Wyred 4 Sound Dac2SE Upgrade Revisited & Findings -- The Best Decision Unequivocally!

[audio.bill]

Richard - I look forward to the results of your comparisons. I would respectfully suggest that you put them in a new thread specifically about the W4S Recovery so that other interested members can easily find it. TIA for your time!

[audio.bill]

Hello Bill,

 

I agree. Sorry. I'll create the thread immediately in the same Sub-forum, i.e., Dac etc.

 

Best,

Richard

You have nothing to be sorry about, I simply provided a suggestion to make your evaluation easier for others to find. I greatly appreciate the time you take to share your impressions and look forward to your thoughts on the Recovery and how it compares to the Regen.

 

Kind regards,

- Bill

[audio.bill]

What should be really interesting is the DAC 2v2 SE, which utilizes the new top-of-the-line ESS Sabre 9038PRO DAC as well as other top grade parts upgrades for $3K.

[audio.bill]

If they have a Black Friday deal on that (they won't) I'm in.

According to their email announcement it will be! States that the BF sale is from November 18th to December 4th with special pre-sale prices (even lower than BF pricing) on selected gear each day until then. It specifically states that the new v2 series DACs will be included in the BF sale, but no details on the sale pricing. Details on the v2 DACs here.

[audio.bill]

The website doesn't say the DAC2 v2 SE will use the ESS Sabre 9038PRO. Only the 9028Pro is mentioned, have they changed their plans?

Initially they clearly stated it would use the ES9038PRO and that it was going to be included in their Black Friday sale. Then it was changed to 'coming soon' and was not available to order during that sale, and the latest I heard is that the ES9038PRO may be offered as an option on their top of the line DAC.

[audio.bill]

W4S is an excellent and forward thinking company, so if it reasonably can be done I'm confident they'll offer it with the ES9038PRO. It seems that the chip itself is in relatively short supply, significantly more expensive than the other versions, and requires different and more complex supporting circuitry to implement.

[audio.bill]

Would be very interested in further impressions of the ultimate performance level of the TOTL DAC-2v2SE including what other DACs it is being compared to. TIA!

[audio.bill]

Has any consideration been made for having these new DACs support MQA? Please let's not get into a debate about the merits of MQA here, as there are other threads already active on that topic. Just curious whether full MQA decoding has been considered as a possibility with these DACs. TIA!

[audio.bill]

On 3/17/2017 at 8:44 PM, audio.bill said:

Has any consideration been made for having these new DACs support MQA? Please let's not get into a debate about the merits of MQA here, as there are other threads already active on that topic. Just curious whether full MQA decoding has been considered as a possibility with these DACs. TIA!

Haven't seen any response to this yet, thought it might have been overlooked with the forum conversion going on. TIA

[audio.bill]

14 minutes ago, KDinsmore said:

I've got about 40 hours on the v2se. Ooooooooooo......La........La...........

Sounds promising, any further details on your impressions would be appreciated, what other DACs you've compared it with, etc. TIA and enjoy the tunes with your new DAC!

[audio.bill]

34 minutes ago, Wyred 4 Sound said:

 

Hi Fran, you're very welcome and happy to help you out. In the bigger picture, we were curious to see where the incompatibility you experienced lied and what the root issue was. Now that we've found it and remain confident in our I2S implementation, any further addressing of the issue we'll respectfully leave to the other manufacturer. 

 

Thanks

I am impressed beyond words with the professionalism shown by W4S and the way they handled this compatibility issue with another manufacturer's product. Admittedly when dealing with the interconnection of digital gear there are a seemingly endless variety of issues which can arise caused by either hardware or software. Many other companies would be satisfied knowing that their gear works well with the majority of other products they've tested with and simply declare the one offending unit to be at fault. W4S was not satisfied taking such a position, but went further to investigate and resolve the issue by finding what is apparently a compatibility design flaw in the other product. They then freely shared the solution that they found for the other manufacturer to hopefully address in their design. I have gained much respect for W4S by this display of their professionalism and engineering expertise. Kudos to EJ and Tony for a job exceptionally well done, and raising the bar for others in the industry to hopefully follow!

[audio.bill]

3 hours ago, Franatic said:

Andrea, I will devote more time to looking at this 180 degree phase issue over the weekend. It is something I am not familiar with. It would be good if I could create it so I know what it sounds like.

 

An out of phase stereo signal results in a very diffuse image with a lack of bass and no good center image. It can easily be heard on any system by simply reversing the polarity of one speaker's connections, just switch the + and - wires at either the speaker or amp for one channel only. Hope this helps!