Article: My Quest for a New DAC - Introduction to the Series

[austinpop]

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[kirkmc]

What's wrong with your current DAC? Other than not supporting MQA, why do you want to upgrade it? Does it no longer sound good? 

[The Computer Audiophile]

9 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

What's wrong with your current DAC? Other than not supporting MQA, why do you want to upgrade it? Does it no longer sound good? 

That's a great question Kirk and I'm sure austinpop will have his own answer.

 

As a music lover and audiophile, I often get the itch to try new things / components. This frequently leads to an experience that can be equally enjoyable but different, better in every way, or worse. A new DAC journey is something that many can relate to due to the pace at which technology changes. Whether it's interfaces, codecs, amoled displays, or better clocks, etc... it's changing quicker than all other parts of this hobby. 

 

 

 

[Ron Scubadiver]

Nice idea for a series.  Please evaluate the IFI idsd Nano black.  BTW, I have a much simpler approach to headphone listening.  I have a copy of my music library on a portable hard drive and plug that into a Macbook Pro which feeds a DAC.  Lately that's toslink out to an el cheapo Audioengine D1 powered with an Inland (Microcenter house brand) cell phone battery pack.  I am looking for an upgrade, but probably one decimal point less than what is described above.

 

Perhaps I should just get a Mojo.

[austinpop]

16 minutes ago, kirkmc said:

What's wrong with your current DAC? Other than not supporting MQA, why do you want to upgrade it? Does it no longer sound good? 

 

Nothing's wrong with my current DAC. In fact, I love it dearly, as you'll see in the subsequent review. 

 

But I'm always looking for more and trying new things. I confess I have the itch! Without the upgrade itch, CA wouldn't be nearly as active as it is.

[firedog]

14 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Nothing's wrong with my current DAC. In fact, I love it dearly, as you'll see in the subsequent review. 

 

But I'm always looking for more and trying new things. I confess I have the itch! Without the upgrade itch, CA wouldn't be nearly as active as it is.

You have a very good DAC, but it may be the relative weak point of your very good system, as it were.

I'm a little different from most people here. I have no problem listening to either PCM or DSD. I've found that for me, if a DAC does one of them extremely well, I have no problem with a quality conversion to that format for playback. In my previous system I listened to all DSD, now I listen to all PCM.  

If native playback of both formats isn't an issue, then obsolescence etc, in DACs is much less of an issue. The other path is a DAC that does everything in FPGA, that can be upgraded with firmware as time goes on. 

[ElviaCaprice]

40 minutes ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

Please evaluate the IFI idsd Nano black. 

IFI DAC's are great priced consumer DAC's, especially on the MQA front, but definitely a step back on the DAC end here for Austinpop.  How important of a bottle neck is this component?  Huge, if you ask me, as your entire system is upgraded.  

 

Austinpop, I see only one DAC that will give your headphone system the biggest upgrade, especially with future m-scaler, Chord DAVE or Chord TT2.  Your system chain screams for it.  Then you can drop the separate headphone amp.  Will get a bigger transparency gain with a Chord DAC direct.

 

Otherwise a full speaker system would really open up the sound and give you a full experience, which would become the most important piece.  But as a headphone only system, I feel your limited in SQ upgrade.  Thus DAC doesn't scale as much in importance as an open speaker system would bring.

 

Your bottle neck to better SQ is in the analog end!  

[Deyorew]

This is a whole lot of equipment to just be listening to headphones. I kept looking for the full stereo equipment list and speakers, but nope, this is all for headphones. Wow.

[Rt66indierock]

Great introduction and an excellent way to have thoughtful discussions on audio topics. Use our experiences  in an expanded format above and beyond forum posts.

[austinpop]

10 minutes ago, ElviaCaprice said:

IFI DAC's are great priced consumer DAC's, especially on the MQA front, but definitely a step back on the DAC end.  How important of a bottle neck is this component?  Huge, if you ask me, as your entire system is upgraded.  

 

Austinpop, I see only one DAC that will give your headphone system the biggest upgrade, especially with future m-scaler, Chord DAVE or Chord TT2.  Your system chain screams for it.  Then you can drop the separate headphone amp.  Will get a bigger transparency gain with a Chord DAC direct.

 

Otherwise a full speaker system would really open up the sound and give you a full experience, which would become the most important piece.  But as a headphone only system, I feel your limited in SQ upgrade.  Thus DAC doesn't scale as much in importance as an open speaker system would.

 

The TT2 is on my review wish list for Chris. Given the demand, it's anyone's guess when I'll get my hands on it to try. And then there's the hotly-rumored standalone M-scaler...

[austinpop]

12 minutes ago, ElviaCaprice said:

Otherwise a full speaker system would really open up the sound and give you a full experience, which would become the most important piece.  But as a headphone only system, I feel your limited in SQ upgrade.  Thus DAC doesn't scale as much in importance as an open speaker system would.

 

8 minutes ago, Deyorew said:

This is a whole lot of equipment to just be listening to headphones. I kept looking for the full stereo equipment list and speakers, but nope, this is all for headphones. Wow.

 

You guys are asking a great question. Since this isn't the head-fi forum, it may not be evident to as many here on CA, but - you can build a truly high-end system with headphones. My system sounds incredible - and I say this without trying to be boastful. And - it has scaled up with every upgrade, and continues to do so.

 

I don't want to get into a headphones vs. speakers debate here. I will stipulate that in an ideal world there is no substitute for a well-designed speaker-based system. But as I said, I have constraints, so I pursued the path of creating a high-end system for headphones. And as I went down that path, I was amazed at how far I could go. And it is liberating not to have to worry about room effects, room treatments, room correction, and the like.

 

My final point - and you'll see this once the review comes out - I am lucky to have another CA'er Eric who is in the same city, and who has a very nice speaker-based system. We routinely try out our upgrades in each other's systems, as I did, and will do for the reviews.

[beetlemania]

Quote

 

At its $9k price point, it's just too rich for my blood, but it sets a bar against which to gauge other DACs I evaluate.

 

So what am I looking for in my next DAC? First and foremost, a significant improvement in sound quality, within about a $5k price budget. Next up, I'm interested to include DACs with full MQA decoding in my evaluations.

 

 

The QX-8 is supposed to come in at $5-6K depending on options (from Soundstage). Maybe splits the sonic difference between the Codex and QX-5? I have it on my radar as a possible upgrade from my QB-9.

[austinpop]

1 minute ago, beetlemania said:

 

The QX-8 is supposed to come in at $5-6K depending on options (from Soundstage). Maybe splits the sonic difference between the Codex and QX-5? I have it on my radar as a possible upgrade from my QB-9.

 

On my list, as you'll see. 

[Ron Scubadiver]

55 minutes ago, ElviaCaprice said:

IFI DAC's are great priced consumer DAC's, especially on the MQA front, but definitely a step back on the DAC end here for Austinpop.  How important of a bottle neck is this component?  Huge, if you ask me, as your entire system is upgraded.  

 

 

How do you know this?  

[ElviaCaprice]

10 minutes ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

How do you know this?  

I have this DAC as a low cost backup in Costa Rica.  Great DAC for the price, but it doesn't hold a candle to a Chord DAC, being used in the optimum system setup.  

[Ron Scubadiver]

4 minutes ago, ElviaCaprice said:

I have this DAC as a low cost backup in Costa Rica.  Great DAC for the price, but it doesn't hold a candle to a Chord DAC.  

Hardly surprising since the Dave costs over 50 times as much and having spent that money I wouldn't expect a different answer from you no mater what the reality is.  However, I would love to see his impressions of an affordable DAC vs the expensive stuff.

 

[ElviaCaprice]

5 minutes ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

Hardly surprising since the Dave costs over 50 times as much.

 

That goes for 2Qute and original Hugo also.  Like I said, for the price it's a great DAC line up, IFI.  But make no mistake, there is better, as usual, at a cost/implementation.

[Ron Scubadiver]

Just now, ElviaCaprice said:

That goes for 2Qute and original Hugo also.  Like I said, for the price it's a great DAC line up, IFI.  But make no mistake, there is better, as usual, at a cost.

I would like to see his impressions of the idsd nano black.  By dissing the product you are trying to prevent that, so you are not being helpful to me.  I hope you understand that.

[ElviaCaprice]

4 minutes ago, Ron Scubadiver said:

I would like to see his impressions of the idsd nano black.  By dissing the product you are trying to prevent that, so you are not being helpful to me.  I hope you understand that.

Don't worry, Ausinpop doesn't sway to my opinion, he needs to hear it himself  Your correct, Ron.  You want to hear Ausinpop's impressions not mine.  I was answering for the community in general.  

[OldBigEars]

@Austinpop nice introduction - should be an interesting series.  My only concern is that you may be tempted to gravitate towards the $5000 'budget' that you appear to have in mind, as if price correlates to sound quality performance.  My career in consumer products marketing (together with my audio hobby) tells me to be deeply suspicious of this assumption.  You may well find all the DAC you need or want at $1000, if you can only put cost at the back of your mind.  I would find it much more revealing if you could use your analytical  skills to determine how much SQ actually improves as you climb the price ladder from products like the RME ADI-2 and Mytek Liberty through various Schiits, Exasounds and Benchmarks.  You obviously can't test everything but I hope you can offer a range of cost perspectives.  My prediction is massively diminishing returns as you increase expenditure. 

[d_elm]

I have been using an Ayre Codex with source from a SOtM chain and clocked by Cybershaft OP13.  I have a 30 day trial

of a Meitner MA-1 V2 inhouse now for 3.5 days and it is sounding noticeably better than the Codex, clearer, more dynamic.

I expect the Meitner to settle more in the next two weeks but I think this is my next DAC.   There are MA-1 V2 units on superphonica.com at 43% off MRSP.  Good deal in my opinion.

[rickca]

I'm excited to see this series of articles.  @austinpop has written some excellent evaluations of SOtM components.  His contributions are always very well written and thorough.  I'm convinced he has good listening skills and I trust his advice.

 

It makes sense to pick a price range ... there are zillions of DAC's out there and no target budget is going to satisfy everyone.  I have several DAC's I'd love him to review that are well beyond the $5K mark.

[Norton]

This looks good.   I’d say your situation is reasonably close to mine so I will be interested to see what you choose.

 

My sense is that there is comparatively  little at the $3k>$5k mark that is MQA capable, either much less or much more.  Maybe timing will allow the Pro iDSd to be considered, on the assumption that it will be MQA capable?   Also interesting to see whether you conclude that a “full” MQA DAC is worthwhile or better just to stick with initial decode.  

 

Good luck with the quest.

[davide256]

Not surprising to see experience with vinyl duplicated with digital...source is the most important part of the chain for investment. @austinpop - one thing I am curious about is if you have any sense of priority observed in upgrading individual functions in the source chain? And yea, its hard to justify a new DAC when you know the source can do more with a next upgrade. Eager to see what you share on DAC's

[Ralf11]

The Codex is very highly regarded (or was) - but how old is the design, and what is new since then?