Are There Differences in Converters?

I dunno bro...i like the Burl the best

Holy cow those vocals come right up to your face on that JCF!

Listening from my iPhone and the Burl over and over wins just sounds more realistic warm and right at least on my phone lol

hello, cool .. apollo, lavry black, prism same same you think ? for electronics music, low, open sound ;) best vibes

How do you switch the different converters to your monitor controller?

what about prism sound & Lavry?

That Burl on the bass is fire 🔥

Couple years later, what do you think of the RME ADI's? Those things seem to be next level ADC/DAC for $1000 to $2500 depending on model. 32bit, 768Khz. insane fidelity.

Thank you for this unique and important video!!! Btw have you tried to compare JCF to UA Apollo Twin X / Apollo 8 converters? That's very interesting how Twin X sounds comparing to JCF.

Wow! the JCF...

As a long-time audiophile just learning about pro audio, the JCF sounds like discreet circuits,: clean detailed, dynamic while the rest sound like ICs: warmed over, veiled, and flat. What DACs are they actually using? Cirrus Logic, Burr Brown, Sabre?. Thank you so much for this!!!

Um I'm pretty sure you need to sync all of them to the same clock to accurately isolate the conversion circuit for comparison

Yes I agree with you on the JCF sound.

I've had the Benchmark DAC 1 from around the time it was first released.
I actually just found my receipt from 2007! It wasn't available in the
UK at the time, so I travelled to New York and purchased it and had it
sent to the hotel and had to carry it around until I got home!

I'm not exaggerating to say that it was the biggest and best upgrade I
ever made in my studio, it was far more noticeable than upgrading the
monitors speakers or getting acoustic treatment - it honestly felt
like there was a blanket lifted off the speakers. The clarity was
unbelievable. I've never had a bigger grin when plugging in and adding
a piece of gear to my studio.

Also, the dual headphone outputs have been invaluable. When I've had a
client in the studio and we both wanted to listen to the same thing at
the same time, it been brilliant..

JCF for me...
The voice came forward in the mix.
Vocals are key.
Clarity, separation were sharper. Could be a touch warmer though.

JCF pushed the mid frequency upfront real goof, almost sounds like a 70s recording

What an amazing difference between low and high end converters!
I just posted a video discussing how it affected my journey.

Thank you for all you do 🙂

Have you done a vid on (intentionally) clipping converters?

Listening on good headphones the differences were noticeable but minimal. The Burl had the most noticeable difference. The JCF was more open but not by a huge margin in my opinion. I actually really liked the Orion. Can’t really say any of them caused ‘tension’. Sounds more like 2.5% to me.

Thoughts on the converters on a apogee duet 3?

Certain Radar converters still sound the best.

i just bought the burl. very good stuff

you can be analitic about it or you can trust your ears. im trusting my ears- burl all the way.

Are you guys serious?
The 4 files that you provide are nowhere near each other, and surely not the same thing passed through different high end converters.
First of all, one of the files (the JFC) has an edit in them, so that the initial part or the final part don't align with the other 3.
Then, their loudness and true peak values are all over the place, like the converters were not calibrated correctly.
Thirdly, all those files reach over 0 TP, so they either have been mastered/normalized/heavily limited, or to obtain them through those ADCs you had to push the level into ADC like crazy, which is not what you really should do.
Finally, those files don't even come close to nulling. I'd expect good converters to be slightly different but with their tiny quirks and qualities, whereas these files don't null at all, best you can get is to -10 dBFS peak or around -24 to -27 LUFS of nulling, which really means that the files have no correlation whatsoever. I'd expect good converted files to null well past -60dBs with each other, unless you're implying that these very converters introduce into those files such massive distortions, nonlinearities and differences in results. I hope the producers of these converters know the disservice you're doing to them.

Please disclose the conditions of this very test, as to understand what we're really listening to here.
So I don't know what Marc Daniel Nelson is listening to, and I hope he is not building his biases and his descriptions on the same files we have, because these are surely not what a good test of what those ADCs do.

I liked the Burl the best, but found the JCF very impressive with an extensive open high-end.

I found the Orion to be dryer.

I think you’d have to hear them across more musical genres to really gather good comparison. The track chosen is odd or just confusing rather for this maybe bc there’s super clean elements alongside a very saturated element..

These are crazy money though! Would be so cool to see a normal ppl tax bracket version of this 😂

Aren't all of these units analogue to digital converters? So what 1was the chain here? Analogue 2 track through these converters then back to analogue through another D to A which isn't named? He should have explained this.

This is a really intelligent way of demonstrating converters, and I like how you spoke about using different converters creatively like you would with any piece of gear.

As far as critical listening is concerned is it possible do hear difference listening all samples through one DA converter? Doesnt it make all pieces equal?

Thank you for putting up some real content to learn from. Watching/listening to this actually brought my hearing up another level.Thank you!

Gotta admit I'm not there yet, but I was thinking about stepping up my game with some Apogee conversion solution, something like the element 88 and then migrating to the Symphony systems. My dream is to incorporate an SSL XL-desk and a bunch of 500 series candies and sweets... but getting back to converters I'm using apple and Apogee seems like the best option for me, e.g. setting preamp level, filters, phantom and pads from Logic Pro seem like a no brainer to me. Am I completely off here?

We can take a million different technical angles on this, but all I know is my toe was tapping more with the burl than the rest. That seals it for me.

Urks.... just looked at my bank balance and that converter will have to wait until I win the lottery..... maybe in my next life? But yeah, it's amazing to hear a difference, I thought there is no way to hear a diff, especially on the basis of the video sound track.... well, now we know. Thanks for the vid. Learnt something.

Gr8 vid but personally I can't STAND hearing distorted vocals in a/ b comparisons ... or in general ...it seems to throw everything else off the cliff with itself...

The glue on the Burl is real!! JCF sounds a bit more versatile though.

Burl is best on this

Wow. Great job! I do voiceover work. Years ago I bought an UA LA 610. The guy at the pro audio store told me the next thing that would make an improvement would be a good converter. Without knowing "anything" I bought a Burl B2. I told myself that was crazy $, but I did it with my feet on the ground. I'm SO glad you give the Burl B2 high marks.

JCF AND BURL 🔥🔥🔥

JCF is so transparent, leagues ahead of the others. Benchmark and Orion have got some strange mid issues, Burl has a bigger mid bottom warmer but adding some colour, binds the notes nicely though. Did you do the original mix via the JCF, as if so your trained ear may have already ‘pre-compensated’ EQ settings etc to the JCF?I record a lot of classical music and always looking for transparency over all else…JCF post mic pres would be amazing but this would come at some cost - gulp!

I heard more distortion on the JCF almost like a tube screamer, no wonder it sounds different.
Nothing magical about it

bull shit . this is a quick way to enter nerd zone music making. big mistake to be a nerd in musical art

Hi, I want to drop in my two cents. When saying "there is no electronics in the cirquit" you must understand that even in digital, there always is... I mean it's a converter, takes in analog voltage and converts that to digital bits. Meaning there are components related to protecting the cirquit, the converter chip, power supply making whatever voltages needed... A chrystal generating a clock signal etc... And much more that effect the quality of audio, jitter, noise floor (psu mainly)... There is no solution where the audio magically comes out the other end "without electronics". 🤷

Liked the Burl. But how can I possibly hear a difference in these high end converters when I listen with my (decent) consumer grade Motu interface?

The burl sounds best on my phone speakers

Dear Marc, thank you for this converter comparison and sorry for commenting so late after your post. I was amazed by the differences in sound because so often I was told that converters don't make that much of a difference. I can clearly hear the colouring of the Burl but despite that character I absolutely love it's sound. Kind regards, Patrick Peeters