Revolution DAC - Listening Impressions

[Boleary3]

Wow. Certainly worth every penny. It's only been on for  20 hours so I expect more changes but this thing has fantastic tonal balance and accuracy with an overall non-fatiguing sound. Turned up-sampling off in Audirvanna and turned it on in volumio, 32 bit, 384 sample rate and the high filter algorithm chosen. In the Revolution I'm running asynch and have the oversampling filter bypass turned on. Haven't tried any of the filters other than default. Am using software volume control, no pre-amp.Expect to have more to say later. Anyone having further suggestions regarding settings I'm all ears.

[al2813]

Hi, am also running it for a few days in a similar setup + USBridge Sig. The funny thing is that for me (using Gentooplayer on the signature) I get better sound when pointing Roon to Squeezlite endpoint (configured in Gentoo Player) than with using the Revolution over Roon Bridge. This means I need the HW volume on the Rev. 

 

Question - which power supply are you using? 

[Boleary3]

Interesting. I don't use Roon so I can't say I'm familiar with either of the configurations you describe. I'm using the Shanti 5v 1 amp tap to power the Revolution.  To my ears, in my set up, there is a decrease in SQ with hardware volume enabled (upsampling filters turned on). Though it  sounds very good it sounds better with the filters bypassed, though I do loose volume control and the remote is just a lot of fun and is certainly convenient. On the other hand, I have to turn my amps off (no pre-amp) when switching sample rates with the filters bypassed (no volume control) because of a loud and nasty popping noise when the sample rate changes. This does not occur with volume control enabled because it automatically mutes the sound when sample rates change. As long as you do not change sample rates there is no problem with pops between track changes with no volume control. Another issue I have is that there seems to be around two tiny clicks, not loud at all but noticeable, per track that I hear while music is playing. I seem to have those clicks with or without volume control.  Hopefully there is a fix or there will be for the occasional clicking.

 

Overall though, the SQ of the Revolution continues to be quite impressive. It very much reminds me of the MSB Gold Link Dac, which in the year 2000 cost around $2000. It doesn't quite match my Yggy in body and weight, nor does it have the sound stage depth of the Yggy, but it's a lot closer than you might think for a $259 DAC.

[Normanlee]

I want to buy the Revolution DAC, but wonder how to update firmware because I use Mac only.

Please help!

[DuckToller]

1 hour ago, Normanlee said:

I want to buy the Revolution DAC, but wonder how to update firmware because I use Mac only.

Please help!

Salut Normanlee,

Didn't see Mac noted in the available update instructions neither.

 

Though, I had noticed that IOS had a limitation to DSD256 native over USB in the past, is that still correct? If yes, using the Revolution for DSD512 may require a RPi4 with i.e. GentooPlayer as an endpoint, provided you use a player that supports that kind of design.

 

The xmos and the thesycon USB drivers update instructions are windows only.

Both driver developer claim 

"Apple OSX version 10.6.4 and above natively supports USB Audio Class 2.0 – no driver install is required."

Which might explain the absence of documentation on the subject from the ALLO information.

 

See:

https://www.thesycon.de/eng/dfu_utility_macos.shtml

And

https://www.xmos.com/software/usb-audio/driver-support/

Best regards, Tom