HELP With Choosing A DAC

The AUDIOgd models are supposed to be good. Straightforward, well-built, and versatile, and also very-good for the price. If you want to go the USB route, the base-model HRT Music Streamer II is the easiest way to get high-end sound from a computer and an amp/receiver. However, if you need something with more connection options, then check out the AUDIOgd stuff. Either way, you'll get there for $300 or less (The Music Streamer II is only $150).

I was especially-impressed by HRT's customer-service. I needed some help getting things working right, and the co-owner/head-designer emailed me back each time within 15 minutes and encouraged me to let him know how I made out (You have to love a good small business). This guy stands by his products 100%, and for good reason. That MSII sounds so-alive. So-musical. So-analog. And supposedly, the op-amps are socketed, allowing for op-amp rolling (OMG, did I really just say that?).
 
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Maverick D1 then onto Audio-gd Ref 5

Hey Now,

I just shipped my Maverick D1 to EmmBee, hope he enjoys it :music:. It is a very versatile little unit. I first used it with my iMac via USB with headphones primarily, then slowly added onto it. I tried a USB/SPDIF converter and I liked the sound better through the coax than USB. Then I got a better USB/SPDIF converter and liked it even more. I changed the opamps out to LM4562 in the headphone slot and an LT1364 in the DAC, some folks switch these. I couldn't find an affordable WE396 tube, so went with a Raytheon 5670. Much better than stock. To my ears it seemed to provide a bit of warmth to the tube pre-out into a SS headphone amp. The SS pre-out went to a Zamp feeding some PSB Alpha Mites. Things were sounding nice. I had an old DVD/CD player with an optical out and ran that into the D1. I built a Crack, now the tube pre-outs went to the Nikko receiver and the SS pre-out went to the Crack. Things were sounding very good now.

So, I went nuts and got an Audio-gd Ref 5 DAC and haven't looked back. The Ref 5 is so much more detailed and superior, but costs an arm and leg more than the diminutive D1. I moved the D1 into the living room doing duty with the Apple Express optical feed into my HT set up and another 2 channel system, remember versatile. I also ran the DirecTV coax into the D1 as well. It is nice having a headphone amp built in to listen to TV sports when the wifey doesn't want to hear all the noise.

For what you get it sounds very good, not as detailed as some more expensive DACs obviously, but it is much better than my iMac analog out. I went through several less expensive DACs, the D1 is well worth it. I used it in many different configurations. It can be tweaked and upgraded fairly inexpensively. I did end up getting a pair of LM4562HA metal top opamps that had to be soldered onto some Browndog 8 pin dip adapters. These sounded the best to me. Drove my HD650s and Fostex T50RPs with ease. I don't think you will be disappointed, but there are a lot of DACS below $300 now. Happy shopping.

I have had a modded-Aune, Dac Wow, HRT iStreamer, modded-Zhaolu, balanced Twisted Pear Opus . . . I use the iStreamer at work with the iPad, the Opus is fed from a CD transport via coax and sounds better through speakers than headphones. I use the DAC section of the HK HD990 CD player for computer audio in the back room and of course, the balanced Audio-gd Ref 5 at the computer listening station through an Audio-gd Roc and BH Crack. After all this digital sound experimenting I find myself getting back into analog more :scratch2:.

--
Finest kind,
Chris
 
Don't know about the + model, but there is absolutely-nothing unnatural about the highs with my HRT MSII. In fact, my experience is completely the opposite. Everything sounds incredibly-natural, but most of all, the sound is musical ("Musical" is it's strong suit). I can't say enough about the MSII, and that's just the base model (I've heard some say the jump to the MSII+ is more than worth the price-difference, but I'm so-happy with the performance of my MSII that I see no need to upgrade).

I agree 100%. However, I have no problems sharing my hub between the DAC and the hard drive as it has a 2.5 amp supply. Plenty of electrons for everybody.
 
Has anyone tried these? Peachtree DAC it, or iDAC, Simaudio 100D, Cambridge DacMagic 100 or DacMagic Plus, Musical Fidelity V DAC II, M1DAC, or the NAD DAC1?

Just thought I'd add to the confusion or to the choices. :)

I have the above with in 10ft from where I'm typing. There are so many different directions one can go with these dac's isn't there.

I must admit though (To kind of go of the first post) that I've not listened to the tube maverick. Really the only "tube DAC" I've had any chance to do comparison is here as well, you may of heard of it? The Peachtree iNova? Thing is, the tube is used as a pre-amp before it goes through the amp section, so I'm not sure if thats even a fair comparison.

I'm interested if that Maverick uses like a 12AX7, I mean if it did you could go tube broke and buy some mullards or Gold Lions for that bad boy and change up the sound! Well, at the cost of noise... but hey. it's tube. noise is going to happen and it's apart of the magic of tubes.
 
I agree 100%. However, I have no problems sharing my hub between the DAC and the hard drive as it has a 2.5 amp supply. Plenty of electrons for everybody.

Hmmm... Perhaps it's my laptop that couldn't handle it. Don't know, but when I tried plugging an external hard drive into the same external usb-hub as the MSII, I experienced intermittent volume-dips every few seconds. But when I plug the HRT into one hub and my external hard drives into the other hub, everything works fine. My laptop needed quite a bit of massaging to get it to work properly as the source-unit for a computer-based hi-fi system, so perhaps it was an issue with my laptop rather than a DAC issue.

My external usb-hub is just a Radio Shack Gigaware one (The one they sell that has 4 usb-ports). I'm guessing yours is a bit more-expensive. That said, I haven't had a problem with either of the two I have (and I've read some major usb-hub horror stories).
 
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That looks promising, but I don't see on the board any serious OpAmps on RCA outputs, so I am not convinced of the final audio quality.
It might "take" 32 bit signals and upsample them, but if your output stage is crap, that's what you will get as end result.

$(KGrHqZHJBIE9!z9)qn4BPUD3sGtWw~~60_3.JPG
 
That looks promising, but I don't see on the board any serious OpAmps on RCA outputs, so I am not convinced of the final audio quality.
It might "take" 32 bit signals and upsample them, but if your output stage is crap, that's what you will get as end result.

$(KGrHqZHJBIE9!z9)qn4BPUD3sGtWw~~60_3.JPG

Yeah, absolutely... Look inside any well-built, high-end CD-player...
 
Just an example of what it should have the output stage - look inside my Denon DVD-2930.
The lower board is the DAC part. You see the DAC chips (right side), followed by two OpAmps and a bunch of capacitors. At the end (left side) there are the muting (anti-popping) transistors.
 

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That looks promising, but I don't see on the board any serious OpAmps on RCA outputs, so I am not convinced of the final audio quality.

Just an example of what it should have the output stage - look inside my Denon DVD-2930.
The lower board is the DAC part. You see the DAC chips (right side), followed by two OpAmps and a bunch of capacitors. At the end (left side) there are the muting (anti-popping) transistors.

I'm in the other camp completely. Discrete output stages are the way to go for quality output from a DAC, not opamps. IMHO opamps are a compromise where the designer doesn't want to go to the effort (or expense) of designing a proper output stage, and the picture of the output stage that you've posted above is a perfect example of such a compromise.
 
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Also, it is worth noting that this DAC uses a PCM5102 which is a voltage output DAC rather than a current output DAC, therefore it uses no I/V stage and does not require opamps nor a discrete output stage.

Based upon the above, it's a bit harsh to write-off the Dragon based upon assumptions made after viewing a photo ;)
 
I don't see any OpAmps on the RCA outputs for that DAC. Even if you are right about the DAC, the PCM5102 has a THD+N of -93dB (with a possible worse case scenario of -83dB). Not even 16 bit real audio quality (that would be -96dB). Sure, it can "gulp" 32 bit, but the analog side is not capable of more than 15-16 bit... the rest to those 32 bit is plain noise and distortion.
The PCM5102 needs on output a load of 10kohm or more. Less than that and the output is garbage. You need at least a buffer there, for those headphones.

As for OpAmps: You need reconstruction filters at the output. You need virtual ground impedance of curent output DAC's. You need a buffer for following stage/headphones.
None of this can be done properly without an OpAmp. All the DAC manufacturers show analog stages with OpAmps in their falsgship DAC datasheet pages. This include Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Asahi Kasei, Cirrus Logic, Wolfson Micro, ESS (Sabre)...
 
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As for OpAmps: You need reconstruction filters at the output. You need virtual ground impedance of curent output DAC's. You need a buffer for following stage/headphones.
None of this can be done properly without an OpAmp. All the DAC manufacturers show analog stages with OpAmps in their falsgship DAC datasheet pages. This include Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Asahi Kasei, Cirrus Logic, Wolfson Micro, ESS (Sabre)...

Sorry but I disagree. None of my audio-gd DACs have opamps full-stop... They are discrete all the way. They are sonically excellent without an opamp in sight. Can I suggest dropping Kingwa an email and telling him to replace his discrete output stages with opamps? I'd love to see his reply. ;). There are many ways to skin a cat.

Again, I'd strongly suggest investigating the above DAC chip and overall DAC architecture before publicly writing-off a DAC based upon speculation and assumption. In my personal experience Musiland make excellent bang-for-buck gear. They are not some 'fly by night' company trying to sell crap products, and rest assured that their engineers are not stupid nor oblivious to the requirements of designing a DAC.
 
You go by what Musiland engineers do, I go by what TI/BB, AD, AK, WM, CL, ESS engineers do.
As for discrete stages instead of OpAmps... they are poor implemented in 80% of cases (exception is maybe John Hardy 990C ones) and perform below of the level of a modern OpAmp. Been there, done that.

In the end... I agree to disagree.
 
You go by what Musiland engineers do, I go by what TI/BB, AD, AK, WM, CL, ESS engineers do.
As for discrete stages instead of OpAmps... they are poor implemented in 80% of cases (exception is maybe John Hardy 990C ones) and perform below of the level of a modern OpAmp. Been there, done that.

In the end... I agree to disagree.

Indeed, we can agree to disagree regarding what it best. Each to their own :)

However, if you had checked the spec sheets of this DAC chip, you would see that there is no need for opamps with the PCM5102 (as I mentioned earlier) hence Musiland are in the right and deserve none of your criticisms regarding improper design. Musild have designed it EXACTLY in accordance with the TI specification sheet. They are not stupid! I think it is important that this assertion is corrected, as I'd hate for a potential purchaser of this budget DAC to do a google search for information, find this thread, and assume that there is some flaw in the design of this DAC (which is clearly not the case).

http://www.ti.com/product/pcm5102

You will note the line outs DIRECTLY off the DAC chip due to the 2VRMS outputs which do not necessitate an output stage.

fbd_slas764a.gif
 
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Like I said before, look at the specs!
It REQUIRES 10kohm output (or more) impedance!!! Unless you have headphones that have that value you NEED output buffers.
Plus, the chip itself is a cheap one, capable of THD=-93dB - that is not even 16 bit performance (16 bit equals -96dB). Probably the lack of output active filters leads to that result too.
32bit snake oil.
 
Like I said before, look at the specs!
It REQUIRES 10kohm output (or more) impedance!!! Unless you have headphones that have that value you NEED output buffers.

You'd better get in touch with TI then and correct them. The detailed spec sheet gives full implementation and circuit information and does not specify opamps in any way, shape or form. Either someone at TI has royally stuffed-up, or this DAC chip functions just fine as per TI's own implementation information.

I've also just realised that the JKDAC32 uses this exact DAC chip and it is one of the better DACs that I've heard in this price range, and it has... wait for it... no opamp (or discrete equivalent) output stage. John Kenny (DAC designer) is no fool either. Info and reviews below. John is clearly doing something right here, despite the meagre cost and specs of this DAC chip:

https://sites.google.com/site/hifacemods/home-1/Options

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/johnkenny2/1.html

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0412/usb_dac_shootout.htm
 
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How about you scroll to page 4 and 25 in their datasheet and read about output impedance?

At THD+N= -93dB (15 bit performance) is nothing spectacular. Regardless what people paid to say differently say. Or they are just taken by the "32 bit" marketing crap.
I see that you have audio-gd Ref 5 (4xPCM1704) as DAC... Can't belive that you can even compare that with the cheap toy from above.
 
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