lol But… that is exactly what I desire. I want the mixed and mastered final result with nothing more or nothing less. I don’t think you understood me. I have been writing music and recording (trying to mix) and master for over 20 years. When I say I want to hear what the mixing and mastering engineers intended, that’s exactly what I mean. Not the original recording stems before mixing! lol
You’re completely glossing over the talent end expertise that goes into eq’ing, compressing mixing, etc all of the instruments into a fully integrated masterpiece that sounds amazing together. It’s an artform!
The last thing I want is any piece of my signal chain degrading any part of the final mixed/mastered recording. Understand? We’re not talking about original stems at all.
A little lesson on mixing for you… If you do not shave off say bass frequencies that are overlapping with the kick drum frequencies, you’ll end up with a final mix that has no punch and is flubby and lacking clarity. The mixing engineer uses techniques like eq, side chain compression and stereo panning in an effort to allow both to be heard clearly in the mix. It’s an art form and it’s extremely difficult since it’s subjective and different for every recording. Mixing, and as you put it… “messing up” the original individual recordings is necessary to make the final mix a masterpiece. I have huge amounts of respect for some of my favorite mixing engineers such as Chris Lord Alge and Jens Bogren. They “mess up” the stems real good.
BTW… You know what’s funny guys? I don’t care about DACs at all. I care about transducers. DACs should just do their job which is actually quite simple. Get the music into the amp as perfectly as possible. Game over.
Looking at Amir’s measurements and the 96dB SINAD needed for CD-quality playback, you’ll see most 75$ DACs won’t even degrade the sound at all, and it’s quite interesting (a rare find) when a DAC is not ruler-flat from 0 to 20khz+.
Ok, so you don’t care about what the musicians intended, you care about what the mixing engineers intended. How do you know Chris Lord Alge and Jens Bogren aren’t using DACs that “color” the sound and make it sound different than your Topping DAC? How do you know your Topping DAC doesn’t sound “black and white” compared to theirs? Or even, completely colorful compared to their possibly overly analytical studio equipment? There’s way too much parameters. Chipsets, condensators, power supplies, everything, in one DAC, to pretend “the Topping D90SE sounds like what Chris and Jens intended”.
Above the 96dB sinad it’s all personal preference imo. It’s just what you believe the engineers intended. I’ve heard a few people say X DACs sound way more lifelike and natural, though. Which would be more… what the musicians intended.
That’s great man. Honestly. The only way to know “what the artists intended” (mastering engineers included!) is to be there. If you’ve been there, and the D90SE reminds you of this experience, that’s just excellent, and I hope you enjoy every minute of music listened with your D90SE. I did not meant to troll you or anything, just wanted to know why you thought the D90SE was the best, for you.
Obviously, the easiest way to get there would be to buy the exact same equipment as Jens… but… I know what studios look like… not everyone has infinite money. By the way, I’m the guy who shared the Soundnews video above, in which he said the D90SE was more detailed than his ~3000$ Matrix Element X. If detail (for your headphones) is what you want… the D90SE appears to be a great DAC for the price.
Keep in mind, if you’d have been in a different studio, it could’ve been a different story… “colored” DACs or not, whatever works. But that’s one of your favorite mixing engineers, and you found a DAC you liked. So enjoy!
Again, I don’t care about DACs. I just expect them to be completely transparent and get the audio into the amp. The D90SE along with the A90 does the job for me and I’m very happy with what I’m hearing. Hopefully I won’t have to worry about the dac or amp anymore and can concentrate on the sound of the headphones and IEMs which is what I actually do care about.
To this reviewer, the ares2 had the most noticeable difference compared to the bf2 and d90se which he says are very similar. So bf2 for $700 or bf2 sounding d90se for $900…hmmm…that being said if topping did make a dac that sounds like the bf2, that’s def a direction id like to see from topping
I can’t quite figure whether he was using OS or NOS on the Ares II as I don’t think I agree with his assessments, although he’s using speakers instead of headphones?
And the recording engineer goes to drink a few beers while the mastering engineer is doing something to get the recording to sound good from smartphone speakers to SACD-pressing.
Bought on Black Friday for about $750 to complete the stack (A90+D90SE) and my HarmonicDyne lost all it’s slam and rumble. Bass is just barely there. When using EIMs (KANO snd 7Hz Timeless) the bass is awesome. When paring the D90SE w/ Ifi zen can the low end on the Zeus comes back to life. Am I missing some setting or maybe have a defective unit? When connecting Cambridge Audion DacMagic 200 paired w/ A90 Zeus has all the bass I could ever want. Any help would be greatly appreciate, thanks.
I’m not in the market for a D90. But I appreciate how Topping is now offering a non MQA version. It’s $100 less
I’m assuming this will continue for future models.
By the way, I’m the guy who shared the Soundnews video above, in which he said the D90SE was more detailed than his ~3000$ Matrix Element X. If detail (for your headphones) is what you want… the D90SE appears to be a great DAC for the price.
