ESS vs Burr Brown DAC chips

I once owned a Gato 250s. Fabulous. I have since upgraded to the 400s. With no regrets and "a big grin to pass the time of day with"

Fantastic question and very informative answer. I'd love to hear more about DAC output stages and power supplies

I don't think DACs matter, but implementation matters. Perhaps tuning is a better word? I have some devices with ESS that sound "musical" and some that sound bright and shouty in comparison.

PCM1792/1794 is still disliked (sometimes even hated) by most of audiophiles. Because it's still the one of rare examples of precisely working DACs, not bringing in his own trash into sound. The only competitors to these DACs are AKMs top of the line DACs. ESS is not even close to these beasts. Not in terms of sound perfection.

Paul, you've created a new conundrum. Now you need a video explaining why customized FPGA Dacs are superior to off the shelf implementations. Not to say that there's no talking about R2R ladder Dacs in the conversation in comparison to sigma delta dacs. LOL!

I prefer R2R ladder, to my ears they sound more musical than delta sigma. I know that delta sigma is technically better but hey, this hobby is subjective and it comes down to taste.

From my limited personal experience, in general, ESS chip DACs have better detail retrieval, almost sharper sounding, compared to AKM chip DACs. It might be the chip, it might be the implementation might be the output stage, but out of the 15, 20 DACs that have sat in my system I found this to be the case.

What do you think about the D&M which ended their SACD/CD mechanisms? will Luxman offer their LxDTM-i?

Thanks for a really great and incredibly succinct explanation of what must be a very large subject. I hadn't really thought of the processing before as a little computer inside our hi-fi equipment but it's mind boggling when you think of all that analogue (I'm English!) signal being chopped up in nanoseconds and being spewed out as 0's and 1's! It's even more mind-boggling when you think of how our ear's do this so neatly with the inner ear bones and hairs in the cochlea.

Digital hi-fi is actually a bit of a retrograde stage in this, isn't it? We start of with analogue sound which hairs in the cochlea convert into pulses our brain responds to. Traditional hi-fi used vinyl records (or analogue radio signal), amplifiers and speakers whilst keeping it all analogue until it reaches our ears. Nowadays we worship introducing digital stages to all this: we convert our performances to digital and do all sorts of amazing processing on it and then convert the digital back to analogue before the last amplifier and speaker stages. And we call this progress!

RME had to switch from AKM to ESS for the DAC chip in their Adi-2 FS DAC. I heard both versions in a demo on a good system in a shop. Difference was hardly noticeable.

DAC’s R2R high end it’s the best option up to now.
No doubt.Let’s be honest.

Opampsmale the biggest dofference

i love old burr brown chips. very close to r2r implementation.

Makes sense

Isn't it ironic a company who swears by DSD uses a chip (ESS) that does not process DSD natively? :)

AK4499 destroys them all!
Much better sound than ESS chips .... At the same time rest of DAC implementation is even more important, power supply , voltage regualtion quality, analog output section ....
No excuse why good DACs cost as much as they do.... Chi-Fi is teaching all a lesson and will dominate and force our brands to run more lean operations and also be able to produce high end sub 700usd DACs not to mention 300usd ones

Everything matters, and so do the chips. I had three ESS and two AKM DACs in price ranges from 900€ to 2900€ and I can say with confidence that they have a different sound signature, which always shines through. Whether the overall sound is full, fluid, well-balanced, low distortion, what have you, depends a lot on the circuitry around the chips.

As always a good overview by Paul.
If we delve a little deeper, I'd argue that everything matters and that the chip is the least impactful. They are all good. But that's like saying all red wine from Italy is good. Some are better and we all have our preferences. I like the nice old TDA1541a chip.
DAC sound is primarily driven by 4 thins.
1. Power supplies and grounding. Every supply matters. Particularly the digital ones. Separate supplies for every consumer with tons of F and low noise turns digital to analogue.
2. Output stage including I/V.
3. Extremely low jitter I2S inputs.
4. The actual DAC. While they are all great, when 1 through 3 are perfected, the DAC engine really sets the sound. ESS is detailed but can lean to hard. My old TDA1541a is obsolete in terms of specs, but to some the sound cannot be beat.

I recently picked up a dvd audio/sacd player from 2005 that uses burr brown 1738 dacs. Compared to the ess dac in my cambridge audio integrated amp I bought in 2020, its not a contest, the burr brown is simply nicer to listen to

Ultra Linear was the best I’ve heard even today. Too bad it was put out by the industry.

ESS sounds fake and produce tinnitus, Philips was the most realistic and natural, also wolfson was very natural, the rest just linear boring with no life and they need to compensate with filters and stuff sounding fake at the end of the day

I have a usb burr brown dac with no extra op amps or circuit and it sounds marvelous, so its a lie that dacs doesn't matter or they depend on the circuit

I am a BB63 fan. I do not like ESS.

Only Burr Brown !

Obviously those S's in ESS stand for "sharp" and "shrill". If it was called ERW then it would be "relaxing" and "warm".

Many moons ago, I had an Alpine ERA-G320 eq and DSP. It had a BBE circuit. It was adjustable. It could be contoured to increase effect at high or low frequencies. Utterly impressive. That EQ created a soundstage in my car that rivaled many home systems. Miss that thing!!

Personally I think that would be a great series of videos, that is going through the signal / processing chain to explain what is happening and myth busting
Digital signal input
Re clocking / jitter removal
Filtering / conversion
Pre amp
One short video for each discrete stage.

Has the quality of Burr-Brown chips changed since Ti bought them out? Better Worse?

Yes, let's hear more about encoding the fpga.

For classical i prefer ESS ,for Rock and Reggae AKM (for the Bass) .

This is slightly off-topic. I'm a British 🇬🇧 Hi-Fi enthusiast of 45 years experience.

There is a LOT of snobbery and snake oil in Hi-Fi.

I have a Hisense 4K TV. I've used my 45 years of knowledge in video and audio to adjust the settings. Picture and sound (while obviously NOT Hi-Fi) are excellent by TV standards.

This is where it gets interesting. The other day, I played some FLAC files from my Minisforum GK41 Mini PC through the TV (which serves as a 4K 50" monitor). The vocals on Buddy Holly's True Love Ways, were stunning (I've never heard them sound bad) through the lowly TV speakers!

I've never heard such good sound THROUGH A TV!

Cue the Hi-Fi snobs telling me I need my ears syringing? ... Err, I don't! Good sound, is good sound, no matter WHAT it emanates from! (Remember, I'm NOT saying it's Hi-Fi!)

AWESOME ANS WISE WORDS!! Thanks Paul!! Spot on sir. 😊

Would love to hear your opinions on ladder dacs and their supposed warm sound

Hi Paul , great interesting video, another chip set is Texas which rotel now installing in for eg rotel A11 mk2 amp instead burr brown , it’s very interesting how you do yours for your equipment. Regards mark

Always been impressed with Analog devices. But your view and explanation grow on me - i always find it trust your answers, and agree with the once i know anything about. Keep the videos going out. Excellent thank you.

ESS all the way. I use a twin parallel dac and it's awesome

Paul is very correct.

Actually processing sound is not a super hard process for a modern dac or any modern dip chip. Your phone can output 4K 10 bit video at 60fps in real time and you don’t need fans or massive cooling. And actually inside the digital bit if you process with no errors or lag then the sound will be the same. It’s when you convert to analog where things can change. And this is why we moved to digital. It reduces the number of variables and possible errors

why did your dac perform so poorly in Amir's tests

does he do a better job? amir proved that your dac is weak😂

Hi, thanks for that

Hi again on rotel websites the mk2 a11 bow uses Texas Instruments 32 to 384kbits dac instead of the burr brown in the a11 tribune, I hope that’s more explains the point I was making regards mark

Your fpga is only big and hot because it’s not really optimized as a dac at the transistor level. All im saying is that isn’t a good excuse for why

I duno, listen to vinyl an tubes.....class A 😎

Paul, I have a Marantz 2325 and Bose 901s series II and want to stream Tidal or Qobuz so I need a streamer. I could buy a cheap streamer like a Wiim or Node and use a separate DAC or use the DAC in the streamer. Can you recommend a solution?

I am ESS

Brycen Curve

Crona Burg

Satterfield Plains

Despite Paul's knowledge & experience that I admire, you all must remember Paul is a business man too, representing his company that claims to be one of the best in this market, and I have no doubt about it! But many of the subjects discussed around the audiophile experience is really very subjective and full of variables, from carpet pile height of your room passing through your real hearing ability up to the cash spent on the equipment (quality equipment if you will). Having said that, the search for the so called "perfect" or "better" product and overall experience lies in a compromise of budget, brand positioning, part's cost, part's availability, "sound taste", marketing differentiation guidance of the company, R&D team expertise, technical resources and a dozen of other unspoken variables that the discussion whether IC "A" versus IC "B" is almost irrelevant, or in other words, almost impossible to do fairly. The best solution I see is: try to hear/ experience different equipments as your budget allows and make your own choice ! And calm down and resign yourself to your choice, pretty sure the gear that costs 10x more will most likely sound better ......