TEAC NT 503 or UD-503: Opinions?

[Groot Geluid]

On 11/18/2016 at 12:19 PM, Miska said:

 

The "upsampling" option is external to the DAC chip. At the beginning I suspected it is an AK4137 chip, but not sure anymore as I would have expected better performance from that chip. So maybe it is TEAC's FPGA or DSP stuff afterall.

 

The digital filter selections change the DAC chip filters, at least when the upsampling is off.

 

 

Since the AK4490 interpolator is 8x PCM, sending 8x PCM means running it in External DF Mode.

 

 

With DSD inputs, the DAC chip doesn't have 150 kHz filter option available in "normal mode". However, since the TEAC has it available, it must be running in Direct/Bypass DSD mode. I can also clearly see the difference between 50 kHz and 150 kHz modes in wide band (5 MHz) measurements when sending DSD256 there.

 

And generally they don't need the digital volume control of the DAC chip at all, because they have a separate analog volume control.

 

 

I've been just verifying the functionality with measurements to the extent possible. And seems to work pretty much the same way as UD-501 did, but of course with different chip.

Maybe the same in functionality as the 501, but big difference is that the analog outputs mute when you plug in a headphone. At least with the UD501 there is a setting to by pass this mode and then it is possible to have signals on analog outputs as well headphones. I presume in the 503 it has to with how the volume control is organised, something the 501 does not have for the analog outputs, only hp.