Which DAC to buy for my AudioEngine A5+?

[rando]

2 hours ago, left channel said:

@ahmed98 I feed a pair of those same A5+ speakers with a Schiit Modi 3: https://www.schiit.com/products/modi-1

 

Sounds great. It can be powered via a USB connection to a PC, but comes with an optional power adapter (US plug, 100-240v). 

 

He is located in an offshore location where Schitt is probably much harder to come by (or upgrade, or have warranty work performed..).  As such we have somewhat guessed what other options may exist while ignoring his own list at our own hazard.  

 

 

 

@ahmed98  I'm going to return to my initial thought.  Getting a solid lower end DAC that requires a minimum of user experience or tinkering to happily use.  You are going to discover much that will benefit from investing less money and more thought while using lower end equipment.  Listening to music in as many other systems, visiting audio stores or connecting with more people owning larger systems, and learning from what you hear could be a very important step. 

 

Cost is not directly related to sound quality.  Expending your full budget on one item without a reasonable amount of confidence is nowhere near as productive as expending your full mental abilities towards learning and making informed decisions.  Monetary or otherwise.  If you decide that is one of the Topping devices we will wish you the same amount of enjoyment as if you had followed one our advice.

 

Advice:  Install Windows 10 on your 32 or 64 bit capable computer.  It has much greater potential for producing good sound.  Once you have a DAC try using some programs other than Foobar.  The free version of Fidelizer may be eye opening if you have never explored OS optimization for instance.

[ahmed98]

22 minutes ago, rando said:

 

He is located in an offshore location where Schitt is probably much harder to come by (or upgrade, or have warranty work performed..).  As such we have somewhat guessed what other options may exist while ignoring his own list at our own hazard.  

 

 

 

@ahmed98  I'm going to return to my initial thought.  Getting a solid lower end DAC that requires a minimum of user experience or tinkering to happily use.  You are going to discover much that will benefit from investing less money and more thought while using lower end equipment.  Listening to music in as many other systems, visiting audio stores or connecting with more people owning larger systems, and learning from what you hear could be a very important step. 

 

Cost is not directly related to sound quality.  Expending your full budget on one item without a reasonable amount of confidence is nowhere near as productive as expending your full mental abilities towards learning and making informed decisions.  Monetary or otherwise.  If you decide that is one of the Topping devices we will wish you the same amount of enjoyment as if you had followed one our advice.

 

Advice:  Install Windows 10 on your 32 or 64 bit capable computer.  It has much greater potential for producing good sound.  Once you have a DAC try using some programs other than Foobar.  The free version of Fidelizer may be eye opening if you have never explored OS optimization for instance.

Thank you! ☺️🙏🏼

[left channel]

34 minutes ago, rando said:

 

He is located in an offshore location where Schitt is probably much harder to come by (or upgrade, or have warranty work perfo

 

12 minutes ago, ahmed98 said:

Thank you! ☺️🙏🏼

 

I saw that, but @ahmed98 where are you exactly? Schiit has international distributors and dealers, and USD $99 is a great value. I especially like the AKM-based design.

[ahmed98]

15 hours ago, left channel said:

 

 

I saw that, but @ahmed98 where are you exactly? Schiit has international distributors and dealers, and USD $99 is a great value. I especially like the AKM-based design.

Maldives

[left channel]

2 hours ago, ahmed98 said:

Maldives

 

That does make it a bit more difficult. 🙂 Are the DACs you listed available from a local retailer that will support repairs, replacements, and returns? Schiit offers that support via direct shipping, but at your cost.

[ahmed98]

1 hour ago, left channel said:

 

That does make it a bit more difficult. 🙂 Are the DACs you listed available from a local retailer that will support repairs, replacements, and returns? Schiit offers that support via direct shipping, but at your cost.

I'll most probably buy from aliexpress or ebay. 🙂

[left channel]

18 minutes ago, ahmed98 said:

I'll most probably buy from aliexpress or ebay. 🙂

 

In that case buying directly from Schiit is a good option. They do ship globally. In fact on eBay at the moment I see no Modi 3 units, new or used, just a lot of potentially broken used older models for sale by individuals. Schiit sells new units through Amazon, but at an increased price, so buying direct is still best. AliExpress of course supplies only Chinese-made products, not that there's anything wrong with that, and among those I prefer SMSL. But I like Schiit better.

[rando]

Basically why I suggested if nicer equipment is a reality in the future.  To get something cheap and durable with decent SQ/features. 

[ahmed98]

Good news guys. Extended my budget to $250. So please suggest some devices better than the Topping D50! ☺️

[left channel]

21 minutes ago, ahmed98 said:

Good news guys. Extended my budget to $250. So please suggest some devices better than the Topping D50! ☺️

 

Schiit Modi Multibit, $249.  OK, I'll stop. 🙂

[ahmed98]

13 minutes ago, left channel said:

 

Schiit Modi Multibit, $249.  OK, I'll stop. 🙂

😁🙏🏼

[DuckToller]

Bonjour from France, Ahmed!

I had a little re-think on the information you have provided, and I'd like to sum up, what I have i understand, that allows you to correct me and fill in important details for others.
 

1) You are on the Maldives with limited access to the worldwide market of audiophile technology except of eBay and aliexpress.

2) your budget was 150 USD, now it's enhanced to 250 USD.

3) Your chain is your Desktop computer (or laptop?) - Foobar2000 - USB out - NEW DAC - Audioengine A5+ (Classic or wireless ? that's an important difference!). Do you use an desktop environment or a living room environment?  As you have a s Yamaha SUB en plus?

4) You want to play FLAC AND DSD with your new device, where DSD is an option for the future, because you haven't installed the DSD plug in for F2K and no .dsf-files yet.

5) You prefer convenience to DIY (The Khadas would involve some minor DIY, fitting some screws to fix the board into the case, no other tinkering is required)

6) You basically ask for advice on two popular, but different DAC chips, the AKM's and the ESS-9138M2Q.

 

I assume for the moment, as it was not particularly noted in your thread, that you haven't the A+ wireless, because if otherwise, you would not be looking for a DAC, due to the fact that an AKM DAC is already included in these. OTOH,  the volume of your speakers is remote controlled, which is a comfort if you don't sit on arm's length (nearfield).

 

There is nothing wrong with the Schiit products that were mentioned in response to your question, apart  that your desire to play DSD would be limited to DSD64, if you buy the Schiit Loki, the Modi multibit doesn't do DSD afaik, but the multi-bit (ladder-DAC) technology is known to sound very "analogue" if implemented correctly.

 

And here we are at the main points about DACs in this price range, they may differ in engineering and implementation, plus usually the after sales concept is fairly reduced, the technology is often basically divided between a single unit or pair of chips from either, AKM or ESS.

 

From my experience, I would prefer a dual mono design (including separate power supplies) for power amplifiers, just about the use of a dual DAC chip utilization I am more uneven, as usual it is always the implementation that counts, not only the design. And for example, the KTBD does measure better than some dual DAC-chip units.

 

I am convinced you may be perfectly happy with a SCHIIT product, even without DSD, because they are said to have sound quality far above price range. On the other hand, having raised your budget by 100 quids, you may think as well in the other direction:

Build a dedicated music server device based on RPI 2/3/4, with a Music player like Squeezelite or Volumio using an USB hard drive, allows you to listen to your music in connection with a minimal ecologic footprint and without having your computer idle all the time.

 

I am not a great tinkerer myself, I avoid soldering as much as I can, but I found setting up a Raspberry with PiCorePlayer and LMS/SqueezeLite was as easy as it can get. It is free of charge, and it allows you to control everything via mobile, tablet or desktop, has a decent sq and works without greater flaws (DSD only up to DSD64 with the Khadas board).

And yes, this option will be available as well if you decide for a SCHIIT device, just when you will have another 100-150 USD available for enhancing your audio chain with a dedicated music server.

From my viewpoint, I'd start with Pi/KTBD combo with PiCore and wait for DAC upgrade possibilities to come, but youremileage may vary. Test as an alternative with Volumio and stay with one you prefer for the time being.
 

Back to your setup: I have verified FB2K with the newest SACD plug-in and the maximum Buffer settings with ASIO to play DSD256, with moderate buffers it plays DSD128 well, but seems to be a bit flawed for the DSD256 files.
You will find DSD test files with native DSD who offer a free sampler for testing out DSD quality. They also show you how to setup FB2K for DSD !
 

Be aware, that playing non native DSD via Upsampling to DSD 256 or 512 requires a lot of computational power and it is up to everyone's own perception, if this investment does increase sound quality in an acceptable manner. For my iFi in the main system I found to upsample DSD64 to DSD512 using the foo asio dsd output does have some quality effects, trying the same with high res flac did not offer results suitable to my tasting. The benefits and caveats of DSD Upsampling have been summarized in this posting and it can be useful to read the whole thread.
 

I have tested as well the Topping NX4 with foobar and it performs quite well, just not as open and with a bit less clarity and depth compared to the Khadas. His strength are the build quality and the ease of use after you have installed its USB audio drivers combined with the additional adjustable headphone output and the volume control, which comes in handy for native DSD bitstreaming up to DSD256.
As someone have said here before, there might be no big difference between the Topping units you have named, apart using different DACs in different configurations ... pls take this with a pinch of salt ... 😉

I had talked before about Volumio and as I was writing this response and listening to the Khadas in 32bit/192khz (and I love it!) via foobar2k , I have downloaded the image & transferred it to a 16GB SD-card for using it with my RPi 3b, which is usually a squeezelite player with the other SD card inside. Now it needs 5 minutes of set-up and then I will test the DSD playing with the Khadas.

 

DSD just works in Volumio - with volume control ! - only in DSD64,which sounds perfectly fine, but it's a clear limitation without DSD128 and DSD256. I am convinced there are tweaks to get the RPi playing DSD on higher rates over USB, but I did not plunge into that topic yet.

Setup from Volumio has improved during the last years, this advancement  I need to underline, just the fact that you need pay monthly or annually some extra to use plug-ins for Tidal and Qobuz are the reasons I do not use Volumio in my personal setup. I understand the need to monetize on features, but prefer rather to donate to the PiCorePlayer (below PiCore/squeezelite/MaterialSkin)  team instead.

 

 

My most valuable recommendation before you buy anything, especially if it need lot of efforts to send items back or discuss with after sales agents, make your mind up about your personal strategy and be aware that this is always just the start of a journey into audiophiledom, a sphere where bigger, better and more costly will always be available ...
 

Hope you find your personal way in this audiophile jungle, Ahmed, and pls keep on asking in the forum, if you are friendly as you seem to be, you will always find someone here, who is willing to help and support you!

Best, Tom from France

[ahmed98]

14 hours ago, DuckToller said:

Bonjour from France, Ahmed!

I had a little re-think on the information you have provided, and I'd like to sum up, what I have i understand, that allows you to correct me and fill in important details for others.
 

1) You are on the Maldives with limited access to the worldwide market of audiophile technology except of eBay and aliexpress.

2) your budget was 150 USD, now it's enhanced to 250 USD.

3) Your chain is your Desktop computer (or laptop?) - Foobar2000 - USB out - NEW DAC - Audioengine A5+ (Classic or wireless ? that's an important difference!). Do you use an desktop environment or a living room environment?  As you have a s Yamaha SUB en plus?

4) You want to play FLAC AND DSD with your new device, where DSD is an option for the future, because you haven't installed the DSD plug in for F2K and no .dsf-files yet.

5) You prefer convenience to DIY (The Khadas would involve some minor DIY, fitting some screws to fix the board into the case, no other tinkering is required)

6) You basically ask for advice on two popular, but different DAC chips, the AKM's and the ESS-9138M2Q.

 

I assume for the moment, as it was not particularly noted in your thread, that you haven't the A+ wireless, because if otherwise, you would not be looking for a DAC, due to the fact that an AKM DAC is already included in these. OTOH,  the volume of your speakers is remote controlled, which is a comfort if you don't sit on arm's length (nearfield).

 

There is nothing wrong with the Schiit products that were mentioned in response to your question, apart  that your desire to play DSD would be limited to DSD64, if you buy the Schiit Loki, the Modi multibit doesn't do DSD afaik, but the multi-bit (ladder-DAC) technology is known to sound very "analogue" if implemented correctly.

 

And here we are at the main points about DACs in this price range, they may differ in engineering and implementation, plus usually the after sales concept is fairly reduced, the technology is often basically divided between a single unit or pair of chips from either, AKM or ESS.

 

From my experience, I would prefer a dual mono design (including separate power supplies) for power amplifiers, just about the use of a dual DAC chip utilization I am more uneven, as usual it is always the implementation that counts, not only the design. And for example, the KTBD does measure better than some dual DAC-chip units.

 

I am convinced you may be perfectly happy with a SCHIIT product, even without DSD, because they are said to have sound quality far above price range. On the other hand, having raised your budget by 100 quids, you may think as well in the other direction:

Build a dedicated music server device based on RPI 2/3/4, with a Music player like Squeezelite or Volumio using an USB hard drive, allows you to listen to your music in connection with a minimal ecologic footprint and without having your computer idle all the time.

 

I am not a great tinkerer myself, I avoid soldering as much as I can, but I found setting up a Raspberry with PiCorePlayer and LMS/SqueezeLite was as easy as it can get. It is free of charge, and it allows you to control everything via mobile, tablet or desktop, has a decent sq and works without greater flaws (DSD only up to DSD64 with the Khadas board).

And yes, this option will be available as well if you decide for a SCHIIT device, just when you will have another 100-150 USD available for enhancing your audio chain with a dedicated music server.

From my viewpoint, I'd start with Pi/KTBD combo with PiCore and wait for DAC upgrade possibilities to come, but youremileage may vary. Test as an alternative with Volumio and stay with one you prefer for the time being.
 

Back to your setup: I have verified FB2K with the newest SACD plug-in and the maximum Buffer settings with ASIO to play DSD256, with moderate buffers it plays DSD128 well, but seems to be a bit flawed for the DSD256 files.
You will find DSD test files with native DSD who offer a free sampler for testing out DSD quality. They also show you how to setup FB2K for DSD !
 

Be aware, that playing non native DSD via Upsampling to DSD 256 or 512 requires a lot of computational power and it is up to everyone's own perception, if this investment does increase sound quality in an acceptable manner. For my iFi in the main system I found to upsample DSD64 to DSD512 using the foo asio dsd output does have some quality effects, trying the same with high res flac did not offer results suitable to my tasting. The benefits and caveats of DSD Upsampling have been summarized in this posting and it can be useful to read the whole thread.
 

I have tested as well the Topping NX4 with foobar and it performs quite well, just not as open and with a bit less clarity and depth compared to the Khadas. His strength are the build quality and the ease of use after you have installed its USB audio drivers combined with the additional adjustable headphone output and the volume control, which comes in handy for native DSD bitstreaming up to DSD256.
As someone have said here before, there might be no big difference between the Topping units you have named, apart using different DACs in different configurations ... pls take this with a pinch of salt ... 😉

I had talked before about Volumio and as I was writing this response and listening to the Khadas in 32bit/192khz (and I love it!) via foobar2k , I have downloaded the image & transferred it to a 16GB SD-card for using it with my RPi 3b, which is usually a squeezelite player with the other SD card inside. Now it needs 5 minutes of set-up and then I will test the DSD playing with the Khadas.

 

DSD just works in Volumio - with volume control ! - only in DSD64,which sounds perfectly fine, but it's a clear limitation without DSD128 and DSD256. I am convinced there are tweaks to get the RPi playing DSD on higher rates over USB, but I did not plunge into that topic yet.

Setup from Volumio has improved during the last years, this advancement  I need to underline, just the fact that you need pay monthly or annually some extra to use plug-ins for Tidal and Qobuz are the reasons I do not use Volumio in my personal setup. I understand the need to monetize on features, but prefer rather to donate to the PiCorePlayer (below PiCore/squeezelite/MaterialSkin)  team instead.

 

 

My most valuable recommendation before you buy anything, especially if it need lot of efforts to send items back or discuss with after sales agents, make your mind up about your personal strategy and be aware that this is always just the start of a journey into audiophiledom, a sphere where bigger, better and more costly will always be available ...
 

Hope you find your personal way in this audiophile jungle, Ahmed, and pls keep on asking in the forum, if you are friendly as you seem to be, you will always find someone here, who is willing to help and support you!

Best, Tom from France

Thank you Tom! I have the classic A5+ speakers and its a living room environment with my desktop PC. Currently aiming for the Topping D50 or the Schiit product. Once again, thanks for all the help! ☺️🙏🏼

[DuckToller]

4 hours ago, ahmed98 said:

Thank you Tom! I have the classic A5+ speakers and its a living room environment with my desktop PC. Currently aiming for the Topping D50 or the Schiit product. Once again, thanks for all the help! ☺️🙏🏼

 

You are welcome,  Ahmed!
 

I think you could nothing wrong with the D50, as it tick all your boxes, and over at ASR it is assumed as a very good unit, AFAIR.

The price of 180 USD would leave you with the option to use a dedicated music server/player  as the Pi3+ bundles are now less than 50 USD with case, power supply and SD card included.

Upgrade path for the future could be: Different case, power hat, use of an iFi power supply and an USB-WiFi receiver for de-activating the internal Wifi and bluetooth units. (between 10 and 50 USD per option. I can confirm, that ther was a significant audible improvement from cancelling RMI/EFI noise in my speakers using the iFi power supply for the RPI.

An important quote from the volumio website about the performance testing on the Pi3b+:
" Luckily though, I then tried to play the same files from a USB drive (and not from a NAS), and magic happened: spotless playback up to 32\768. Seemed that taking ethernet (I was connected on wired connection) out of the equation did the trick. So connected the PI via wifi and restarted without ethernet: same result, HI-Res Music playback was just perfect to my USB DAC.

So, it seems that there is still some issue (hopefully it’s driver related) to the Ethernet controller, which seems to give up lots of packets in high-bandwidth situations. I am however pretty confident that the foundation will solve this issue, as it’s not uncommon that hardware performances get dramatic improvements as software gets tuned up after community feedbacks.

The good news is that there are actually tangible improvements on USB throughput, as I did not experience a single glitch with a great variety of files: 16\44.1,24\96,32\768 flac, DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 and 8X MQA (this is an extremely meaningful test, since if even a single packet is lost the MQA decoding would stop)."

 

The all new RPi 4 with case, card and PS would come about 40 USD more expensive, but is not yet directly available, though it could be still in your limit. I would guess, that with the new USB architecture the performance regarding USB throughput for DSD maý be enhanced. I'd regard that as another upgrade path for the future, based on sufficent testing reports.

 

You will most certainly profit from substantial lower noise floor in your listening environment if the source of your music is disconnected from your PC, and the PC is shutdown. For critical listening, for example,  I'll try to close down anything that enhances the noise floor in my office, this is why the Pi's with a USB stick or USB HD come in so handy.

 

Best regards, Tom

[ahmed98]

1 hour ago, DuckToller said:

 

You are welcome,  Ahmed!
 

I think you could nothing wrong with the D50, as it tick all your boxes, and over at ASR it is assumed as a very good unit, AFAIR.

The price of 180 USD would leave you with the option to use a dedicated music server/player  as the Pi3+ bundles are now less than 50 USD with case, power supply and SD card included.

Upgrade path for the future could be: Different case, power hat, use of an iFi power supply and an USB-WiFi receiver for de-activating the internal Wifi and bluetooth units. (between 10 and 50 USD per option. I can confirm, that ther was a significant audible improvement from cancelling RMI/EFI noise in my speakers using the iFi power supply for the RPI.

An important quote from the volumio website about the performance testing on the Pi3b+:
" Luckily though, I then tried to play the same files from a USB drive (and not from a NAS), and magic happened: spotless playback up to 32\768. Seemed that taking ethernet (I was connected on wired connection) out of the equation did the trick. So connected the PI via wifi and restarted without ethernet: same result, HI-Res Music playback was just perfect to my USB DAC.

So, it seems that there is still some issue (hopefully it’s driver related) to the Ethernet controller, which seems to give up lots of packets in high-bandwidth situations. I am however pretty confident that the foundation will solve this issue, as it’s not uncommon that hardware performances get dramatic improvements as software gets tuned up after community feedbacks.

The good news is that there are actually tangible improvements on USB throughput, as I did not experience a single glitch with a great variety of files: 16\44.1,24\96,32\768 flac, DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 and 8X MQA (this is an extremely meaningful test, since if even a single packet is lost the MQA decoding would stop)."

 

The all new RPi 4 with case, card and PS would come about 40 USD more expensive, but is not yet directly available, though it could be still in your limit. I would guess, that with the new USB architecture the performance regarding USB throughput for DSD maý be enhanced. I'd regard that as another upgrade path for the future, based on sufficent testing reports.

 

You will most certainly profit from substantial lower noise floor in your listening environment if the source of your music is disconnected from your PC, and the PC is shutdown. For critical listening, for example,  I'll try to close down anything that enhances the noise floor in my office, this is why the Pi's with a USB stick or USB HD come in so handy.

 

Best regards, Tom

Thanks Tom! I'll let you know when I get my setup ready! ☺️

[left channel]

9 hours ago, ahmed98 said:

Thank you Tom! I have the classic A5+ speakers and its a living room environment with my desktop PC. Currently aiming for the Topping D50 or the Schiit product. Once again, thanks for all the help! ☺️🙏🏼

 

As @DuckToller says, the Topping ticks all your boxes. Schiit products do not support DSD (except for one discontinued accessory limited to DSD64). They do not think much of DSD, nor do I, so I did not think of it at all, sorry.