T+A DAC 200

[Shadorne]

9 hours ago, kishoreburidi said:

Hi everyone - When playing DSD files, does the DAC 200's filters come into play? or are they bypassed?

 

Similarly, when playing PCM 44.1K/48K redbook, if we select NOS 1/2 filters, what will happen? Will it bypass the PCM upsampling in DAC 200?

 

The reason why I have asked about PCM is, I was listening this album from Roon(Qobuz) with NOS 1 filter. It is just magic. Such an analog sound I can feel.

 

I answered PCM Redbook in last reply.

 

I see you also asked about DSD - as I understand it there are no digital filters with DSD at all except the final analog one at 60KHz or “wide” at 120KHz. 60KHz would be appropriate for rates up to and including DSD256 but you could try wide to see if it sounds better to you on your gear. Again the issue of out of band noise arises the wider you go and the risk of instability of amplifiers but the noise might cause the DAC to behave more linearly if there is some signal level related modulation going on.

[kishoreburidi]

12 hours ago, Shadorne said:

I answered PCM Redbook in last reply.

 

I see you also asked about DSD - as I understand it there are no digital filters with DSD at all except the final analog one at 60KHz or “wide” at 120KHz. 60KHz would be appropriate for rates up to and including DSD256 but you could try wide to see if it sounds better to you on your gear. Again the issue of out of band noise arises the wider you go and the risk of instability of amplifiers but the noise might cause the DAC to behave more linearly if there is some signal level related modulation going on.

Thank you so much for the response.

 

It is inline with my understanding then.

[Shadorne]

OK. Mac Studio with M2 chip arrived. It took only a few minutes to setup after using migration assistant to grab everything off my previous i5 Mac mini. I downloaded roonserver and installed on the Mac - hooked up my SSD drive with my music collection and it worked instantly with my iPad driving the music selection.
 

Now that I have experienced an improvement in sound over PCM by upsampling to  DSD256 (with Roon 7th level upsampler) to the T+A D200, I am curious to try DSD512 or DSD1024 just to see if there is any further improvement to eek out. 

 

Folks - please advise what hardware/software I need. Would a Holo Red connected by Ethernet CAT6 cable to a router connected to the Mac Studio with HQPlayer drivers/software do it. Or do I need more equipment/software?

 

If I have a wired router connected will my wi-fi still work on a separate network - I stream by wi-fi but the Holo Red comes with ethernet cable connection only.

 

thanks to advise!

 

 

[pavi]

3 hours ago, Shadorne said:

 

Folks - please advise what hardware/software I need. Would a Holo Red connected by Ethernet CAT6 cable to a router connected to the Mac Studio with HQPlayer drivers/software do it. Or do I need more equipment/software?

are you running hqplayer on the mac studio along with roon? moving to dsd512 or dsd1024 depends entirely on the rig you're running hqplayer on. 

[Shadorne]

2 hours ago, pavi said:

are you running hqplayer on the mac studio along with roon? moving to dsd512 or dsd1024 depends entirely on the rig you're running hqplayer on. 

 I plan to run HQplayer and Roon together on the Mac M2 Max Studio.

 

thank you for helping here!

[Miska]

19 hours ago, Shadorne said:

 I plan to run HQplayer and Roon together on the Mac M2 Max Studio.

 

You need an external NAA device for HQPlayer in order to bypass CoreAudio limitations. Such as RPi4, UP Gateway, Holo Red or similar, running NAA OS.

 

M2 Max can likely do DSD512 with ASDM7EC-light (x512 fs) modulator. At least M1 Max can.

 

[jonniema]

Hello all,

 

I am currently using an Intel NUC running win10 and roon server directly connected to DAC200 via USB.

Currently capable of running DSD512 with 7th Order CLANS Roon decoders (although with parellization).

 

This is good, but would like to explore alternative options to Roon with HQP decoders and filters.

Would my NUC be theoretically capable of handling say DSD512/ASDM7EC filters? 

 

Can also someone point out if DAC200 supports DSD1024 (Native DSD) other than via the ASIO windows driver? I.e: could i have my NUC running linux or other OS

 

I read many people use NAA, but not if any limitations using that.

 

Thx all!

 

- Intel NUC NUC8I7BEH2 , I7 8559U

- Crucial Ballistix SportsLT SODIMM DDR4 16GB 2400M

- Samsung SSD 860 EVO B2B SATA III 2.5P 250GB

- Intel SSD 660P 1TB NVME-PCIE-M.2 -1800R/1800W-150K/220K IOPS

- Akasa Plato X8 fanless enclosure

[OE333]

8 hours ago, jonniema said:

Can also someone point out if DAC200 supports DSD1024 (Native DSD) other than via the ASIO windows driver? I.e: could i have my NUC running linux or other OS

 

 

Native DSD via USB from a Linux PC is fully supported. - so no problems to be expected.

 

Regarding DSD 1024 with a I7 8559U CPU I don't think it will work, but of course you can try it.

Maybe DSD512 with one of the more sophisticated filters/modulators would be the better way to go.

 

I'm sure @Miska will be able to give more advice on this topic...

 

[guiltyboxswapper]

14 hours ago, jonniema said:

Can also someone point out if DAC200 supports DSD1024 (Native DSD) other than via the ASIO windows driver? I.e: could i have my NUC running linux or other OS

 

Yes it does support DSD1024 in Linux no problem, but as @OE333 has said you may struggle to 1) run the modulator/filters at DSD 1024 rates and 2) tell the difference between DSD 512 and 1024 once you do

 

(SDV 3100 HV owner here and i'm struggling myself to fully distinguish between 512 and 1024!)

[jonniema]

35 minutes ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

Yes it does support DSD1024 in Linux no problem, but as @OE333 has said you may struggle to 1) run the modulator/filters at DSD 1024 rates and 2) tell the difference between DSD 512 and 1024 once you do

 

(SDV 3100 HV owner here and i'm struggling myself to fully distinguish between 512 and 1024!)

 

Thx all for your feedback!

 

Yes, i already suspected that would be the case.

DSD512 would be good enough at this stage, as I believe the big jump now would be changing from Roon to HQP modulators.

 

My thinking was:

• Could the NUC be capable of running DSD512/ASDM7EC, and....
• Would there be an advantage of runnning Ubuntu in this NUC as opposed to WIN10 (although it is "optimized" with AudiophileOptimizer and some motherboard restrictions)

I am really trying to avoid spending more on a superPC just for streaming, and i also feel i have enough boxes as it is.

What kind of setup do you guys go for? 

[nekky]

I just decided to bite the bullet and upgrade the streamer itself to a Lumin U2 w/ DSD256 upsampling (and seemingly quite well done) built in. The combo with DAC200 as preamp into Elipson A2700 Class D monoblocks is finally to the point where I am quite pleased with the performance. 
 

DSD is definitely where this DAC 200 shines, but it is also just a wonderful piece overall and an excellent preamp. Has anyone upgraded to something noticeably better as a pre?

[nekky]

On 6/13/2023 at 11:58 PM, droffen said:

Why not try the T+A power three HD cable?

A quick update here that I just ordered some Furutech parts, namely the FI-15NCF slim IEC connector - fits perfectly now with any HDMI cable plugged in just above it. 

[Miska]

52 minutes ago, jonniema said:

Could the NUC be capable of running DSD512/ASDM7EC, and....

 

You could try... It will be tight, but with some luck it could work with the "light" EC variants.

 

52 minutes ago, jonniema said:

• Would there be an advantage of runnning Ubuntu in this NUC as opposed to WIN10 (although it is "optimized" with AudiophileOptimizer and some motherboard restrictions)

 

Doing so can give some light performance gain. If you like to use HQPlayer Desktop, then Linux Mint Cinnamon edition could be lighter alternative (it is based on Ubuntu 22.04).

 

Or you can just try booting up HQPlayer OS image on the NUC, from USB memory stick. No installation necessary. That is as slim OS you can get. But the build is slightly different than the generic build for Ubuntu, and I'm not absolutely certain which one will perform better on your quad core CPU.

 

[jonniema]

24 minutes ago, Miska said:

Or you can just try booting up HQPlayer OS image on the NUC, from USB memory stick. No installation necessary. That is as slim OS you can get. But the build is slightly different than the generic build for Ubuntu, and I'm not absolutely certain which one will perform better on your quad core CPU

 

Tks for the tips!

 

Would HQP OS  also be able to run other apps as Roon Server? I was looking to mantain Roon as GUI.

[Miska]

9 minutes ago, jonniema said:

Would HQP OS  also be able to run other apps as Roon Server? I was looking to mantain Roon as GUI.

 

No, it is HQPlayer-only, similar way as Roon ROCK is Roon-only. So Roon would need to be running elsewhere.

 

If you need both on the same machine there are two alternatives:

1. HQPlayer Desktop + Roon with GUI (no GUI available on Linux, only headless)
2. HQPlayer Embedded + Roon Server for completely headless server

Option (1) can be installed on Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 or Linux Mint Cinnamon.

Option (2) can be installed on Ubuntu Server 22.04.

 

[Shadorne]

On 7/26/2023 at 1:28 PM, nekky said:

I just decided to bite the bullet and upgrade the streamer itself to a Lumin U2 w/ DSD256 upsampling (and seemingly quite well done) built in. The combo with DAC200 as preamp into Elipson A2700 Class D monoblocks is finally to the point where I am quite pleased with the performance. 
 

DSD is definitely where this DAC 200 shines, but it is also just a wonderful piece overall and an excellent preamp. Has anyone upgraded to something noticeably better as a pre?

I like the Benchmark LA4 - about as transparent as it gets (if transparency is your thing). I use the D200 in fixed output mode so my LA4 does the job of attenuating and passing the signal to the power amps.

 

I need a preamp with at least two XLR balanced inputs in order to test gear. I never sell and the replace. I will always have gear in for a lengthy extended comparison period. I like to wait until the buyers delight has faded to a condition where I am unduly influenced by excitement over a shiny new toy (that said glowing green tubes have held a spell over me for as long as 3 years - tubes yield incredible user satisfaction just from the visual impression)

[nekky]

8 minutes ago, Shadorne said:

I like the Benchmark LA4 - about as transparent as it gets (if transparency is your thing). I use the D200 in fixed output mode so my LA4 does the job of attenuating and passing the signal to the power amps.

 

I need a preamp with at least two XLR balanced inputs in order to test gear. I never sell and the replace. I will always have gear in for a lengthy extended comparison period. I like to wait until the buyers delight has faded to a condition where I am unduly influenced by excitement over a shiny new toy (that said glowing green tubes have held a spell over me for as long as 3 years - tubes yield incredible user satisfaction just from the visual impression)

I appreciate your response but I am after whether anyone has directly compared the preamplification stage of the DAC200 versus anything else and found a palpable reason to upgrade. I know the LA4 is good but is it any better than the T+A? I’ve been surprised once already to the point that I eliminated my separate preamp. 

[Lokesh]

Hi @nekky, I use the DAC 200 as a pre amp to M200 monos. It sounds really good so don’t feel a separate pre amp is required in my case.

 

I use the Lumin U2 mini as the streamer and have tried the conversion to DSD 256. I use it most of the time, i.e. , don’t switch back and forth too often. 

 

I don’t know if I really hear a big difference between native PCM with Bez 2 filter and DSD 256. At times it sounds better, most of the time very similar. It’s great to have that functionality though. 

[Miska]

23 hours ago, nekky said:

I appreciate your response but I am after whether anyone has directly compared the preamplification stage of the DAC200 versus anything else and found a palpable reason to upgrade. I know the LA4 is good but is it any better than the T+A? I’ve been surprised once already to the point that I eliminated my separate preamp. 

 

Less additional analog stages on the signal path when you use the switched resistor ladder attenuator in DAC 200...

 

In my case, my (integrated) amplifier doesn't have HT-bypass for balanced inputs, so I use the amplifiers resistor ladder volume control instead.

 

On my HA 200 the headphone volume naturally goes through the built-in ladder attenuator.

 

[Miska]

11 hours ago, Lokesh said:

I use the Lumin U2 mini as the streamer and have tried the conversion to DSD 256. I use it most of the time, i.e. , don’t switch back and forth too often. 

 

I don’t know if I really hear a big difference between native PCM with Bez 2 filter and DSD 256. At times it sounds better, most of the time very similar. It’s great to have that functionality though. 

 

Which filter and modulator do you use for generating DSD256? The output quality hugely depends on both the digital filter used for oversampling, and the modulator used to generate the data.

 

[MemoryPlayer]

On 12/11/2022 at 7:19 PM, Miska said:

I would recommend to try Intona USB isolator...

Why not an Uptone Audio ISO Regen?

Did you compare  both of them?  

[Miska]

6 hours ago, MemoryPlayer said:

Why not an Uptone Audio ISO Regen?

 

I don't have it... Is someone selling it within EU?

 

6 hours ago, MemoryPlayer said:

Did you compare  both of them?  

 

I have done extensive measurements with Intona and I know that it works as intended. It is what I use and that's why I'm referring to it.

 

[Account Closed]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

I don't have it... Is someone selling it within EU?

 

 

I have done extensive measurements with Intona and I know that it works as intended. It is what I use and that's why I'm referring to it.

 

The USB ISO Regen is out of production due to pandemic related parts shortages so no need to test it. If you really want to though, I have one I am not using anymore. PM me if you are interested.

[Lokesh]

@Miska the U2 Mini gives options in its app  to resample all incoming signals to DSD 256. I do not know which filters or modulators are used. I would guess they are Lumin designed. 
 

@wklie could you please  comment on @Miska’s question re which filters / modulators are used to resample all incoming signals to DSD 256? Thanks. 
 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Lokesh said:

@Miska the U2 Mini gives options in its app  to resample all incoming signals to DSD 256. I do not know which filters or modulators are used. I would guess they are Lumin designed. 

 

DSD256 from modulator A doesn't necessarily sound the same as DSD256 from modulator B, especially in comparison to modulator C (simple 3rd order) inside the DAC chips used on DAC 200.