Favorite DAC - PCM

[rrwwss52]

I just picked up a gently used Schiit Gungnir Multibit (Gumby). It's a very sweet DAC. Mostly listen to Roon Ready tracks via BNC to the Schiit. Also have Wyred4Sound DAC-2 with femto clock upgrade. Favor the Gumby over the W4S, but both are solid PCM performers.

[skypickle]

....GUSTARD DAC-X20 Pro Super Ultimate 2 x ES9028Pro XMOS HiFi DAC 384KHz DSD DOP Decoder. Looks good and price is amazing I'm considering buying this one. You have inspired me...

 

I am using the X20 coming from an iDSD pro. Yes the sound is cleaner, clearer...I guess the audiophile word is 'articulate'. The difference is subtle, like everything else in the activity of 'listening'.

 

Truly, I appreciate those people who have access to an excellent chain of hardware and have the ability to try various components. I am not a dealer...just a consumer. Listening to someone extoll the virtues of a particular component in isolation is like hearing someone trying to explain how heavy water is on their planet.

 

My chain is

Win10 pro and foobar2k->PPang USB with linear power supply -> PPang cable->X20->balanced cables->Schitt Jotunheim -> balanced cable w Senn 650.

 

Yes I wonder what might happen if a component blew and who would fix it. Yes I wonder if there is spyware in some of the chips used. But for the price, I am very happy.......for now.

[robocop]

Actually since that comment I'm now seriously looking at the Holo Spring NOS Dac. This thread did inspire me to look at whats new in DAC's.

[Topspin]

got the Benchmark DAC3. The reason for the upgrade:

I had been using a very problematic QuteHD (grounding hum, analog channel drop outs, unexplainable loud 'tapping' noises). Screw it, never buying a second-hand product ever again. While it sounded great (when it worked properly), the bass was 'fun' but not entirely natural sounding in my system.

In the interim, I dropped in my Micro iDSD. Great little product, but I detected a fair amount of anxiety-inducing digititis, at least on my man-cave reference system. I still love it and will continue to use it as a dac/headphone amp on the desktop system and for the handful of multi-dsd and DXD files in my library.

I gave up waiting for the iDSD pro. The constant delays were frustrating and there are feature that I realized that I do not really need (tubes) or want in a dac.

I started looking at the Mytek Brooklyn, and again, many awesome looking extras including a phono input, but I realized I'm still on the fence on whether I'm ever going to go back to vinyl. Why pay for a feature I may never use? Same goes for the headphone out option. I'll never bring my headphones to the man-cave.

Then there was Schiit's product lineup and Holo's Spring. Dedicated DACs, with all manner of praise. Perfect...except the price was a bit more than I wanted to spend. And size. yes, size matters here: the Man cave is laughably tiny and truly fits the term: Small, low ceiling, no natural light and underground. Full-sized and over-sized components need not apply. Sounds silly, I know, but just go with it. It's the reason why I was considering the idsd pro in the first place. It brings me to Benchmark. Everything I need, and little I do not. At first I didn't think I would even use the preamp feature, just output the analog feed to my Parasound P5. Then I realized that one less (full-sized) component would save even more space, reduce the spaghetti of cables and may just improve the overall fidelity.

So how does it sound? It's been said before, but I'm a new, first-time owner so bear with me: No coloration, no gimmicky tubes, no '3D', 'Super Bass' or 'minimum phase' switches. Neutral to the extent that one could easily, but inaccurately, describe its quality as bland. the signature sound is the lack thereof. I hate to use the phrase 'analog-like'. All analog devices are not always the greatest sound to my ears. AM radio is also analog, and I just refuse to participate in that tired debate here.

Instead I'll say it boosts my laptop-sourced system to sound much more natural. No digital harshness, no syrupy, tube-y coloration to get in the way. No listening fatigue after a 2 hour session. All focus is on an accurate conversion and level control. Compressed and poorly produced tracks are not flattered. Great recordings shine through. It handles red book PCM like a champ. It squeezes a surprising amount of detail from those tracks.

 

Minimum UI, maximum user manual. No $ is wasted on a fancy chassis (Mytek). I've never had to open a case to set an attenuation level, but even an ape like myself was able to change the jumper settings easily. I was back to listening in 10-15 minutes

I never heard the DAC2, so I am afraid I cannot offer a comparison. There is little reason to go back to the micro iDSD, and for better or worse, the QuteHD will gather dust for the foreseeable future.

After endless weeks of agonizing research, I made my choice, and am very happy with it. It is the 'jewel' in the cave, the title previously held for many months by my Totem Acoustic Ember pair.

Side note: Rory @Benchmark is an exceptional person to work with.

[mav52]

From the ones that I have actually spent time with or own.

 

Codex

Yiggy

Metrum Pavane

Lampi GC

PS Audio Direct Stream DAC

Meitner MA-1

Chord Dave

Berkley Alpha Reference

[fragoulisnaval]

Ideon Ayazi dac

[robocop]

Neutral to the extent that one could easily, but inaccurately, describe its quality as bland. the signature sound is the lack thereof. Topspin

 

Absolutely agree with this statement and this goes for the DAC1 and 2. I'm waiting for a comparison between the 2 and 3. Which seems to be slow in coming.

 

Robert

[EuroChamp]

I would like to recommend the Lindemann Musicbook. It is a german craftmanship. Internal DAC is the AKM4490. I heard the unit on two exhibitions here in Europe, together with Manger Audio speakers. The sound (in my opinion) is the reference in tonality and truthness.

In the upper range it is absolutely clean and sweet at the same time. Room illusion is great. Bass is not boomy but controlled. Overall the sound is not thin, but mellow with great dynamics and very good air. In my opinion it has the best of everything, you could say: analogue like.

On top, it has a nice feature: It can upsample all inputs to DSD, which brings sound quality to the next level This upsamling helps good SQ recording and those standard discs are totally listenable now.

 

First I was on your side, that I do not need any DSD, but I need it!

 

http://www.lindemann-audio.de/

 

Of course this is all totally subjective, but in the end I searched some long time and the Musicbook was the winner and I bought it. BelCanto is very good too, and maybe Cord.

 

Bernhard

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[TarnishedEars]

The PS Audio Direct Stream.

[Miska]

In the interim, I dropped in my Micro iDSD. Great little product, but I detected a fair amount of anxiety-inducing digititis, at least on my man-cave reference system.

 

That's what you certainly get with the "bit-perfect" filter setting... At least switch output to direct line level mode and filter to standard or minimum-phase. Then you get much better results. Even better, upsample your PCM to DSD512 before sending it there...

 

I have now the Black Label version too, which has more refined sound. And better performance especially with DSD512.

[Topspin]

That's what you certainly get with the "bit-perfect" filter setting... At least switch output to direct line level mode and filter to standard or minimum-phase. Then you get much better results. Even better, upsample your PCM to DSD512 before sending it there...

 

I have now the Black Label version too, which has more refined sound. And better performance especially with DSD512.

 

I shall try those filters, thanks. I get dropouts when upsampling to DSD256-DSD512. I'm guessing my PC lacks the CPU brawn

[Miska]

I shall try those filters, thanks. I get dropouts when upsampling to DSD256-DSD512. I'm guessing my PC lacks the CPU brawn

 

Depending on player and computer, it may be demanding task. For example HQPlayer provides lighter "-2s" filter variants, but DSD512 may still be heavy.

 

Make sure you have selected largest buffer/highest safety mode from iFi ASIO Control Panel. Even with the largest setting buffer is still quite small for highest sampling rates.

[mordante]

That's what you certainly get with the "bit-perfect" filter setting... At least switch output to direct line level mode and filter to standard or minimum-phase. Then you get much better results. Even better, upsample your PCM to DSD512 before sending it there...

 

I have now the Black Label version too, which has more refined sound. And better performance especially with DSD512.

 

This is a PCM thread. There are more then enough topics about DSD.

[audio.bill]

I would like to recommend the Lindemann Musicbook. It is a german craftmanship. Internal DAC is the AKM4490. I heard the unit on two exhibitions here in Europe, together with Manger Audio speakers. The sound (in my opinion) is the reference in tonality and truthness.

In the upper range it is absolutely clean and sweet at the same time. Room illusion is great. Bass is not boomy but controlled. Overall the sound is not thin, but mellow with great dynamics and very good air. In my opinion it has the best of everything, you could say: analogue like.

On top, it has a nice feature: It can upsample all inputs to DSD, which brings sound quality to the next level This upsamling helps good SQ recording and those standard discs are totally listenable now.

 

First I was on your side, that I do not need any DSD, but I need it!

 

http://www.lindemann-audio.de/

 

Of course this is all totally subjective, but in the end I searched some long time and the Musicbook was the winner and I bought it. BelCanto is very good too, and maybe Cord.

 

Bernhard

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, very interesting. Just checked Lindemann's site and surprisingly they have no US distribution.

[EuroChamp]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, very interesting. Just checked Lindemann's site and surprisingly they have no US distribution.

 

Google told me, you could check this site

Products | One World Audio USA | Lindemann Audio Importer

[audio.bill]

Google told me, you could check this site

Products | One World Audio USA | Lindemann Audio Importer

Thanks, must be so new that they're not even listed on Lindemann's own site!

[EuroChamp]

Thanks, must be so new that they're not even listed on Lindemann's own site!

 

... or so old.

[Miska]

This is a PCM thread. There are more then enough topics about DSD.

 

Those are related. People already listed DACs that convert internally to DSD, or some other variant of delta-sigma modulation. So just thought that having that process splitted out is as much on-topic as anything else, unimportant implementation detail - just like in case of dCS two-box solutions of upsampler + DAC.

 

If you want to discuss only DACs that actually convert PCM directly to analog, then already most of the listed DACs are ruled out and are off-topic. The options become truly limited.

 

To me, computer is irreplaceable part of the DAC, as much part of the D-to-A process.

[mordante]

Those are related. People already listed DACs that convert internally to DSD, or some other variant of delta-sigma modulation. So just thought that having that process splitted out is as much on-topic as anything else, unimportant implementation detail - just like in case of dCS two-box solutions of upsampler + DAC.

 

If you want to discuss only DACs that actually convert PCM directly to analog, then already most of the listed DACs are ruled out and are off-topic. The options become truly limited.

 

To me, computer is irreplaceable part of the DAC, as much part of the D-to-A process.

 

If someone would ask for the best DSD Dacs and I would say. Why not buy a multibit DAC that way you do not have to worry about DSD. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the thread?

 

Maybe you could advice how to use your software to convert all streams to PCM and then buy a multibit only DAC. If you really want to involve computers and you software in this thread.

[EuroChamp]

If someone would ask for the best DSD Dacs and I would say. Why not buy a multibit DAC that way you do not have to worry about DSD. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the thread?

 

Maybe you could advice how to use your software to convert all streams to PCM and then buy a multibit only DAC. If you really want to involve computers and you software in this thread.

 

As I understand it, Jean wants to playback his PCM files. So he searches for a DAC with PCM input and good SQ. I think he is right when he does not care about internal signal processing (inside the DAC), he want's the best SQ for the money. Maybe I'm wrong ...

[miguelito]

AMR

Metrum Acoustics

Totaldac

Schiit Multbit

PS Audio Direct Stream (both original and Junior).

 

all have reps for being outstanding with PCM.

Berkeley Audio Design Alpha Reference Series 2

Schiit Yggdrasil

[4est]

If someone would ask for the best DSD Dacs and I would say. Why not buy a multibit DAC that way you do not have to worry about DSD. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the thread?

 

Maybe you could advice how to use your software to convert all streams to PCM and then buy a multibit only DAC. If you really want to involve computers and you software in this thread.

In all fairness, Miska was responding about a DAC that had already been mentioned.

[Miska]

If someone would ask for the best DSD Dacs and I would say. Why not buy a multibit DAC that way you do not have to worry about DSD. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of the thread?

 

Well, it depends what the person is after. I understood this was about playing PCM content, not about what kind of technology is used to implement the conversion. Most of my content is PCM too, so I certainly put huge amount of effort into playing it out as well as possible.

 

I can also mention, than the iFi iDSD Micro can accept 705.6/768k input rate, while the internal digital filter can upsample only to 352.8/384k rate, so alternatively doing PCM-to-PCM upsampling externally allows twice higher digital filter output rate even when using PCM input mode. That is still just 16x digital filter conversion ratio, compared to 512x possible with DSD input.

 

Maybe you could advice how to use your software to convert all streams to PCM and then buy a multibit only DAC. If you really want to involve computers and you software in this thread.

 

Of course it does that too, it can play any source rate of PCM or DSD to any output rate in PCM or DSD. For example I have Metrum Musette which is NOS PCM ladder DAC. It certainly needs software upsampling to 352.8/384k input rates in order to have decent output quality. Otherwise it's performance is extremely poor.

 

Metrum Musette, 19k sine wave at 44.1k sampling rate:

 

vs the same source file upsampled to 384k rate:

[Topspin]

Gosh guys, I mentioned the iDSD Micro as a bit of backstory for my decision to get the Benchmark DAC3. I believe Miska was merely offering a few suggestions I could try to get the maximum enjoyment out of the product. I don't think the intent was to hijack the thread and turn it into a DSD vs. PCM debate.

 

Update: The Benchmark DAC3 is settling in nicely, although the unbalanced output that I use for my subwoofers do not seem to track well with the balanced outputs I use for the mains. I'm thinking of switching to unbalanced for the mains, and see if that produces better results. Other than that: In my limited experienced, it's best converter I have owned or heard yet.

[robocop]

For example I have Metrum Musette which is NOS PCM ladder DAC. It certainly needs software upsampling to 352.8/384k input rates in order to have decent output quality. Otherwise it's performance is extremely poor. Miska

 

I wonder if this applies to the new Holo Spring Dac. Would be interesting to measure its output with upsampling. I've asked the question and no one appears to have tried upsampling including reviewers and Kitsume.

 

I mean upsampling is St Peter's thing with XXhighend and his NOS dac. And it works very well in this combination according to all who follow.

 

Currently I find Linux wtfplay through my Benchmark DAC2 no upsampling sounds excellent compared to XXhighend. I would love to measure this as you have done with the Metrum.