stage far better than even the very best speakers and most power amps.

So the chance of hearing a difference between the Mac and a $100 player is minimal. In fact you would only detect it if you happened to have a player with poor analog circuitry. Then most of us only use our players as transports and do most of our decoding in the receiver or pre/pro.

The other issue is that it is well known that cheaper players play more discs than ones with expensive transports as a rule.

On the Hyperion site you will see their rule, that the chance of a player not rejecting discs is inversely proportional to its cost.

Now when my friends previous Mac disc player had a problem, I found that Mac player was actually using a very cheap Sanyo transport! Now I'm not holding this against Mac, as I assume they also know that cheaper mass produced transports are better than fancy ones!

When it comes down to it, the sound of you rig is very largely speaker dependent with a contribution from the power amp and interface between speakers and power amps. The rest is convenience cosmetics and pride of ownership.

So you absolutely can't expect audio Nirvana from a $10,000 and up CD player!

 

[eljr]

Now that I look at it, I really don't like this comment as written. I should have said something like analog circuit signal quality varies more by those design factors than digital circuitry. Digital circuitry performance is the same once you meet minimum signal quality criteria, while analog signal quality varies directly by the factors listed, and probably a few others I left off. (I'm tripping over my tongue this morning...)

but the DAC is not analoge, it simply converts to analog. How much deterioration of the signal can take place after the conversion while the signal is still in the DAC housing?

 

[TLS Guy]

IRV

Thanks for the reply again.

Yes, I am trying to understand why the Oppo, even if minutely, would not sound as good as the McIntosh.

Why is McIntosh using 4 Dac chips per channel? What are they trying to accomplish?

If the McIntosh were to measure better, what would be the likely reason? (inaudible or not, sorry novice here)

It won't measure better. I have measured quite a few CD players going back to 1984, and they all measure excellent.

 

[Seth=L]

It seems you are seriously considering buying a 10 kilobuck CD player.

Or he's seriously dumbfounded how someone could believe that spending that much more money over the Oppo will grant them a significant if any advantage in sonic performance.

Spoiler

Firearms analogy:

Question: "Why would I buy a SIG Sauer P229 when I could buy a Hi-Point for 1/3 the price? They both shoot 9MM, what's the difference?"

Answer: Because the P229 is a superior machine with overall better build quality and performance.

 

[Seth=L]

@TLS Guy

The Mac CD player you mentioned with the Sanyo transport, was it a linear tracking design?

 

[TLS Guy]

@TLS Guy

The Mac CD player you mentioned with the Sanyo transport, was it a linear tracking design?

It is a few years ago now and I don't remember all the details. What I do remember is though that the Mac player was malfunctioning, it was blameless! His dealer had sold him a very expensive high end regenerative power conditioner. Those are bad news any way, waste a lot of energy and make a ton of heat.

Anyhow the Mac player was the canary in the coal mine, and did not function properly with the awful waveform coming out of the power conditioner! I told the dealer off and ordered him an APC UPS, which he still has.

 

[Swerd]

Or he's seriously dumbfounded how someone could believe that spending that much more money over the Oppo will grant them a significant if any advantage in sonic performance.

Certainly possible. I responded only because he asked a detailed question about a subject that I haven't worried about one bit. He has clearly read about these two disc players at a level I haven't. So I wondered why.

He spelled, punctuated, and capitalized correctly (unlike some other recent questioners), so I made a polite suggestion of an alternative thought. But I'm a speaker guy, who thinks that all audio problems are solved at the speaker level.

His response was a bit brusque, but not quite impolite. I'll be content to get some work done while checking occasionally to see how this pans out .

Kudos to Irv and TLS for their attempts at answering.

 

[Irvrobinson]

How much deterioration of the signal can take place after the conversion while the signal is still in the DAC housing?

With good ICs in the analog driver stage, I think not much at all. Sometimes you see boutique high-end manufacturers that do a discrete solid state or even a tube analog driver, and they can cause signal degradation. Are those degradations audible? I dunno, probably not, but why add distortion and noise for fashionable appearance?