DAC filters : What is the impact on sound?

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Hello ,
Ηas anyone experimented with DAC filters to know what changes makes to the sound ?
I don’t really understand the Manual descriptions for each one and the impact to the sound.

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Nor me. I asked on the AV forums website last year but didn’t get any replies. I did try going through them all but couldn’t really tell any difference. The manual does explain them but just in a technical way. I would like to know real world examples of when a certain one might be worth using. For example, there’s one called brick wall. I associate the term brick wall within the confines of music as loud highly compressed. Does that mean this particular filter is good when listening to music like this to optimise the sound.

I have left it on the default Apodizing.

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I’ll second that too. Or third :slightly_smiling_face:

Agree with Paul’s observation and comments

http://www.esstech.com/index.php/en/products/sabre-digital-analog-converters/audiophile-dacs/pre-tuned-reconstruction-filters/

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Also found this…

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According the manual as far as i understand the filters is noticeable bellow 48khz and i imagine this filters could works for signal with low sample Rate .
Something like to clean the noise cause of the low samples Rates.

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I believe something different can be achieved with the digital filters. I found the links in the madfiddler posts very helpful in getting to understand what it is all about. Choosing a filter will suppress some artefacts and introduce others.

I’m not an expert on the subject, as I understand it first it is important to get an understanding of what the various filter artefacts (phase, pre ringing, post ringing, aliasing) are about. You can find out about these artefacts in the link madfiddler posted in post #4. Once you understand these artefacts then refer to the Arcam manual page EN-21 how the digital filters (Brick Wall, Corrected Minimum Phase Fast Roll Off, Apodizing, Minimum Phase Slow Roll Off, Minimum Phase Fast Roll Off, Linear Phase Slow Roll Off, Linear Phase Fast Roll Off) influence the artefacts.

To be honest, I didn’t change the default filter yet :wink:

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All of these digital filters have some trade off. You find the one that to your ears sounds the most analog. To my ears, the big problem with digital from the beginning back in the 80’s was the preringing. We really didn’t know why at first, but something didn’t sound right on transients from cymbals, guitar strings etc. I grew up before digital. I played percussion. I had never in my life heard a sound before my stick actually hit the cymbal, or drum etc. Nothing in nature has a sound, before the event. But with digital, you get a pre sound. And to my ears, it sounded wrong and brain fatigue set in quickly at higher volume. So for many many years, I could only listen to digital at low volume. I saved the fun times for analog tape and vinyl. Well lots has changed, either my ears have accepted the digital sound or the dacs and filters have tamed the pre ring beast enough that I am happy. Its probably both. I do not think there is one right filter. It is the one that sounds right to you. The brick wall filter is the original, with glorius pre ring. And I just can’t stand it. I do like the default filter mostly. I seldom switch it off. I may play with them some time when I am very bored. But I will probably load a reel to reel tape instead. :grinning:

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