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[sparkydog57]

Hi ive just purchased a Audiolab M-Dac+,ive set it up with JRiver on a Win7 partition, and have it set up with Foobar on a Win 8.1 partition to avoid any clash, im brand new to all this and should have done more research to begin with, the problem is there is absolutely no difference in the sound playing from my laptop via headphone socket to tape input on old Audiolab 8000a amplifier,and USB from laptop to M-Dac then RCA to CD input of 8000a, ive done it this way so i can quickly make the laptop realtec the default or the Audiolab USB out to M-Dac the default and then just using the input switch on the 8000a to toggle between both inputs,now ive played some DSD files(the first time ive heard these hi res files and im impressed, the files im playing are MP3 320kbps and CDs and as i say no difference in sound at all except in volume, originally i read that a good Dac just provides a less noisy sound, then i read the M-Dac+ reviews on amazon and people were amazed at how their CDs and MP3s sounded so much better and they were hearing things they had never heard before from the same as mine MP3 320kbps and CDs, so i figured that the Dac must resample the music (sorry if thats the wrong term i am a Newbie) also only one reviewer said he could hear no difference, his moniker was audiophile btw, the rest were over the moon, also they advertise on the box compatible with ipods and ipads, but surely they would be playing MP3s as well, my problem is i dont know if its faulty or not and i only have six days to return it, id appreciate any replies Thanks Phil...

[goatherder]

It really depends on how much you buy into the whole audiophile thing, and also how good your front end - i.e. the thing actually moving the air molecules towards you - is.

In terms of the thing actually acting as the source, with modern codecs (i.e. the audio chips built into laptops, tablets and phones in the last half decade), things are now good enough to replace the vast majority of audiophile playback solutions. And the differences expressed by most are, being brutally honest, largely self-delusion since they don't make a lot of sense with the level of equipment involved, environment and/or hearing ability. There *are* differences moving across the audio equipment spectrum, but the actual practical implications for general listening are in most cases too small to be worthwhile for all but critical broadcast / mastering use beyond a certain point - and that point is probably a couple of hundred dollars now.


My own expectations of my own high-end equipment are for them to act as the dudeniture that they are and also to be a 'I am getting the best out of this so I don't have to wonder if it gets better' quality control.

e.g. The reason I have the equivalent of a house in many places sunk into my main audio / home theater setup isn't for the ultimate in audio quality, it's the overall experience, and also the ability to indicate to people who visit and occasionally online "See this? This ain't no big thing".

And while I have M-Dacs and M-Dac+'s (For me, the M-Dacs represent the most I'm prepared to spend on "commodity listening hardware") hooked up to a lot of desktops of mine - at least those which don't have pro audio interfaces - it's more a 'I don't want variations in my sound when moving from machine to machine' than 'I want drastically better audio than what's built into my computers already', because unless you compare my crappest-for-audio desktops, most of them are going to have analog output quality to all practical intents and purposes identical to the M-Dacs, especially for casual listening.


In this hobby I think you tend to have three different groups, with two very aware of both the limitations of hearing and also the ability of current gear:

1. The "I spent everything I could afford on this and oh my god this is amazing I can hear what I couldn't regardless of the actual results" camp. This forms the bulk of audiophile communities.

2. The "I know audio gear plateaus in performance, my $100 source / speaker / headphone is the endgame" school of thought. Most of these guys are however are also in the "I can only comfortably spend a hundred on this" school of wallet.

3. The goatherder "I bought a Rossini stack because I can, and also just to make sure I'm not missing out on anything" school of thought.


And at the "I bought an M-DAC to get much better sound" spend level, I think you should probably have sunk it into headphones or speakers instead.

[Absinthe]

Generally agree with goatherder.  There are subtle differences between the thousands of commercial DAC's out there but I question if those differences are more personal preference than actual "truth"  For a long time its the "absolutely flat response" that was (is?) the holy grail when it comes to music reproduction but you've got to pick your battles.  I don't know many listeners who really like a flat response, especially when put in a real life home.  You can spend upwards of several hundred thousand dollars for top of the line Amps, Preprocessors, Speakers, DAC's and so on; but will you hear the difference?  If you can't hear the difference, why spend the money?? 

Having said that I've got one system in the Theater Room that employs an Integra Pre/Pro to process the digital audio stream into analog to the amps.  While this system produces multiple channels of sound and at much higher volumes than my Music setup in my office (Currently an Asus motherboard, with Toslink outputs to a dedicated DAC then to an audio Amp, they sound pretty much on par as far as quality.  In order of preference where to put your audio money, chose speakers first.  Id even choose the Amp first over the DAC, but that's my preference.  If you fail a blind comparisons between using equipment and not using it, you've wasted money