The Great Dac search

[philodox]

I'm always loosing my crunchiness.

...shit, there it goes again

*whistle* *whistle* Here boy!

[granodemostasa]

Sorry dude, it wasn't a real write up.

I'll give you an example.

On Sarah Blasko's "Overture and the Underscore" album each snare and cymbol hit seemed to have a longer decay on the VDA-2, however, there was more to hear. for example, a snare might hit and details like the vibrations on the chains on the insturment would come out more, as oppose to sounding muted on the stello.

On Esa Pekka Salonen's "Wing on Wing" CD, the "attack" from bells and triangles appeared to be sharper/faster with less extended decay than the Stello. this is what i mean by "faster," the attack, not the decay. (why the decay was faster in the treble, i don't know)

On that same Salonen CD, the VDA-2 had a longer decay and almost an HD650 style "reverberation" affect when it came to the orchestra itself, which had the effect of clouding the soundstage. While the Stello cleary took apart each section of the orchestra and one could easily hear where each sound was comming from.

I know the observations sound contradictory... the conclusions were inconclusive since they "traded" some characteristics back and forth as I continued to throw more Music at them. (btw, it was straight A/B style)

[granodemostasa]

I've been keeping my eye on this thing... http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlplay&1179517974

i would need a step up transformer... and i'm wondering if i'm looking at "audiophile" grade type of stuff, or should i get any regular transformer.

any opinions? has anyone heard it?

[aerius]

I'd much rather go with this. Sells on audiogon for around $1000 or so.

[granodemostasa]

I'd much rather go with this. Sells on audiogon for around $1000 or so.

they sell on A'gon for 780 on average. also, the monarchy 24 just a Dac-60 with modding. having seen how one modded dac-60 did in my system, i'm not all that encouraged to try another one.

[aerius]

How about stretching your budget and getting the Manley Reference DAC?

[granodemostasa]

How about stretching your budget and getting the Manley Reference DAC?

ah, i wish.

[granodemostasa]

maybe a dodson? supposed to be pretty good.

thanks... let me do some research on it...

[granodemostasa]

turns out the guy replaced his Meridian G08 witht he CD-10 and then replaced the CD-10 with a wadia....

[granodemostasa]

someone should buy this

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1181086621

[Nanoha]

someone should buy this

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1181086621

Amazing deal. I would have taken that right away if it was two weeks ago. Financial crisis here, so no game.

[Eric5676]

someone should buy this

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1181086621

That ain't bad.

[deepak]

This was a good deal: http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlconv&1180735219

Although I'm not a big fan of the MF house sound, you can't beat $50

[Iron_Dreamer]

It's supposed to be a good amp for Grados, not so great for Senns, so it should be right up your alley

[humanflyz]

300mW into 30 ohms should be plenty to drive Grados right? The Apogee website, however, doesn't say anything about the output impedance.

[deepak]

It's supposed to be a good amp for Grados, not so great for Senns, so it should be right up your alley

Yeah but it might be a bit dull with the HP-2?

[granodemostasa]

I got lazy, so instead of writing to sets of impressions, I'll just copy my impressions from head-fi.

"the DA100 is quite an amazing machine. forget that it can't do balanced (unless you seriously need it). I can't really claim pin point imaging, nor can i claim it to be the most neutral thing I've ever heard (it's warm, maybe a bit too warm with the HD650 sometimes), but it sure is just about the most musical dac I've heard and sounds exactly like the DP200. IronDreamer noted that he couldn't tell the difference between this and the 220, i thought he had tin-ears or wasn't trying hard enough.. i was wrong, the Stellos all do sound alike and I'd be hard pressed to find differences between them. Overall, the good things and bad things i perceived about the DP200 and VDA-2 are still the same but the HD650 is much less revealing than the K1000/F1, so they don't matter as much. I will add that the DA100 brought out all kinds of texture and "liveliness" and live like qualities that i hadn't heard on the VDA-2. if it wasn't for the VDA-2's superior soundstaging, i would be all over the da100....

don't take this as me saying one is better than the other. i actually think the da100 may be a better overall dac than the vda-2 (and maybe the lavry). However, there are things i have to consider... and i don't think i can give up the accuracy and clarity of the vda-2 just yet. both are fine dacs, and if you are looking at both, the only real question is whether you want something warm and musical v. something analytical"

[aerius]

Go vinyl and ditch the DAC!

[Nanoha]

I've entered the DAC hunt. Not having a source for a week has been horrible. I'm still trying to find a VDA2 or DA100. Too bad I just both of them on Audiogon by just a few days.

[n_maher]

There might be something in the single-ended realm coming down the pipe worth considering. I figure most people won't get what they're hearing when they listen to the Head-Fi podcast so I'll sneak it in here. Headroom went ahead and made a standalone DAC, actually they made two. This should all be confirmed with the unveiling of the prototypes at the National Meet this weekend.

[postjack]

There might be something in the single-ended realm coming down the pipe worth considering. I figure most people won't get what they're hearing when they listen to the Head-Fi podcast so I'll sneak it in here. Headroom went ahead and made a standalone DAC, actually they made two. This should all be confirmed with the unveiling of the prototypes at the National Meet this weekend.

Cool.

[Eric5676]

There might be something in the single-ended realm coming down the pipe worth considering. I figure most people won't get what they're hearing when they listen to the Head-Fi podcast so I'll sneak it in here. Headroom went ahead and made a standalone DAC, actually they made two. This should all be confirmed with the unveiling of the prototypes at the National Meet this weekend.

Nice! I was considering taking something like a Benchmark DAC1 for a test spin, but now I think I'm going to wait on that until I get more concrete information on these things.

[Nanoha]

There might be something in the single-ended realm coming down the pipe worth considering. I figure most people won't get what they're hearing when they listen to the Head-Fi podcast so I'll sneak it in here. Headroom went ahead and made a standalone DAC, actually they made two. This should all be confirmed with the unveiling of the prototypes at the National Meet this weekend.

I'm interested. Quite interested.

I doubt I can hold on very long however. Gah.

[n_maher]

Well according to my sources (not Tyll ) the timeline to bring these two products to market is not long. I wish I could share more but I lack the proper clearance and don't want to spoil the fun that will be Saturday's unveiling. And like I said, if you listen closely to the podcast (Tyll's part is early ) you'll get an idea of what's going on.

[granodemostasa]

Dope!

Headroom! why.... (headamp might also get into this...)well, i'll A/b it with the Moth hyper dac and see what i can get out of it. if that thing heads over to my table, i'll be like heading into fire...

impressions:

When Mike got the DP200 i thought it would be a good and clear improvement on the Lavry DA-10, yet that wasn't the case. He thought it was an improvement and in many ways it was, but for the first time... I heard giving up something to get something else in a dac. For the most part all of my dac upgrades were real upgrades, from the oritek to the wavelenght to the Lavry. Yet this wasn't so clear. the Lavry had better detail and separation than the Stello, while the stello was warmer, more exciting, and musical than the Lavry (not a big surprize). That encounter started the slippery slope towards Dac madness.

Frankly put, the dacs in this category all sound good, all are good and don't necessarily beat each other out. Sadly this was the case, the Monarchy Dac did somethings better than the VDA-2 and the VDA-2 did somethings better than the Monarchy.

Musicality

to many this matters most; the Monahcy (not surprisingly) is sweeter, more imagy and lively than the VDA-2

Toneality

The Monarchy the VDA-2 are just about the same thing here, with a tad bit of sweetness and shine on the monarchy compared to the more laid back and transparent sound of the VDA-2.

Soundstage

The Monarchy had a larger, wider soundstage while the VDA-2 was more precise and airy in the soundstage that it had.

Synergy

I actually thought the Monarchy matched by ZD better than the VDA-2, since it was actually the warmer of the two. Detail and frequency reach were the same for both dacs.

Bass/Impact

The Monarchy had a slight advantage, but not as much as the Stello DA100 has on the VDA-2. They have very similar bass responses.

Note I: couldn't tell the difference between them on the HD650 and had to switch to the Qualia to tell me. All of this speaks to how small the differences were between them. Overall, I did like the Monarchy better, but I wonder whether that may be a function of the tubes and not a general sense of "accuracy" in the dac itself.... I can't say right now.

Note II: Don't ****in' ask me whether I used the line out or pre-amp out of the Monarchy, I'm an audiophile, i know what I'm doing.