Auralic Vega: my review

[Vitor]

Mine is 2000 hours approximately, and it gets better and better each day

I've tried 3 USB cables on it, in my opinion (and in order of preference):

 

- Transparent Premium

- Tellurium Q Black

- Furutech GT2

[ejn1]

Thanks...just checked it out and I have 51 hours on the unit. Since I have put about 20 on it since receiving it yesterday, it came with about 31 hours on it. At what point does it lose a bit of its forwardness?

 

I noticed a difference starting at around150 hours I guess but I never thought it overly forward even from the start.

[Germanboxers]

Mine is 2000 hours approximately, and it gets better and better each day

I've tried 3 USB cables on it, in my opinion (and in order of preference):

 

- Transparent Premium

- Tellurium Q Black

- Furutech GT2

 

Do you use a music server with sotm USB card or have the power pin of the cables covered?

 

[edit] Also, what coax digital cable would Vega owners recommend (for Bluray player connection)?

 

Thanks,

Jordan

[Andrew_WOT]

Yes, you can check hours and other info.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9454[/ATTACH]

Interesting, my SW version is 1.5, does that mean my Vega is obsolete?

Dear AURALiC, we want firmware update.

[ejn1]

Interesting, my SW version is 1.5, does that mean my Vega is obsolete?

Dear AURALiC, we want firmware update.

 

Mine is 1.5 also

[Regnad]

Yikes, I have 5503 hours! (and 1.5 so now we need 1,6, right, nothing else will do!)

[hifitubes]

Important question. When I had a company build a cable w/o 5V leg, the builder questioned how this 5V would impact the signal; in his opinion if a DAC was affected by this, it was not well-designed.

 

I run direct to my high-powered i7 server now, but use a battery powered Adnaco USB-fiber system for i/o. I also have a CAPS with SMPS power supply but it has a PPA Studio USB card on battery.

 

I have (4) different USB cables here I need to test once my LDR gets here. I don't expect a hug difference to be honest, but it will be interesting to try the 4 in each setup.

 

Do you use a music server with sotm USB card or have the power pin of the cables covered?

 

[edit] Also, what coax digital cable would Vega owners recommend (for Bluray player connection)?

 

Thanks,

Jordan

[hifitubes]

• 

 

Did you try the new driver from Auralic site?

 

Important question. When I had a company build a cable w/o 5V leg, the builder questioned how this 5V would impact the signal; in his opinion if a DAC was affected by this, it was not well-designed.

 

I run direct to my high-powered i7 server now, but use a battery powered Adnaco USB-fiber system for i/o. I also have a CAPS with SMPS power supply but it has a PPA Studio USB card on battery.

 

I have (4) different USB cables here I need to test once my LDR gets here. I don't expect a hug difference to be honest, but it will be interesting to try the 4 in each setup.

[Germanboxers]

• 

 

Did you try the new driver from Auralic site?

 

My SW version is 1.6 and my unit is four units older than yours.

[Andrew_WOT]

Has anyone experienced any issues with new driver?

After installing (following instruction precisely) my unit experiencing some difficulties switching between format.

- After switching from PCM to DSD128 playback is mute, takes flipping input to something non USB and back to make it work

- Sometimes after switching from DSD128 back to 44.1 material, the treble is severely rolled off, flipping through filters fixes it.

[hifitubes]

Has anyone experienced any issues with new driver?

After installing (following instruction precisely) my unit experiencing some difficulties switching between format.

- After switching from PCM to DSD128 playback is mute, takes flipping input to something non USB and back to make it work

- Sometimes after switching from DSD128 back to 44.1 material, the treble is severely rolled off, flipping through filters fixes it.

 

I was seeing some strange stuff with my JRMC zone which does upsampling to 384 for all PCM. Switching to PCM from DSD would result in pulsing dropouts. But so far so good with new driver though.

 

Rarely that white noise on start but I think that is the player because I'm in Auto mode the other day and heard it. Might need more silence on startup?

[ejn1]

Has anyone experienced any issues with new driver?

After installing (following instruction precisely) my unit experiencing some difficulties switching between format.

- After switching from PCM to DSD128 playback is mute, takes flipping input to something non USB and back to make it work

- Sometimes after switching from DSD128 back to 44.1 material, the treble is severely rolled off, flipping through filters fixes it.

 

 

All ok so far for me...

[ejn1]

From Mr Wang on software versions...

 

The SW version is only for internal record and with each batch of production and nothing related to program version. The SW is mostly for us to record the Femto Clock components version. We add another 0.1 to current version even the program is the same so there is no need to upgrade this. The current batch of VEGA is using SW 1.7.

[phaeton]

would like to share the great experience I got with Mr Wang, CEO of Auralic.

 

I got some weird problems with my Vega, nothing really serious but still annoying, mailed to Mr Wang and in a matter of less than 3 weeks including shipment to China (which is 1 week each way) I got my Vega back, perfectly working! BIG KUDOS!!!! really a FIRST class customer service, quick and effective.

 

needless to say, I paid nothing for this :-)

 

 

oh, as a side effect of this, I got my Vega with the new 1.7 FW :-)

 

 

 

 

 

btw, from first listening to the new 2.16 driver, and of course considering that memory is not always reliable, they seem to be more "refined", I can hear more details than before without any sense of edginess... anyone can confirm this?

[dr.sah]

Im reading over net that Vega is not good in low volume as preamp. Is that truth or not?

Im thinking to buy Vega, and use it as dac and preamp.

[ejn1]

Im reading over net that Vega is not good in low volume as preamp. Is that truth or not?

Im thinking to buy Vega, and use it as dac and preamp.

 

I would suspect the Vega's digital volume control is as good of an implementation as available... It's really not absolute volume that's the issue but rather how much you have to digitally attenuate the signal. This would be the case with all Dac's with digital volume controls I would think. Read the W4S thread and you will see some of the same. If you have an amplifier with a high gain that requires you to turn down the Vega volume dramatically on the dial (eg below 40 on the Vega screen), then a high quality analog preamp will likely improve the sound but it has to be good preamp...

 

For what's its worth, I could happily live with Vega as a pre...

[christopher3393]

Hello, Dr. Very much system dependent, especially amplifier. If you don't have to use the bottom 30 steps of the Vega's digital volume control, then many are happy with it, some very happy. Others with high quality preamp prefer to use the pre.

 

Oops, ejn beat me to it.

[Andrew_WOT]

Very nice table in this review showing correlation between attenuation and dynamic compression for analogue and digital.

6moons audio reviews: AURALiC Vega

[guiltyboxswapper]

Im reading over net that Vega is not good in low volume as preamp. Is that truth or not?

Im thinking to buy Vega, and use it as dac and preamp.

 

Auralic themselves have stated that like many digital attenuated volume controls, it will start deteriorating after a certain point. This has said to be around the -30db mark (40 on the display).

 

The Vega has a hotter than usual output (4v single ended at 100? - someone can confirm) which works very well for power amplifiers with less than typical (26db) gain or where they need much more than 2v input to get max output. Normal amps will struggle with such high attenuation to get the best from the Vega without a preamp.

 

If however your amp has a variable or lower than average gain, then the Vega should be very much in its sweet zone (60+ for normal listening).

[ejn1]

Not sure if you guys have seen but TAS just did a review on the Taurus MKII...

 

AURALiC Taurus MKII Headphone Amplifier/Preamplifier | The Absolute Sound

[dr.sah]

Does Vega has remote control?

[Germanboxers]

Does Vega has remote control?

 

Yes.

[ejn1]

would like to share the great experience I got with Mr Wang, CEO of Auralic.

 

I got some weird problems with my Vega, nothing really serious but still annoying, mailed to Mr Wang and in a matter of less than 3 weeks including shipment to China (which is 1 week each way) I got my Vega back, perfectly working! BIG KUDOS!!!! really a FIRST class customer service, quick and effective.

 

needless to say, I paid nothing for this :-)

 

 

oh, as a side effect of this, I got my Vega with the new 1.7 FW :-)

 

 

 

 

 

btw, from first listening to the new 2.16 driver, and of course considering that memory is not always reliable, they seem to be more "refined", I can hear more details than before without any sense of edginess... anyone can confirm this?

 

Hi Phaeton... What kind of feet are you using between the DAC and pre?

[phaeton]

Hi Phaeton... What kind of feet are you using between the DAC and pre?

 

Hi ejn,

well, nothing really esoteric or high-end :-) just a floor doorstop made with soft plastic :-O

easy, very cheap, very effective.... :-)

[ejn1]

Hi ejn,

well, nothing really esoteric or high-end :-) just a floor doorstop made with soft plastic :-O

easy, very cheap, very effective.... :-)

LoL, cheap is the best kind I was asking as I'm stacking my units at the moment like you and although the Auralic feet have some kind of pad on the bottom, its not thick or particularly soft so was looking for another option.