The minimum DSD DAC

[Satie]

I am new to Computer Audio and after a year's lurking I have a real question for you all.

 

I have had a transformational experience with The PS Audio Perfect Wave DSD DAC. PCM converted to DSD is for the first time in my experience making CD and other PCM listenable without Major Fatigue, or tricks for smoothing out the edge from PCM decoding (tube buffers and lossy cables). As far as I am concerned, PCM DACs are dead and can't do the job properly below 6 grand. However, there is much waste going on in the PS Audio PW DSD and other DSD DACs.

First, there is no need for the device to do the conversion to DSD. Your PC can do it more cheaply and even in real time. Second, there is no need for any SPDIF or other PCM facilities, not their chips, not their drain on the PS and not their digital noise. Finally, there is no need for a real output stage. Most users will still be using a preamp, so if the filter stage can output 0.5V or even a bit less than that, then a decent preamp will be a perfectly fine to substitute for the output stage. The choice of filters is another waste as you are seeking to keep the circuit as simple as possible. Finally, for me at least a balanced XLR connection is a waste of PS juice and added op amps since none of my equipment is fully balanced internally and I don't need to drive long cables. I don't need a headphone out and its necessary circuits and volume control. Besides this, I would prefer a native DSD input to avoid an added processing step having to be done in real time.

 

So I am looking for a USB only DAC that only does DSD, and only has RCA outputs. I would find the AES EBU, SPDIF inputs, balanced outs, filter selection, headphones and volume control, and I2S to be at least small negatives though the SPDIF would be a convenience it would not score any points in my grading.

 

The only such critter I could find was the Schiit Loki (though it is DoP and only DSD64. Since it was cheap, I bought one for proof of concept. Indeed it made the same smooth presentation as the grotesquely more expensive PS Audio PW DSD. However, that is where the similarities end. Both my DAC (Musical Fidelity HTP used as a DAC and Pre for PCM, since this is a rare item I would describe its sound as like the PW MkII with a fuller midrange and a tad less fine detail It sounds like the best non-nuvista MF DACs) and the PW DSD do better in everything, the Loki's greatest weakness is a loss of air and fine articulation on instruments, a fine grey grain that sucks the vividness out of music and particularly voice, and an overemphasized and distinctly tubby bottom two octaves in the bass.

Since its input is limited to DSD64 I am not looking to improve the Loki's performance, besides which there is no space in it.

 

So I am now left with the search for a DSD DAC with native DSD capacity of at least DSD128 and greater, which has all of the attention on the RCA outputs. Preferably it will NOT have XLR outs, headphone out, volume control, I2S, SPDIF and the requisite PCM filters and circuits. having a real output stage and 2V output is an option I would not appreciate but not mind having so long as SQ is not compromised.

 

Needless to say, I am exclusively interested in the sound of DSD playback.

I think that the mimimum DSD DAC should be a featureless blank box and cost well below $1,000, probably less than $500. I would consider Chinese brands and makes like Audio GD from Taiwan and SoTM from Korea. If there are prepared boards available commercially stuffed only with my "minimum DSD DAC" parts I might consider a DIY project. A real power supply (not bus powered) would be better, but it is not a big deal to inject a linear external power supply.

 

Any ideas of what to buy?

 

Thanks to all for a really great forum.

 

BTW I think the Teac UD-501 is native DSD capable like the UD-301 so the sonore database could use a correction.

[wisnon]

ifi iDSD Micro.

 

For the best DSD playback... Lampizator DSD Only Dac, but its $3400 new.

[Paul R]

+1 on the iFi iDSD Micro.

 

Also I have no problem at all recommending the iFi iDSD Nano, at $189. It quite literally produces some astonishing sound! -Paul

[pdvm]

I haven't heard the iDSD micro (+- 500 dollar) but own the iDSD nano (+-150), which I'm VERY happy with. DSD is absolutely its strong side (though it does PCM very well too). As I've read nothing but positive reports about the micro (being a clear step up from the nano), I don't hesitate to recommend that one. It does up until 8x normal DSD rate.

 

The only thing is, besides having everything you want, it also has everything you care less about. Can you live with that?

[pdvm]

+1 ont eh iFi iDSD Micro.

 

Also I have no problem at all recommending the iFi iDSD Nano, at $189. It quite literally produces some astonishing sound! -Paul

 

Clearly having the same experience with this little wonder called the iDSD nano!

[Satie]

ifi iDSD Micro.

 

For the best DSD playback... Lampizator DSD Only Dac, but its $3400 new.

 

Thanks for the idea, did not look into that one.

But its cost is predominantly the tube output stage, which is not needed since I have a tube preamp anyway, if I want to have a tube sound, I also have a tube midrange amp for when I don't want the tube signature on the treble and bass. (I triamp so can use a tube amp on the mids while keeping the path SS for treble and bass)

[Distinctive]

To me it seems that many people thinks that all audio hardware should be sold for cost plus. There is something called development cost and Intellectual Property that should be compensated for as well. When equipment seems overpriced it is because the market allows for it.

[Satie]

I haven't heard the iDSD micro (+- 500 dollar) but own the iDSD nano (+-150), which I'm VERY happy with. DSD is absolutely its strong side (though it does PCM very well too). As I've read nothing but positive reports about the micro (being a clear step up from the nano), I don't hesitate to recommend that one. It does up until 8x normal DSD rate.

 

The only thing is, besides having everything you want, it also has everything you care less about. Can you live with that?

 

 

Thanks,

I had looked at it and nearly pulled the trigger.

But doing a little calculation brings the choice into question since outside of the box and input chip the bulk of the device and at least 2/3 its cost is the battery PCM circuitry, headphone circuitry etc.. Definitely on the outs for efficiency by my reckoning. The money should have been spent elsewhere. The part of the micro iDSD I want is probably only $200 worth.

[Satie]

To me it seems that many people thinks that all audio hardware should be sold for cost plus. There is something called development cost and Intellectual Property that should be compensated for as well.....

 

I am not reluctant to pay for that, I would be happy to cover them, I had no trouble paying for the Loki - though there does not seem to be much of a markup to cover development. I understand that the various extra features make the device appear to have more value and can hide the markup that covers the development costs. I just don't want to pay for the extra features that are also likely to reduce the SQ of the functions I do want.

[Distinctive]

I am not reluctant to pay for that, I would be happy to cover them, I had no trouble paying for the Loki - though there does not seem to be much of a markup to cover development. I understand that the various extra features make the device appear to have more value and can hide the markup that covers the development costs. I just don't want to pay for the extra features that are also likely to reduce the SQ of the functions I do want.

Appreciated, but I don't think your ideas (e.g. moving tasks to a PC platform) will work well. I think great considerations have to be made, especially for the synergy between SW & HW to keep control of the jitter and noise floor (amongst other things). Also, if one sell stripped OEM kits for e.g. DIY'ers, you need a considerable sales volume to make money on it.

[YashN]

Tell me more about your tri-amping setup.

 

I also would recommend the iFi iDSD Nano and Micro even if they also do PCM.

 

I don't agree with you about costs: these are bargains when you factor in their features and quality.

 

(I triamp so can use a tube amp on the mids while keeping the path SS for treble and bass)

[wisnon]

Thanks for the idea, did not look into that one.

But its cost is predominantly the tube output stage, which is not needed since I have a tube preamp anyway, if I want to have a tube sound, I also have a tube midrange amp for when I don't want the tube signature on the treble and bass. (I triamp so can use a tube amp on the mids while keeping the path SS for treble and bass)

 

Tube sound? Tubes are used as a tool to achieve a sonic objective in this Dac.

 

Dont ever try to demo it, or you may put yourself in budget problems. It is DSD like you never heard it and its not about Tube sound! It is extremely UN-digital.

 

Go read the Stereomojo (Bruce Brown) review and the recent PFO award to understand (Brian Moura review).

BTW, I own the iDSD Micro as well.

[Adyc]

Tube sound? Tubes are used as a tool to achieve a sonic objective in this Dac.

 

Dont ever try to demo it, or you may put yourself in budget problems. It is DSD like you never heard it and its not about Tube sound! It is extremely UN-digital.

 

Go read the Stereomojo (Bruce Brown) review and the recent PFO award to understand (Brian Moura review).

BTW, I own the iDSD Micro as well.

 

How do you find iDSD Micro and Lamp DSD? Is Lamp DSD much better?

[barrows]

How do you find iDSD Micro and Lamp DSD? Is Lamp DSD much better?

 

Hahaha, you are really asking this of wisnon? What do you think you will hear?

[One and a half]

To the OP, if you listened to the PS Audio DAC and it was a transformation, making no bones about this, you do realise that performance comes at a price, of which a Chinese/Korean DSD only DAC with RCA outs for $1000 or less won't cut it. There is a good reason why DACs like the PSAudio, Playback Designs, Meitner, Accuphase, Exasound (?) convert anything to internally DSD128+.

There are no native DSD DAC chips made any more, so programming within an FPGA is one way out. That requires coding, and lots of it. You will see ESS9018 chips used, but have a look how they are configured. All this is time and a lot of effort, since time x effort = constant, BTW.

 

RCA outs bite, expect hum and crud to infest the audio signal, accordingly, make allowances when this happens and allow extra $ for hum filters or extensive re-arranging of power supplies AC and DC. I would not expect adding a USB cable will add anything sonically, maybe attenuate some noise.

 

Would you be happy to live with that?

[Jabs1542]

Tube sound? Tubes are used as a tool to achieve a sonic objective in this Dac.

 

Dont ever try to demo it, or you may put yourself in budget problems. It is DSD like you never heard it and its not about Tube sound! It is extremely UN-digital.

 

Go read the Stereomojo (Bruce Brown) review and the recent PFO award to understand (Brian Moura review).

BTW, I own the iDSD Micro as well.

 

Yea I was going to go there as well but decided not to. He shot the idea down so quickly with such technical confidence that I didn't see any point in discussing it.

[Jabs1542]

Hahaha, you are really asking this of wisnon? What do you think you will hear?

 

Barrows - If you ever make to the DC region feel free to look me up if you would like to hear a difference. My friend has the iFi Micro iDSD and I have a Lampi DSD DAC. It will take you less than 60 seconds to hear the difference, and you will be successful in determining which is which with blind swaps. After you get used to it you will be able to hear the difference between the Lampi and my Linx Hilo, which is a good DAC on its own.

 

The iFi is an outstanding performer for its price, but as [One and a half] stated its in a different league with some of the more dedicated and refined products.

 

Escape for everyone, the Lampi is way outside the OP's price range.

[esimms86]

I've never heard the Lampizator Amber DAC and it's out of the OP's stated price range but, at a price of 1400 USD, I'm surprised that it's not been mentioned.

[barrows]

Barrows - If you ever make to the DC region feel free to look me up if you would like to hear a difference. My friend has the iFi Micro iDSD and I have a Lampi DSD DAC. It will take you less than 60 seconds to hear the difference, and you will be successful in determining which is which with blind swaps. After you get used to it you will be able to hear the difference between the Lampi and my Linx Hilo, which is a good DAC on its own.

 

The iFi is an outstanding performer for its price, but as [One and a half] stated its in a different league with some of the more dedicated and refined products.

 

Escape for everyone, the Lampi is way outside the OP's price range.

 

Of course, I would not expect it to be otherwise, and thanks for the invite. Even on power supply implementation alone I would not expect a small price point DAC to compete with a full size component. My point was only that wisnon is a well known advocate of everything Lampizator, and his opinion would be a foregone conclusion on a question like this.

[sdolezalek]

If you are the same Satie as from The Planar Speaker Asylum, welcome. The arguments here are infinitely more detailed, technical and competent but equally strongly felt as those there.

 

To your original question, I would suggest that you follow not just the suggested iFi iDSD Nano and Micro, but even more so their upcoming big brother (which was to be called the Mini, but may now get a whole separate designation). You can follow its progress here: iFi Audio "Mini" desktop line discussion thread - Page 17

 

Secondly, I would follow the whole group of designers who are using FPGA's as their means of implementing a DSD DAC and thus fine-tuning the output more directly than playing with existing chipsets.

 

In terms of some of you other "simplifying" requests, I would point out that more and more folks here are using their DAC as an all-inclusive front end, connecting straight to amps and driving headphones, and in the case of the iFi Nano or Chord Hugo, taking it on the road with them. Therefore the pre-amp inclusion, multiple inputs and outputs, plays into their desire for a more complete digital front end that is basically computer plus software (A+ or HQ Player) to DAC to Amp to speaker and nothing more.

[Satie]

To the OP, if you listened to the PS Audio DAC and it was a transformation, making no bones about this, you do realise that performance comes at a price, of which a Chinese/Korean DSD only DAC with RCA outs for $1000 or less won't cut it. There is a good reason why DACs like the PSAudio, Playback Designs, Meitner, Accuphase, Exasound (?) convert anything to internally DSD128+.

There are no native DSD DAC chips made any more, so programming within an FPGA is one way out. That requires coding, and lots of it. You will see ESS9018 chips used, but have a look how they are configured. All this is time and a lot of effort, since time x effort = constant, BTW.

 

RCA outs bite, expect hum and crud to infest the audio signal, accordingly, make allowances when this happens and allow extra $ for hum filters or extensive re-arranging of power supplies AC and DC. I would not expect adding a USB cable will add anything sonically, maybe attenuate some noise.

 

Would you be happy to live with that?

 

 

I live the single ended world. If there is crud to be had without balanced connections be sure that I have it now.

 

Don't the XMOS receiver and a ESS90018 provide a "native" like tap before the 6 bit processing? What about the PCM1795 and brethren 17xx chips? they are not native DSD either?

 

This is not rhetorical - if it is so then I would like to know.

[Satie]

Tube sound? Tubes are used as a tool to achieve a sonic objective in this Dac.

 

Dont ever try to demo it, or you may put yourself in budget problems. It is DSD like you never heard it and its not about Tube sound! It is extremely UN-digital.

 

Go read the Stereomojo (Bruce Brown) review and the recent PFO award to understand (Brian Moura review).

BTW, I own the iDSD Micro as well.

 

I have not done the homework assignment yet on the Stereomojo review but will ASAP.

 

What do you mean by a "tool to achieve a sonic objective"? I use a tube phono pre and normally a tube line stage in Bruc Moore's Audible Illusions Dual Mono preamp much updated in its 35 odd years on the planet. If that can't serve as a tube output stage for what precedes the output stage on the Lampi then what is it that they did with it that makes it so unique?

[Satie]

If you are the same Satie as from The Planar Speaker Asylum, welcome. The arguments here are infinitely more detailed, technical and competent but equally strongly felt as those there.

 

To your original question, I would suggest that you follow not just the suggested iFi iDSD Nano and Micro, but even more so their upcoming big brother (which was to be called the Mini, but may now get a whole separate designation). You can follow its progress here: iFi Audio "Mini" desktop line discussion thread - Page 17

 

Secondly, I would follow the whole group of designers who are using FPGA's as their means of implementing a DSD DAC and thus fine-tuning the output more directly than playing with existing chipsets.

 

In terms of some of you other "simplifying" requests, I would point out that more and more folks here are using their DAC as an all-inclusive front end, connecting straight to amps and driving headphones, and in the case of the iFi Nano or Chord Hugo, taking it on the road with them. Therefore the pre-amp inclusion, multiple inputs and outputs, plays into their desire for a more complete digital front end that is basically computer plus software (A+ or HQ Player) to DAC to Amp to speaker and nothing more.

 

I am indeed Satie from the planar asylum.

 

surely the FPGAs can be smaller and programming simplified if the input from the PC were DSD already. There is no issue with PC batch conversion into DSD the PC software doe not have the real time constraints of the DAC. If I understand this correctly then everyone but a handful of extremely expensive machines uses USB receiver chips off the shelf - leaving just the DAC chip itself or it's proprietary software on an FPGA analog to do the job of clocking and metering out the PWM stream.

 

I would be happy to have just a card reader DAC if the USB PC input is such a problem/obstacle to SQ in reality. Oppo and Benchmark claim to do native DSD off of 90018 chips. Oppo off of USB flash drives. I used my old oppo that way for a bit and it was a not very subtle improvement.

[Satie]

Tell me more about your tri-amping setup.

 

I also would recommend the iFi iDSD Nano and Micro even if they also do PCM.

 

I don't agree with you about costs: these are bargains when you factor in their features and quality.

 

I understand that the features count makes a difference but I am not looking for them and I doubt any amount of volume manufacturing is going to make so much stuff loaded on the machines "free" and not reduce the potential SQ for DSD.

 

The triamp setup changes according to speaker positioning to account for differing time alignments phase alignments etc. It is a Tympani IV with a Neo8 line array midrange.

 

One fully tweaked out and finalized setup is equidistant positioning along an arc with a first order XO at 250 hz and 6 khz. Normally the bass is a Crown 5002vz from the MAcrotech series, the mids are a triode modified and updated Dyna MkIII and the top is by a Fosgate 4125, formerly by a Classe DR9. The Classe was overkill and its top octave not miles ahead of the Fosgate.

 

I am working now on a linear wall loaded positioning (a la Limage of HK) and a Reference 3A Grand Veena like phase free midrange without a real low pass filter and a protective high pass filter placed two octaves below the acoustic rolloff of the mids. The xo is 4th order LP on the bass at 200 hz where the bass time lag (placement farther away + group delay is in the ballpark of in phase) and the HP on the tweeter is 11khz at a low Q 5th order XO that I am still working out. Next up is trying a real 1st order LP on the midrange just beyond its acoustic roloff on top and matching it with the first pole of the HP on the tweeter.

[One and a half]

I live the single ended world. If there is crud to be had without balanced connections be sure that I have it now.

 

Don't the XMOS receiver and a ESS90018 provide a "native" like tap before the 6 bit processing? What about the PCM1795 and brethren 17xx chips? they are not native DSD either?

 

This is not rhetorical - if it is so then I would like to know.

 

If you live single ended, then the best of luck to you, I would/could not have a bar of it.

 

As for the DSD native chips, that's what I was informed on these very pages. If you are aware of the chip's capabilities, then you are also aware of what's out there on the market, so why come here to answer your own question?

 

The single ended DAC that comes to mind and not mentioned yet that accepts up to DSD128 is the Marantz HD-DAC1. It's AC input is not grounded, and has variable or fixed RCA outs. It also has far too many extras what you specify, perhaps negotiate with Marantz to take out the other inputs, and pay extra for it. You will most likely end up with a Lampizator type approach in cost already mentioned.