The State of DACSES

[Hopstretch]

How do those two-play together Kerry? Keep hearing about Roon but I get, like, five pages deep into their Web site and give up, because I still can't really see what it does if you don't have terabytes of audio files on a NAS.

[Hopstretch]

Ayre QX-5 Twenty streams TIDAL, Deezer and Spotify, is "Roon ready" and has balanced, remote switchable headphone output. Hmmm.

[Dusty Chalk]

Dew et.

[Voltron]

1 hour ago, Hopstretch said:

Ayre QX-5 Twenty streams TIDAL, Deezer and Spotify, is "Roon ready" and has balanced, remote switchable headphone output. Hmmm.

Right back where you started. 

[TMoney]

The Oppo 205 does almost all those things at a fraction of the price...

[Hopstretch]

Good info. Doesn't come in silver though, I don't think?

[swt61]

1 hour ago, TMoney said:

... at a fraction of the price.

Do you realize that you just talked him out of that option? 

[Hopstretch]

What does Grahame say: "Reassuringly expensive"?

[TMoney]

9 hours ago, swt61 said:

Do you realize that you just talked him out of that option? 

Oh, I know, Steve. Mind games ?

[dsavitsk]

14 hours ago, Hopstretch said:

Good info. Doesn't come in silver though, I don't think?

I think you can get a Lexicon in silver ...

[K3cT]

I just heard the Holo Audio Spring DAC and it's definitely the real deal. I'm just not sure which version it is because the unit doesn't have the Kitsune branding and the owner said that he bought it from HK. 

Overall performance is in the same ballpark as the Schiit Yggdrasil but is less aggressive and has a sweeter tone. The DAC seems to "enhance" human vocal and I happen to like the colouration but YMMV. The Holo is definitely nice if you have a somewhat bright system and wants to tune it down. 

[Sherwood]

Roon is indispensable, Stretch.  Even on my budget, definitely on yours.  Pair it with Tidal for content if you don't see the value in organizing your local library.

What it brings to the table is a charming interface and world class metadata curation.  If you are an active music listener and like reading album reviews, looking at art, browsing artists who influenced whatever you're listening to, etc. you can't pass it up.

[Kerry]

On 11/19/2017 at 9:16 AM, Hopstretch said:

How do those two-play together Kerry? Keep hearing about Roon but I get, like, five pages deep into their Web site and give up, because I still can't really see what it does if you don't have terabytes of audio files on a NAS.

Roon integrates natively with Tidal.  It's very seamless and easy to get working.

[Hopstretch]

Youse guys is ganging up on moi.

* slouches off to Audiogon *

[gepardcv]

If you were to look at this DAC measurement for a 1kHz test tone, what would you conclude?

[dsavitsk]

That you could do better for a lot less.

[luvdunhill]

That you should give me your dScope.

[gepardcv]

Not my dScope. The image is hotlinked from... a couple of places where a shitstorm has erupted on whether that measurement shows a "good" or "bad" DAC. I'm just trying (and failing) to make sense of the (few) technical arguments in between the accusations and insults.

Edited February 7, 2018 by gepardcv

[Laowei]

If the glitch is audible or not (making the DAC being perceived as good or bad) , the measurements show the DAC’s Engineering as incomplete. Whether by choice, neglect, or incompetence is up for grabs. 

[mypasswordis]

17 minutes ago, gepardcv said:

a couple of places where a schiitstorm has erupted

Come on, man... you forgot to blur it out in the pic and change the file name

[gepardcv]

3 minutes ago, mypasswordis said:

Come on, man... you forgot to blur it out in the pic and change the file name

Wasn't worth the effort. But now that the cat left the bag, the thread in question is here (comparisons to the measurement I hotlinked on page 6), with a response from the manufacturer, and a response from the person who originally interpreted the hotlinked measurements as "good" here.

[mypasswordis]

I trolled through Mike's thread and found his response from over a year ago. 

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-yggdrasil-impressions-thread.766347/page-161#post-12572358

There are several things wrong or at least questionable with his post, not to mention his continual fixation with the one eyed trouser snake and ironically replacing and therefore equating shit with Schiit (mirroring reality). Too lazy to go through it one by one, though, maybe someone else will give it a stab. 

[Kattefjaes]

On 5/5/2017 at 6:32 PM, Mr.Sneis said:

USB is still crapshoot, it's gotten a lot better but the use of $$$$ expensive converters has gotten even more insane (like audio over ethernet).

 

Dear old Schiit's Eitr is a surprisingly solid option for USB-S/PDIF on a budget. It's basic, but seems to have decent clocks and does a good job of isolating from an electrically noisy host. Certainly if people don't want to spring for a really expensive D2D box, it's a much safer option than hitting AliExpress to buy something equipped with "Talema Sealed Cattle".

Edited February 9, 2018 by Kattefjaes

[DouglasQuaid]

So a year has passed since anyone mentioned the Soekris.  Has anyone else here purchased one and form an opinion yet?

NT-503 looks temptingwith today's ebay promotion.

 

edit:  I'm a dope and the soekris has its own thread.  Thanks for your input, gepardcv.

Edited June 6, 2018 by DouglasQuaid
I'm a dope.

[gepardcv]

I've had a Soekris dac1541 since late summer last year (~9 months or so). It's really good. I made a volume-matching AB (not ABX) switching box, and I could not hear much difference between the 1541 and a Gumby. Sold the Gumby, it's not worth the desk space and it has fewer features (not to mention it has that obnoxious relay that snaps loudly at night in a quiet house when it has no USB signal lock). The original filters are pretty neat and have audible differences — admittedly with sighted testing, but that's way more than I can say for any other filter-switchable DAC I tried.

I also recently picked up an RME ADI-2 DAC to play with its DSP. Very neat device. The built-in parametric equalizer works well. I've never heard a 007A+Carbon combo thump this hard after I EQed it to (as best I can without a measurement rig) match the Harman curve (based on Tyll's old measurements of the 007). On the downside, I think it increases listening fatigue somewhat, so it's probably not ideal for long listening sessions. For short periods (like 30min or so), it sounds pretty fantastic and impressive. With all DSP turned off, I cannot hear meaningful differences between the ADI-2 and the dac1541, but I must admit I didn't try very hard.