Best DAC ever heard

[coxhaus]

I have heard an Esoteric D03/P03 with G0 clock up sampled to 176.4 using word clock on a pair of Magico M5 speakers. The up sampling produced the best sound I have heard with a much more realistic sounding symbol than straight red book. Also the presentation was much more relaxed or smoother than red book.

As far as computer audio I am not advanced enough with high rez and up sampling to make any comments but I hope to one day. I plan on taking my DAC and computer over to listen on the big boys to see where I really stand sound wise.

 

 

[PeterSt]

Which Gigabyte motherboards are a problem?

 

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1636.0

Don't be mislead by the title (which *is* about AMD processors).

 

Before we bash Gigabyte, please don't. Although it seems to be a problem indeed, it has their (Taiwan) full attention. The thread explains about that too.

 

Thanks,

Peter

 

PS:

 

Are you concluding that upsampling is sonically better than playing back the 16/44.1 files at their native resolution?

 

Mani explained it well, and although he referred to a CA thread which more or less explains it from a commercial angle, this is a more objective one I think : http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Software-Hardware-Comparison

Not my thread, but I guess it could have. To the real merits what this is about. A bit long, so be careful.

 

[bhobba]

If it is one thing I have learn't in comparing equipment is that personal preferences come so much into it, it is like asking why some prefer red instead of blue. You will generate a lot of discussion and get nowhere fast. An acquaintance of mine told me of his experiences in comparing a DCS Stack to a precursor of the PDX DAC (the Conner24) - he described it thus:

'But let me say the things a beast ! I’ve spent time with a full DCS stack and I can tell you the Connor24 smacks it down simple as that. The 24 is a DCS stack with a velvet glove'

 

Yet we have people saying the DCS is the best DAC they have ever heard. The Phasure DAC looks intersting and I may even eventually get one out here in Aus where I am finances permitting. But myself, the aquantance I mentioned above, and others have yet to hear any computer audio that bests a highly modified Marantz as transport - and I can assure you the difference is far from suptle. I use computer audio exclusivlely but recognise I am taking a performance hit in doing so. I am having a special version of the PDX constructed with a John Kenny Hiface as input and I am hoping it will get me closer to the performance of the Marantz. Of course it would be great if it could exceed it but I am not optimistic. This is what I personally would like to compare to the Phasure DAC - but again, while interesting, I suspect like with the DCS Stack it won't really resolve anything.

 

Why do I like the PDX and Killer? - their performance is at a level they simply sound real to me. Mind you these are not cheap DAC's and contain hellishly expensive parts like Duelund capacitors. I also greatly enjoy the Tranquility DAC's because of their mercury like midrange that is addictive but overall I give the edge to the Killer and PDX as of now - but they are considerably cheaper and do not use parts that cost an arm and a leg like the PDX or Killer.

 

Thanks

Bill

 

 

[seta]

How about, in your perception (word of mouth, friends, etc.), what's the state-of-the-current-art?

 

My "big-guys" list that I want to hear would be

- dCS Scarlatti

- EMM labs DAC2

- Weiss Medea+

- AMR DP-777

- Esoteric D-03

- MSB Platinum IV

- Wadia series 9

- Audio Note 5 Signature

 

For "Indie" makers:

- Phasure NOS1 + XXHighEnd

- Lampizator level 5

- APL DAC-S

- TotalDac

- PDX level II

 

Yours?

 

[Part-Time Audiophile]

The DAC I'm most curious about is actually an SACD/CD + DAC. I want to get my ears (and hands) on a K-01 from Esoteric. That looks like a beast.

 

[NickG]

Scot, I'm hoping you can can compare the K-01 to the Ayre DX-5, even though you didn't think the QB-9 was a standout.

 

[bhobba]

I know a person that heard the QB9, nearly purchased it, then heard the base grade Tranquility and it easily bested it. He then got a base grade PDX because it was, to his ears, better again. I have read a number of shootouts with a QB9 and can't recall one that it won.

 

Thanks

Bill

 

[Johnny Moondog]

Would love to hear...

 

dCS Scarlatti

Weiss Medea+

AMR DP-777

 

[twdodge]

A drool-worthy list, imo.

 

I might add the Aesthetix Pandora and also a (fully-upgraded) Empirical Audio Overdrive to the list of "DACs i would like to hear at home".

 

[antipodes_audio]

In my system the best DAC has been the Weiss DAC 202, followed by the DCS Delius (interfaced to the computer via Apogee Rosetta 200), followed by the Metric Halo LIO-8. The biggest gap was between 2nd and 3rd. Each connected via firewire to a 'no moving parts' hackintosh (which stomps the Mac Mini by a laughably huge margin). These weren't short impressions, but conclusions reached after several months of ownership. I have heard the latest DCS stack and it sounded fantastic, but haven't heard it in my system to know if (or should I say, by how much) it is better than the Weiss.

 

[57gold]

'no moving parts' hackintosh?

 

Have a late 2010 Mini with 120GB SSD and 8 GB RAM.

 

Thought Apple had shut down the hackers/copycats?

 

[antipodes_audio]

I don't sell them.

 

It's a long story, I spent 3 months full time figuring out how to build good sounding zero moving parts computers and using XP or 7 initially, till someone suggested I try a Mac. So I decided to put Leopard on my best PC just to see, and was blown away by the improvement over the PC in certain areas. So I bought myself a Mini, and borrowed a MacBook, and was disappointed. I wish Apple would make a good sounding computer, but since they don't, I stick with the hackintosh and as some sort of compensation, try to buy as much Mac gear as I can use - iPhone, iPad, keyboards, mice, and of course I buy the OS.

 

FWIW the biggest differences I find are hackintosh over Mac, and FW over USB, then DACs. Having said that, I should add that the hackintoshes I have made cost nearly $2k in PC parts alone, and it can be tricky to deal with heat issues and getting everything to work- though achievable. If apple asked me to stop I would probably go the Linux route as you can achieve the same performance there, but with massive effort to achieve the Amarra level of performance.

 

But I wonder at how people here can get excited about Mac Mini performance with say the Weiss DAC202 (or anything else). I put the Mini on last night out of curiosity and the sound went very thin, hard and harsh. Maybe the after-market modding will solve this problem in time. I hope so as the hackintosh route is certainly not for everyone. It's not the fact that it is a hackintosh, but that you can optimize the build for music.

 

[Paul R]

Did you use an external DAC, perhaps one with Asynch USB?

 

Have you tried running Windows on the Mini, to see if it is the hardware or something else?

 

How would one go about loading MacOS onto a PC and getting the USB, video, and so forth to work?

 

 

[antipodes_audio]

Yes, I have done the comparison using several DACs including asynchronous USB. Well implemented FW is better and the superiority of the hack over the Mac is obvious with all of them.

 

I don't follow how running windows on the Mac would identify anything. There is no question that better hardware improves the sound of windows based, Mac based or Linux based computer audio, whether you use asynchronous interfaces or not.

 

Your last question is a big topic. Perhaps another time or place. You could google hackintosh.

 

[roscoeiii]

Antipodes,

 

Sorry if I missed it above, but was the Mac Mini you used one of the newer aluminum unibody versions or the earlier design (with the top made of white plastic)?

 

[antipodes_audio]

When I first tried this, the unibody wasn't released, so it is the older one I own at present - sits in its box unused these days. But I have borrowed a unibody with 8GB of RAM and the hack still beat it easily. But it was a loan from a mate, so not something I could modify except to put Amarra on. It has a spinning hard drive, internal power supply and fan - each of which degrade sound markedly. And I suspect the chipsets used on an ATX or mATX board are better.

 

But you have me thinking, so I may get a unibody and pull it apart to use a solid state drive, rig up a heatsink to eliminate the fan, and maybe even move the power supply a few inches away - I don't know much about what is inside them to know what is possible. It would be great to use something so small in the system rather than the mATX or ATX boxes I use (four of them in different systems).

 

I should add that Antipodes Audio is a cable company, and I use that moniker so people realise I am not to be believed - who would take the word of a cable marketer?

 

If the unibody Mini could be modified to come close to the hacks I would switch for sure - partly to remove my guilt at having to go that way, but the size factor is an issue. For example, the system I have in our living room at home has the Weiss DAC202, Nuforce Ref 9 V3SE, driving Cremona Auditor Ms. Amongst that lot the ATX box is huge.

 

[silverlight]

very interested to hear more about your component selection on the hackintosh setup at some point.

 

re the comparison to the Mini's, the biggest improvement I've found is power supply upgrade (_very_ substantial improvement moving to a good linear PSU), and then incremental improvements by adding SSD, removing wifi/bluetooth, super drive, adding dampening material, RFI/EMI stuff of choice, etc (and then all the OS tweaks - I use a Mach2 OS install currently). Have done this with an '09 mini, messed around a little with a '10 mini (ssd, improved power cord, have an external linear PSU for it, but haven't removed the internal supply yet given the one-way trip). So a comparison with a well modified (hardware+software) Mini would be interesting. Guessing it won't reach a purpose-built machine, but might be much closer.

 

[antipodes_audio]

I have been asked that sort of question a few times, so posted a fairly full description, step by step, elsewhere. There isn't much I haven't tried, and everything makes a difference. But I found that 95% of the performance of an obsessive build could be achieved relatively simply with standard, readily available and affordable parts, with a build time of a couple of hours.

 

One of the problems is that as soon as I find a motherboard I like it gets obsoleted by a new set, and every now and then the currently available set are not supported yet by Apple. So each of the four hacks I use have different motherboards. I have stuck with Gigabyte boards and the best boards have been higher end ATX boards using DDR3 RAM (seems to sound better than DDR2, but hard to tell, obviously), but using Intel e7500 family CPUs.

 

The other problem is that the early iterations of the i3/i5/i7 CPUs pumped out too much heat to readily handle without a heatsink case, and therefore high expense. I do have one HFx heatsink case, but found that a reasonably vented (no fans - very important) aluminium case with good internal volume was fine if I used the Rasetsu heat sink (with its fan removed), and if there is reasonable airflow around the case. Temperatures here don't get above 90 degrees by the way.

 

To date, the rock stable builds have used the obsoleted e7500 family of chips. I have made i3 and i5 chips work, together with the latest boards, but the sonics are not superior, the builds are a little less stable and heat is an issue. That has improved recently with some lower power CPUs in that range, but I stay away from the laptop types.

 

8GB of RAM is definitely better than 4 but 16GB introduces instability.

 

Linear supplies for an ATX board are expensive and large, and I built one, but found that an inexpensive Seasonic fanless CPU gave very adequate performance, so I tend to use that now.

 

I use an SSD hard drive of course, and I do turn off a number of services (but should look at doing more on that front).

 

I tend to use Amarra most, though play around with Fidelia and very occasionally Pure Vinyl. They can play better if loaded into a ramdisk. I find WAV files sound a little better than AIFF and that FLAC and ALAC are noticeably worse. I also use software to upsample to 24/88.2 offline, and if done well this is markedly better than the DAC being distracted from its job by having to upsample in real time. The best resolution to upsample to depends on your DAC, of course. The easiest way of getting a worthwhile result is to just use Sample Manager and do your collection in batch mode, but there are better ways if you have the time and patience for it.

 

[aljordan]

Hi antipodes_audio,

 

I've built a number of silent audio PCs over the years. I've tried low power and high power boxes, and built a Cics Memory Player box as well. I've tried Windows XP, Windows 7, and Linux with real time kernel and unneeded services shutdown. While each build and OS offers slightly different levels of performance and flavor, I generally thought Linux was the best sounding O.S. overall. I've never particularly cared for the sound from the couple of laptops I had tried.

 

I recently tried a 2011 13" Macbook Pro with an i7 CPU and swapped in a SSD for the internal disc and 8 gig of RAM - no other changes. I am extremely pleased with the results into my firewire DAC.

 

Alan

 

[antipodes_audio]

Hi Alan

 

I inadvertently dragged this one off topic - apologies to the OP.

 

Only because when I first tried out a lot of permutations the laptop CPUs at the time seemed to not sound as good as the E7500 types.

 

I have a Linux build but haven't tried figuring out how to do the integration with the FW Dacs yet. I can use an async USB interface, but as mentioned previously these have all been disappointing alongside the FW DACs I have tried.

 

Mark

 

[ted_b]

Metric Halo LIO-8 I'm demoing currently. I guess there is a mini-pci firewire card that will fit it but no one I know has figured out how to talk to a fw DAC. With the Antelope Plus (with Volticus PS) and Alix (with Hynes PS) it was quite quite good.

 

[roscoeiii]

Ted,

 

I am salivating to hear your comparisons of the LIO-8 and Zodiac+ to the Weiss in your set-up. The number of DACs you have auditioned is truly impressive.

 

p.s. Yes, I am beginning to feel like a DAC stalker...

 

[27Globes]

I have auditioned outside my system:

Ayre QB9

Bel Canto 3

Wavelength Cosecant (Numerator)

Weiss DAC202

 

Within my system:

AMR DP-777

 

The Weiss stood out in its naturalness, accuracy, and neutrality. Easy to listen to.

 

The AMR DP-777 very musical, organic, dimensional, and detailed.

 

Both great sounds in their distinct way. But, it would be the AMR with which I would choose to live.

 

[Johnny Moondog]

Auditioned inside my system:

 

Calyx 24/192

PS Audio PerfectWave

AMR DP-777

dCS Debussy

 

I also chose the AMR... and concur with your descriptors of musical, organic, dimensional, and detailed.

 

[dummy]

Are both of you using the USB input of the AMR or the Gemini SPDIF tubed input?

 

Is there a pronounced difference between the 32bits HD-DAC and the 16bits Classic DAC?

 

I am curious...

 

Thanks!

 

 

EDIT: Pronounced difference on 16/44 material that is...