Suggestions for a low-cost DAC?

[Taz777]

The Topping D50 could be a contender. It’s reasonably priced, is tiny, has all of the inputs you mention, contains two DAC chips, is easily powered and able to cope with quite high resolution music formats.

 

I have two of them: one in my computer system using USB and one in my headphones system connected via coax. Both systems sound good to me.

 

Moreover, it measures very well on science-backed audio sites too.

[Taz777]

10 hours ago, left channel said:

 

I love the Modi series so much, I own four! One Modi 2U and three Modi 3 units, all in regular use, one paired with a Magni headphone amp of course. Modi DACs are good representatives of the AKM "velvet sound", and at $99 I feel the 3 is the best value around. I own another AKM-based DAC as well, the midrange NuPrime DAC-9, plus speaker amps that offer a warm forgiving sound.

 

I also own the ESS-based Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 and the matching Amp Box S2. They offer a very crisp, neutral, resolving sound that does not appeal to me, but the little S2 has a lot of features and is very popular, and like the previous poster I am a big fan of the designer John Westlake even if we seem to prefer a different sound signature.

The influence of a DAC is much more subtle than an amp, but if any of this sound signature discussion is interesting to you, I suggest paying careful attention to this aspect in owner reviews.

 

I'm very interested in this 'velvety sound'. My Topping D50 has ES9038Q2M2 DACs that produce a beautifully clear and detailed sound and works great with my speaker-based system. For my headphones system, as it's a bedside listening system, I'd prefer a warmer sound - closer to a tube sound.

 

Is it the case that almost any AKM based DAC would produce this velvety sound?

[Taz777]

Is the Modi 3 the only 'reasonably priced' desktop DAC using the newest AKM chip? I'm keen to listen to a DAC with a different chip compared to the Topping D50 to see if it produces a nicer sound.

[Taz777]

23 hours ago, Shangri-La said:

 

Yeah the D50 is looking really nice. Just that "hump" bothers me a bit. Not sure how that translates to realworld listening.. 

 

I'm very intrigued by this graph. I will try to listen out for this during this evening's listening session on my headphones system, which is more detailed than my speaker-based system.

[Taz777]

Here's a site where you can actually listen for SMPTE IMD:

 

https://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_imd.php

 

I tried this out on my desktop system (speakers) and it sounded fine in that there was no discernible 'warbling' of the two frequencies (60Hz and 7kHz). My desktop system uses a Topping D50.

 

I'll try to figure out a way to run this same test on my headphones system which is being fed from a network streamer.

[Taz777]

6 hours ago, Shangri-La said:

Found this

https://audirvana.com/strong-increase-in-sound-quality-with-pcm-to-dsd-upsampling/ 

 

Nice!

 

I would also compare the sound produced by Amarra Luxe. It also has upsampling but I don't use that feature. I tried both Audirvana and Amarra and bought Amarra simply because of its sound quality. I've had no technical issues with it in the last couple of months after a few software updates and it works very well on my Mac. Others may had technical issues with it so YMMV.

[Taz777]

28 minutes ago, Shangri-La said:

 

Tried upsampling quickly in Audirvana and didn't hear much difference. Switching from Airplay to UPNP did.

 

As far as I am aware, Airplay doesn't do Hi-Res if that's important to you.

[Taz777]

19 minutes ago, Shangri-La said:

 

- Digi 3.5mm to RCA cable is hard to find (maybe I should look harderr)

 

Would an Audioquest TOWER 3.5mm Jack To RCA Cable work? I have one, although it's used to supply an analogue output from my DAC to my active speakers (twin RCA --> stereo 3.5mm). I'm not sure what would make such a cable 'digital'.

[Taz777]

On 1/4/2019 at 9:57 PM, Shangri-La said:

 

That would be great.

 

After two hours of late night listening using my Topping D50 DAC, I honestly cannot notice this IMD bump represented by the graph. Not all of my music is recorded nicely, however I do have a few tracks that are exceptionally well recorded with a wide dynamic range, plenty of instruments, and quiet and loud parts.

 

Individual instruments were placed nicely in the soundstage and sounded like real musical instruments to me, to the extent that a bass drum was felt in my chest and a triangle felt like someone tapped my skull.

 

If anyone knows of tracks, preferably available on Tidal, that could illustrate this IMD hump in ESS DAC chips then please let me know. I'm keen to try to hear this issue before my AKM -based DAC arrives so that I can figure out exactly what to listen for.

 

Of course, it could be that my hearing is not good enough to hear this IMD.

[Taz777]

@Shangri-La Indeed. The best measuring equipment I own is my ears!

[Taz777]

I liken our hobby to art galleries. You could measure a painting scientifically as various colours and get great enjoyment from the spectrum of colours used, the brush strokes, the quality of the canvas, the opacity or otherwise of the paints used etc. Or you could stand in front of one for an hour and experience intense, raw emotions, re-living what the artist was experiencing when he or she was creating that painting. HiFi is a means to the latter end for me.

[Taz777]

On 1/3/2019 at 9:25 PM, Shangri-La said:

 

Yeah the D50 is looking really nice. Just that "hump" bothers me a bit. Not sure how that translates to realworld listening.. 

 

I received my Topping DX3 Pro a couple of days ago and have put in several hours of listening. My detailed conclusions are posted in another forum.

 

I made this purchase to sample the difference between AKM (velvet sound) and ESS DAC chips. So, the DX3 Pro has twin AKM DAC chips and the D50 has twin ESS DAC chips.

 

A summary of what I've posted elsewhere is this:

 

1. Topping D50 is clearer, has a wider soundstage, separates instruments better, has much deeper bass that can be heard, has sharper treble (piano notes, for example). A description I've used for the deep bass drops is the feeling of a thump in my chest when listening via my headphones. As for sharp piano notes, it feels like someone has tapped the inside of my skull. That's the best way I can describe the bass and treble of the D50. Vocals are a weak area of the D50, compared to the DX3 Pro.

 

2. DX3 Pro is actually completely missing some deep bass - I was listening via my beyerdynamic Amiron Home headphones that are quite revealing. It also puts everything together towards the centre of the soundstage. It also struggles to separate instruments as clearly as the D50. However, vocals are presented in a truly beautiful way. Vocals are brought forward compared to the D50 and are its strongest point in terms of sound quality.

 

So, graphs are great, but I would focus on what your system as a whole sounds like to you and whether you like the sound or not.

[Taz777]

18 minutes ago, Shangri-La said:

 

Thanks for the update! I will most likely give the D50 a try.

 

Something I should have added: I used the DX3 Pro in DAC mode. It has several additional features compared to the D50 like Bluetooth and a built-in headphone amp. Those features were not important to me so I just set it to DAC mode. 

 

As as soon as the 15V 1.5A LPS for the DX3 Pro arrives, I’ll be installing it in my computer based audio system, which also currently has a Topping D50, to see how it fares.

 

Two more nice things about the DX3 Pro: it comes with a remote control which is very useful, and the display on it is easily readable (compared to the tiny display of the D50).

 

However, for my headphones system, the D50 is the winner.

[Taz777]

On 1/22/2019 at 3:35 PM, Ottoa62 said:

I guess I am down to either a D50, or a Nano 1  and or a ifi idsd bl?  I do not really need a headphone set though. And I do want MQA. I do have an AQ  DF Black doing Tidal MQA. Is the D50 so MUCH better than either ifi?

 

I have the iFi Nano iDSD BL that hardly ever gets used these days. Its main use is as a portable/transportable DAC for use with a phone and headphones. Whilst it does MQA, bear in mind that DACs that don't do MQA will still get the first unfold to 88.2kHz or 96kHz typically by the player app.

 

For me the Topping D50 beats my iFi Nano iDSD BL, despite the latter doing MQA.

 

If you're really into Tidal MQA and want a desktop DAC which also opens up future streaming possibility, then consider the Bluesound Node 2i streamer. I have one of those in my bedroom headphones setup and it's pretty good, and its DAC does MQA. It can be used as a fully-fledged streamer/DAC/headphone amp or just a Tidal transport that connects to an external DAC. It's controlled via a phone/tablet app. I'm using it purely as a Tidal transport that connects to one of my Topping D50 DACs, simply because I prefer the sound.

 

It's all very subjective though. The Node 2i has very favourable reviews for its audio quality (straight out of its 3.5mm headphone jack or rear RCA jacks). Thus, you would be able to integrate into your existing stereo system's amp without buying anything else.

 

I didn't get on with the audio quality of the Node 2i though. YMMV.

[Taz777]

35 minutes ago, Ottoa62 said:

very good point for sure. I am a member on another site/ forum   ASR  ( audiosciencereview.com) and Bitfrost did not test out well at all. So I can steering clear of it. MODI 3 tested better actually.

 

I really wouldn't ignore a DAC because of a chart or graph that someone has produced on the Internet. In most cases, nobody with normal hearing would ever hear anything that's shown as abnormal on a graph. There are simply too many variables involved. If it sounds good to you, then it's good enough. I'm at end game with both of my HiFi systems and enjoying beautiful music through Tidal for several hours a day.

 

This whole modern digital HiFi thing reminds me of people on car forums asking which colour car or which trim/engine option they should buy and allowing others to spend their money for them. A test drive of several and buying the one that puts the widest grin on my face has always been my approach! I used that same approach with my latest HiFi systems, returning several DACs, speakers and cables in the process as I wasn't happy with the sound.

[Taz777]

On 2/8/2019 at 8:52 PM, Ottoa62 said:

AS I drill down on this, * WITH ALL of the folks contributing; I should keep the Lionn LK 140 and get a DAC/PRE amp  it's either the S2D or the Dac magic plus  the former being the Sabre chips and MQA  vs  dual wolfson. Both pieces are attractive.

 

I would hesitate with the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus - if that's one of the DACs that you're referring to. It's a design from (around) 2011 or 2012 so quite old tech. Today's DACs are miles ahead! The sound was okay though. I returned the DacMagic Plus for two reasons: old tech and permanent upsampling, and bought a cheaper DAC (Topping D50) that produces better sound than the DacMagic Plus (to my ears).

 

I didn't want a DAC that upsampled everything and provided no way to switch off that upsampling.

 

My advice would be to get a recent, modern DAC that sounds good to you and then get Amarra Luxe as your software music player for Tidal (assuming you're interested in Tidal Masters tracks). Amarra Luxe produces sound that is an improvement over the Tidal desktop app. MQA is neither here no there for me personally, and is a bonus if a song that I like is also available in MQA format. A very well recorded 44.1kHz/16-bit song sounds as good as I could ever imagine it to be and over 90% of my Tidal collection is Tidal HiFi CD-quality.

 

I also wouldn't worry about the DAC chips too much. As an experiment, I ordered a Topping DX3 Pro as it has AKM chips in it. It sounded worse in my headphones system versus the ESS-chipped D50. I put it into my desktop (speaker-based) system and it appeared to sound nicer - probably expectation bias on my part. But after a few weeks of listening of up to 5 hours per day, I'm not overly happy with the sound now and my second Topping D50 will be going back in once my linear power supply arrives. The DX3 Pro is just a little too polite and soft to me.

 

You can definitely improve the sound of a DAC with a decent software music player (like Amarra Luxe that supports both Qobuz and Tidal - there are many software music players on the market) and a linear power supply for the DAC. Both would provide incremental improvements in sound quality. The desktop apps for Qobuz and Tidal aren't the best in terms of sound quality. In fact, the Qobuz app doesn't even have direct control of the DAC (exclusive mode) if you're using a Mac when I was evaluating Qobuz a few weeks ago. The sound goes through macOS' CoreAudio layer. The Tidal app at least provides exclusive access to the DAC. However, both Tidal and Qobuz sound better through Amarra Luxe.

[Taz777]

15 minutes ago, Ottoa62 said:

I will just have to get a pre amp, instead of a DAC/Pre. I am using a Schiit SYS and for a passive, it's very good. I found a Proton 1100  pre amp in my museum and I'm going to throw it into the rack for an "active" pre amp and see what happens. My last ditch effort at a dac / pre could be Project S2D? I will keep looking into DAC/Pre's before I settle on the D50.

 

Do you just need a volume control on the DAC side so that you can vary the line out volume on the DAC's RCA jacks before it goes into your amplifier? If so, the D50 operates as a pre-amp too - in fact I'm using it as a DAC/preamp in my headphones system currently, and it's set to -3dB as that seems to be the sweet spot for my headphone amp (Arcam rHead) to take in. There's a volume control stick on the D50 and the way it alters the volume level on its RCA jacks is supposed to be quite clever to minimise distortion to almost nothing (apparently it uses the onboard volume control functionality of the ESS DAC chips). If you set the volume at -0.00dB then that would be the same as having no volume control on the RCA output jacks (i.e a full line out signal).

[Taz777]

9 hours ago, Ottoa62 said:

TAZ  does the remote raise and lower the output volume? Or only manual with the joystick

 

The Topping D50 does not come with a remote control. it has a manual volume control operated via the multifunction joystick. I've only ever had to set it a couple of times and then it's never set again as I'm using a headphone amp which has its own volume control.

 

The Topping DX3 Pro does come with a small remote control with which you can control the volume. It also has a rotary knob on the fascia of the unit for this.

[Taz777]

The Pro-Ject S2 Digital DAC looks pretty good! If you want hardware MQA decoding built in then I'd consider that over the Topping D50.

[Taz777]

I can only recommend the one I use: an LKS Audio linear power supply. It powers my Topping D50. It's a Chinese-made LPS and is rated at 25VA with a decent Talema transformer in it. I have another 5V LPS on order which I cannot rate yet until it's been wired into my desktop HiFi system.

 

Now, something you need to research is this: if you use a USB source in to the Proj-Ject S2D, then it will take power from the USB source via the USB cable that is delivering the USB Audio signal. the S2D appears to have an external power capability via a micro-USB jack. Hence, in theory, you could use a linear power with a cable that terminates in a micro-USB connector to feed into the external power supply jack of the S2D.

 

However, and this confuses me somewhat, the user manual for the S2D doesn't recommend using an external power supply if you are using the USB port as your music source.

 

Source: https://www.project-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Manual_Pre-Box-S2-Digital.pdf

 

Quote

Mains power connection

The unit offers 2 possibilties:
1. USB input is not used: Connect the low voltage plug from the power supply to the micro-USB socket Power 5V DC before connecting the power supply to the mains.

2. USB input is in use: Unit can be powered directly from computer via USB input. In this case is highly recommended to disconnect Power 5V DC cable from the unit - power disturbances from two power supplies could affect sound performance.

 

Note point (2) in that quote.

 

What I read from that is that you shouldn't use an external power supply if you're using the USB audio input, as the S2D will take power from the USB line.

 

Perhaps someone on here who actually owns an S2D can comment?

 

Of course, this also suggests that if the other non-USB audio inputs are used then an external power supply is required and you could use an LPS or Pro-Jects own external power supplies connected to the micro-USB external power input on the S2D as @left channel suggested earlier.

[Taz777]

@Paul R I have the iFi Nano iDSD BL. It's really a transportable DAC (portable at a pinch). Sound is okay and it does have a 3.5mm line out. Not really a desktop device, although it does do MQA decoding in hardware. My opinion of it is that it's really a DAC to get the most out of mobile phones when you're on the move. It works well in that respect and there's some clever tech in it to cope with headphones that use balanced or unbalanced cables.

 

@left channel Okay, so it looks like the device will auto-switch power inputs. Perhaps the manual is out of synch? I noticed that the manual is dated 2017.

[Taz777]

2 hours ago, Ottoa62 said:

Hi, I am enjoying this thread very much. Everyday we run across more information or read something. Does anyone have a SMSL  su-8 vs? I see good reviews on it. I like that it has a remote, so I can run it right into my power amp. The top contender for me so far is the Project S2D. The Topping D50 is right there too.

 

I was going to buy the S2D for my headphones system but it won't do MQA via its coax input. If you'll be using a USB source (like a computer) then it should work fine.

 

I haven't been able to find a comparison of the S2D vs the Topping D50. For now, the Topping D50 is good enough for me. I do have an iFi Nano iDSD BL DAC that does MQA, which is fine, but the analogue section isn't anywhere near as good as the Topping D50.

 

The same goes for my Node 2i streamer - it's onboard DAC is fully MQA compatible but the analogue stage is inferior to the D50's.

 

Thus, whilst you can gain MQA decoding with many DACs, if the analogue conversion isn't great then you may as well listen via a decent non-MQA DAC as it'll sound better.

[Taz777]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

By doing MQA decoding in the player and letting DAC have proper digital filters instead poor MQA ones is also better...

 

You don't really gain anything by moving MQA decoding to the DAC side, instead it has some negative impact.

 

 

Hi Miska,

 

I'm not sure how this could work. All of the MQA DACs that I have provide a fully decoded and converted MQA audio signal on their respective analogue outputs. For example, take my Node 2i streamer. It has an onboard MQA DAC. If I use its RCA jacks (analogue output) then I get analogue audio output that is the result of a full MQA decoding from the streamer. However, the signal presented on its coax digital out is only the first unfold - and this is what I'm using as the input to my non-MQA Topping D50.

 

So it looks like I cannot present an MQA decoded digital signal on the digital out of the player to feed into another DAC.

 

Perhaps I have misunderstood something - if I could get a full MQA decoded 24/192 PCM stream out of my Node 2i and into the Topping D50 then I'd be a very happy man! Currently I can only get up to 24/96 (which isn't bad by the way, it sounds fantastic, but isn't the full deal).

[Taz777]

@Miska Okay, I think I understand what you mean now! Thank you. So I'm better off using the 24/96 sent to my external DAC which, as you say, has better filters.