TEAC NT 503 or UD-503: Opinions?

[BobSherman]

Sorry for the OT. Will be interested to read what your impressions are of various inputs, internal and external filters, etc., when you have time to relax and listen. (Heh, whenever that is.)

Yes and using the highend USB cable with the direct input. What Bill said about filters in is early comments are true IMO. I have a AKM DAC, the S16 and the filters changes are slight, but I tend to prefer the slow ones. YMMV.

[firedog]

Yes it can be difficult. Like when a teen breaks an appendage, (their cell phone) you would think life for them as we know it has ended!

 

But it has....all a matter of perspective.

[wgscott]

And "heat sink" is spelled with a "t" - but perhaps you thought Eloise was recommending sticking her head in the sink to cool it off? (!)

 

That is how I read it.

 

I also thought it was a great idea.

[beerandmusic]

Exactly the same as every other DAC ever manufactured.

 

WOW, how do you say that and not get hit by a ton of people saying you are crazy if you can't hear the differences (grin). I have tried so many dacs and none of them seemed to do much for me. Yes, i could hear subtle differences, but none that blew me away, like, "wow, totally different level". I still swear the audiogate program with dsd files and my amp made much bigger differences than any dac has ever made. I think dacs are "over-rated".

 

I think your biggest issue though is that you said most of your files are pcm. I don't even listen to pcm files anymore.

 

I wish i could get audiogate to do dsd to the teac....but it will only do 192K PCM...i had the same issue with the ifi...apparently audiogate will only support the korg for anything higher than 192k pcm.

 

maybe the right answer is the korg with a regen or a way to get audiogate to play dsd files with other dacs.

[wgscott]

I have tried so many dacs and none of them seemed to do much for me. Yes, i could hear subtle differences, but none that blew me away, like, "wow, totally different level". I still swear the audiogate program with dsd files and my amp made much bigger differences than any dac has ever made. I think dacs are "over-rated".

 

[beerandmusic]

Originally Posted by jackovh

So how does it sound so far?

 

Exactly the same as every other DAC ever manufactured.

 

[Rexp]

WOW, how do you say that and not get hit by a ton of people saying you are crazy if you can't hear the differences (grin). I have tried so many dacs and none of them seemed to do much for me. Yes, i could hear subtle differences, but none that blew me away, like, "wow, totally different level". I still swear the audiogate program with dsd files and my amp made much bigger differences than any dac has ever made. I think dacs are "over-rated".

 

I think your biggest issue though is that you said most of your files are pcm. I don't even listen to pcm files anymore.

 

I wish i could get audiogate to do dsd to the teac....but it will only do 192K PCM...i had the same issue with the ifi...apparently audiogate will only support the korg for anything higher than 192k pcm.

 

maybe the right answer is the korg with a regen or a way to get audiogate to play dsd files with other dacs.

Strange that Audiogate desktop version wont output DSD, maybe try the iOS version:

iAudioGate for iPhone | HIGH RESOLUTION MUSIC PLAYER | KORG

[wgscott]

Originally Posted by jackovh

So how does it sound so far?

 

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25140[/ATTACH]

 

Loud. Beethoven's 7th. (Klieber)

[beerandmusic]

Strange that Audiogate desktop version wont output DSD, maybe try the iOS version:

iAudioGate for iPhone | HIGH RESOLUTION MUSIC PLAYER | KORG

 

audiogate shows my asio for korg, asio for teac, and asio for ifi, but if you select anything besides asio for korg the highest resolution it lets you pick is 192k unless you pick the asio for korg.

 

no apples in this house.

[Rexp]

audiogate shows my asio for korg, asio for teac, and asio for ifi, but if you select anything besides asio for korg the highest resolution it lets you pick is 192k unless you pick the asio for korg.

 

no apples in this house.

Or you could try the TEAC/ESOTERIC player:

ESOTERIC/ESOTERIC HR Audio Player | ESOTERIC COMPANY

[beerandmusic]

Or you could try the TEAC/ESOTERIC player:

ESOTERIC/ESOTERIC HR Audio Player | ESOTERIC COMPANY

 

i think that is the same as the TEAC HR audio player...worse than jriver in terms of sq.

[Rexp]

i think that is the same as the TEAC HR audio player...worse than jriver in terms of sq.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25145[/ATTACH]

Ah, didn't realise you already tried that with the TEAC DAC...

[Audio_ELF]

WOW, how do you say that and not get hit by a ton of people saying you are crazy if you can't hear the differences (grin).

The thing is we all know Bill is crazy so no point repeating it ad infinitum :-)

[Jud]

I've only started listening to it, and with the Halide Bridge and Dirac room correction, it sounds rather similar to what I had. I haven't tested the USB connection yet, or done anything more than flip through the filters quickly (and the differences are audible, but subtle). I need to spend some quality time with it (meaning without a 12 year old in the next room having a melt-down about thermal paste) when no one else is at home.

 

Exactly the same as every other DAC ever manufactured.

 

WOW, how do you say that and not get hit by a ton of people saying you are crazy if you can't hear the differences (grin). I have tried so many dacs and none of them seemed to do much for me. Yes, i could hear subtle differences, but none that blew me away, like, "wow, totally different level". I still swear the audiogate program with dsd files and my amp made much bigger differences than any dac has ever made. I think dacs are "over-rated".

 

I think your biggest issue though is that you said most of your files are pcm. I don't even listen to pcm files anymore.

 

I wish i could get audiogate to do dsd to the teac....but it will only do 192K PCM...i had the same issue with the ifi...apparently audiogate will only support the korg for anything higher than 192k pcm.

 

maybe the right answer is the korg with a regen or a way to get audiogate to play dsd files with other dacs.

 

 

Nice to see our old friend Charlie make an appearance.

 

It makes sense that (1) most DACs at this price level will not sound terribly different using the built-in filtering, and (2) conversion software like Korg Audiogate, HQPlayer, Audiophile Inventory, etc., will make a bigger difference than most changes of DAC boxen.

 

Very generally speaking, there are three things in the DAC that can make a difference to the sound: (a) parts quality; (b) analog design; © digital design (filtering/modulation).

 

Unless you get into DACs that are a fair bit more costly, parts quality is going to be very roughly comparable. Analog design at the sub-$2K level is not likely to be exotic, much less groundbreaking, either. With regard to digital design, you are going to be limited to interpolation filtering that will run on the DAC chip the manufacturer has selected. This means more sophisticated filters will likely not be available to you. (The Schiit Yggdrasil is an exception, but it doesn't use the usual delta-sigma design and DAC chips. It isn't quite at the sub-$2K level either, though it's not too much over.) So you have a limited universe of filter types that can be run with the computing resources on the chip. Within those filter types, there are a limited selection of parameters that approach the self-contradictory goals of a digital interpolation filter reasonably well - anti-aliasing without ringing (and at least for me, avoiding ringing without introducing undue group delay or audible phase effects).

 

It also seems to be the case that with delta-sigma chips, relatively little attention is paid to the delta-sigma modulators the chips are named for. It appears to be received wisdom that simply doing the modulation is enough. So there tends to be a restricted set of modulators as well as interpolation filters in these DACs. (The exceptions are DACs that don't do sigma-delta modulation internally at all, though there are very few of those in or near this price range.)

 

Small wonder then that DACs in this price range would not be radically differentiated in sound quality of on-chip digital interpolation filtering and sigma-delta modulation.

 

To the extent interpolation filtering and/or delta-sigma modulation can be done in computer software versus on a chip, this opens up a wealth of options due to the increased computing resources available, in-line in players such as HQPlayer, and potentially to an even greater extent with off-line conversion. (*Potentially* to a greater extent because for offline conversion there's no need to restrict the choices to those that will have the conversion done and allow playback to begin in, say, 30 seconds.)

 

Thus with a DAC like the Teac, its most important quality in terms of sound may be what it allows you *not* to do - the flexibility it has to allow onboard filtering and delta-sigma modulation to be bypassed in favor of having these done externally in computer software.

[JakovH]

 

Thus with a DAC like the Teac, its most important quality in terms of sound may be what it allows you *not* to do - the flexibility it has to allow onboard filtering and delta-sigma modulation to be bypassed in favor of having these done externally in computer software.

 

And possibly the network input option?

[beerandmusic]

 

Thus with a DAC like the Teac, its most important quality in terms of sound may be what it allows you *not* to do - the flexibility it has to allow onboard filtering and delta-sigma modulation to be bypassed in favor of having these done externally in computer software.

 

So does this suggest that my thinking that the KORG SQ is as good (with exception of usb isolation) to the TEAC, if all i am doing is playing native dsd with upsampling off?

[beerandmusic]

The exceptions are DACs that don't do sigma-delta modulation internally at all, though there are very few of those in or near this price range.)

 

what are the "few" that you are aware of?

[Jud]

Measurements of various PCM-to-DSD converters:

 

Archimago's Musings: ANALYSIS: DSD-to-PCM Conversion 2015 - Windows & Mac OS X

 

Archimago's Musings: ANALYSIS: DSD-to-PCM 2015 - foobar SACD Plug-In, AuI ConverteR, noise & impulse response...

[Jud]

what are the "few" that you are aware of?

 

There are Audio Note DACs that are at least partly DIY, the Yggdrasil I mentioned, and two others also from Schiit Audio, the Bifrost and the Gungnir. I don't know whether any of the Metrum DACs are in this price category. These are either non-oversampling (Audio Note, Metrum) or multibit (Yggy, Bifrost, Gungnir) DACs. There may be others. These are just the few I'm personally aware of.

[JakovH]

How has the first week progressed? Unfortunately mine has been slowed down through customs for the first time ever.

[wgscott]

Everything I have tested seems to be working ok. I haven't had much of a chance yet to really listen really carefully to the differences between filter options (which on first pass seem indistiguishable). If you happen to use a Harmony remote, they have the UD503 in the library of functions, but not the NT-503. Fortunately almost all of what you need is common between the two. It's own remote is quite nice. By default it is set to turn off after 20 min of idle, but fortunately that can be turned off. (I wish it could be set to something like 2 hours idle off.) There are no obvious significant flaws, and the sound quality is excellent. I haven't had a chance yet to play with the network functionality, apart from putting it on the network. I downloaded the iOS remote application, and it finds the Teac without issue and controls volume, source input, power on/off, etc nicely from an iOS or android device. It is a comparatively small box (smaller than an Xbox) and unobtrusive. It does not seem to get hot during playback, so you can stack stuff on it if need be.

 

My only substantive complaint is you can't control the DAC's volume setting using the volume control of your playback software via USB.

 

I also haven't figured out how to issue a volume control command over IP from the desktop. This should be possible, as there is an iOS volume control, but I got no reply when I tried to contact Teac customer service.

 

Sorry about customs. There are a lot of crazy people running for president here, so you never can be too careful.

[JakovH]

Thanks for the update. What playback software are you using? The actual TEAC s/w or another such as Jriver? I'm assuming one would need to use the TEAC for the network input.

[Jud]

I haven't had much of a chance yet to really listen really carefully to the differences between filter options (which on first pass seem indistiguishable).

 

Don't want to go all Zen on you, but a thought is to not bother listening carefully. Just see what gets you tapping your feet or wanting to hum along and feeling like listening to more.

[BobSherman]

Don't want to go all Zen on you, but a thought is to not bother listening carefully. Just see what gets you tapping your feet or wanting to hum along and feeling like listening to more.

Are you saying.

 

[video=youtube;d-diB65scQU]

[wgscott]

Thanks for the update. What playback software are you using? The actual TEAC s/w or another such as Jriver? I'm assuming one would need to use the TEAC for the network input.

 

I'm using Audirvana+ (and, optionally, Dirac room correction as an AU plug-in, which is why I am going through some gymnastics that are probably irrelevant to less OCD listeners). I briefly looked at the Teac player but it didn't seem to offer anything. I don't think it does any network things. I think you have to configure it using the iOS interface its local webserver (there is a separate manual for all the network stuff on the Teac website).