"High-End" DAC Blind Listening Results - PART III: Subjective Descriptions

In this last part of the "High-End" DAC Blind Listening Survey write-up, (see Part I, Part II) let me document the more qualitative aspects of the responses I received from listeners. These come from the comments section where listeners described what they heard. You'll also get to see in context some of the descriptions of the hardware used in the evaluation.

Comments will be posted verbatim other than removing any identifying information and names unless the person specifically says it's OK. Not all comments are posted, only the ones with a fair amount of subjective experiential content or description of evaluation procedure. It's interesting knowing which city/country some folks are from so I'll leave that information if mentioned.

So as not to neglect those who said they heard no difference (yet I know many spent a good amount of time on the test), let's start with that group of respondents... I'll add some comments/responses along the way.

"High-End" DAC Blind Listening Results - PART II: Results & Analyses

I imagine that the banner graphic above must be so bizarre for some audiophiles! How is it even possible that the audio output from something cheap like the Apple USB-C headphone dongle could be mistaken for the way more expensive Linn digital streamer devices that cost orders of magnitude more?!

Well, of course we can! And if we are to honestly appreciate the difference in sound output between the very cheap and very expensive (we can buy a lot of other stuff, services, and experiences for US$20,000!), IMO, as audiophiles, we must open our minds to such comparisons. The hi-fi audiophile pursuit is not a cult; everything is up for empirical examination regardless of company, price tag, or which heroic personality is attached to said product.

Last week in Part I, I unveiled the identity and discussed those DAC/streamer devices. Let's proceed today with looking at the data from the recent 2024 "High-End" DAC Blind Listening Survey which collected listener impressions for 6 weeks; plenty of time I trust for those motivated to download, listen, and offer their subjective opinions.

As usual, let's go through the data broadly and then let's see if the results can provide some answers for specific questions around audibility, preferences, and listener subgroups. I'll group these questions and evaluations into a number of Sections.

Grab your favorite beverage, have a seat, this is a pretty long one... 🙂

"High-End" DAC Blind Listening Results - PART I: Devices Unveiled!

The time has come friends. Over the last 6 weeks, I've been collecting the data from the 2024 "High-End" DAC Blind Listening Survey. The procedure I think is already well described in that test invite post so I won't spend time here recapping that. Thanks for everyone who participated in the blind listening!

As with many blind listening tests, unless it's literally obvious, I know it's not easy to flip back and forth and it's very common after a few A/B/C switches to second-guess oneself! I certainly appreciate the time that participants spent downloading the >500MB file, getting it onto your listening devices, and the listening itself.

For this post, let's talk about the test, some rationale, and let me unveil the 3 DACs that were used.

Audiophile Survey, early 2023: Who we are (including age and gender). What we use. How we think.

Well ladies and gentlemen, thanks to all who took the time to complete the information in the open "SURVEY: What audio playback system and/or streaming music service are you using in 2023?" post. The survey collected responses from February 11 to May 5, 2023 on this blog, and as usual, the responses came from audio lovers around the world, receiving in total 1330 entries with general information on demographics, broadly what kinds of systems are being used, multichannel playback, interest in masterings, and for those using streaming subscriptions, which ones.

As with any survey, we have to start with some context for the data. Obviously, the individuals who submitted results to me would have been primarily the viewers on this blog although I know the survey was advertised at various audiophile-related forums. I did not do any special advertising personally, other than mentioning it on a few forums I visited like Audiophile Style or Steve Hoffman Forum. I don't maintain much of a social media presence so basically just let the survey diffuse across the Internet.

Given the nature of this blog and its contents, I'd like to think that this survey will tell us about some of the characteristics of the subgroup of intelligent, reasonable, balanced, technically savvy, prudently skeptical, practical audiophiles around the world in the first half of 2023. ;-)