What Is happening?! M1570, M1070, M570 from Monoprice THX AAA 887 Too!

Headphones Headphone Discussion / Help
61

Could you link that please?

62

my pleasure:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=38965

there is also a Liquid Platinum DAC coming too:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=38966

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63

Interesting. Wonder how it will stack up against the D10. I still would recommend the d10 unless this ends up being a better product or they like the look of the liquid stack

64

is Topping really that good? and what a funny name!

65

It’s super clean for the price and really all you need. It can sometimes be had for around 70 USD. It has an ess chip vs the ak chip in the liquid, do I wonder if it will sound as clean as the ess. Typically the ess chip implementations are more analytical where the ak chip implementation have a slightly warmer sound imo

66

Jesus christ, a akm4499? That’s akm’s flagship flagship chip set. I know implementation is a huge factor in how well a dac will preform (just look at the adi-2’s lowly 4490 dac chip), but having the best dac chip you can currently buy in a sub $1000 package is a good start.

67

is there a breakdown anywhere that talks about DAC chipsets and what they’re good and not good at?

68

I wish JDS would come out with a DAC for their Atom. Lots of $100 DACs but this one seems like a great option on paper.

69

Ok yeah he didn’t have the Platinum dac when I looked at it. That’s pretty impressive for the price :ok_hand:

70

It’s really not worth it. I would look at reviews and comparison of the finished product dac to actually get any real world performance info

71

so no papers that talk about the different DAC chipsets?

72

They do exist, but the implementation of the dac will usually effect the sound more then the actual dac chip itself

73

fair enough…but wouldn’t the differences just be exaggerations of what the chipset is known for? would be odd to take one known for it’s cool sound and force it to be something warmish. granted, someone might just do that because they can. :stuck_out_tongue:

74

It really is down to the implementation more then anything else. Any competent dac will do the job.
IDK if there are any formalized lists besides pure opinion

75

Audio science has a review of the new mp thx amp.

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76

I think the review was posted above by jefflebon

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77

It entirely depends on how transparent, and I guess “revealing” the rest of your audio components are. I like to think of a dacs like motherboards. In most cases getting a higher end version will make very little difference to actual performance. However, when you have a threadripper or a i9 9980xe consuming over 300 watts, suddenly it does. So like mon said, in most cases you would never need a dac like that, but if you’ve invested enough into the other components in your audio chain, I kind of acts like insurance, giving you the most optimal signal to be amplified. I’m just excited to see if a dac of this spec sheet can offer that given its anemic cost compared the actual “high end” dacs (which can become asinine in cost).

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78

This and I was also trying to point out that a high end dac chip isn’t what really makes a good dac. You can have an excellent sounding dac with a mid-range chip sound better then a dac with the latest and greatest chip. The main thing that actually colors and effects the quality of the dac is the implementation, so I would rather take a lower spec’ed well implementation then a new flagship dac chip with a mediocre implemention. I really don’t think you need to go over 1k for a pretty much end game sigma delta. But, that being said r2r dacs can be pretty nice imo, and something I would spend more then 1k on (as I already have done). I’m not going to comment on what’s better technically, but for me I can actually hear the difference between higher end r2r designs, where honestly with sigma delta dacs they all do such a great job I can’t hear a difference

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79

hey M0N…you can or can’t hear a difference between the top shelf r2r designs? you used and and can’t in the same sentence and now I’m confused.

80

Sorry about my poor sentence structure, my bad. I can, but because r2r designs are typically purposefully colored. Some designers have a certain sound in their mind. It’s like a tube amp in my mind. Older tech that can have a certain sound that can be pleasing to some. Tubes can sound different and effect the sound in different ways, and r2r designs can yield different sounds as well

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