oldson
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Post by oldson on Feb 27, 2018 19:22:17 GMT
according to whathifi its a £260 difference. either way both out of my league. maybe a used one in 5 years or so ??
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Javier
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Post by Javier on Feb 27, 2018 20:07:53 GMT
By then the UD-5010 will be so much better at only £4,000...
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oldson
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Post by oldson on Feb 27, 2018 20:13:28 GMT
LOL
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oldson
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Post by oldson on Mar 1, 2018 16:43:17 GMT
my desire to try a dac upgrade is cooling faster than our weather.
instead my interest is turning to another closed headphone. very happy with the 800's as my main set but thinking of the Aeon closed to replace my d2000 and 770's.
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Post by lobalwarming on Jul 9, 2018 23:55:20 GMT
All amps colour the sound? Yes, but it gets worse. All headphones and all speakers colour the sound - in even more gross ways than amps.
But, it gets worse. ALL rooms colour the sound. ALL microphones colour the sound. And it gets worse, mic placement can colour the sound - often more than the choice of mic.
And it still gets worse. ALL mic preamps colour the sound. ALL converters colour the sound. And it gets worse. Once they put their choice of colours in-the-box, audio engineers/producers/mastering engineers can't resist colouring more with a vast palette of DSP plugins designed specifically to...yup...colour the sound!
And we haven't even got to those colouring-outside-the-lines musicians - they love to colour the sound too using their instruments (often with their own highly-coloured amps and electronics) and *gasp* their bare hands!!!
The whole audio recording/playback industry is one end-to-end sound colouring conspiracy!
Which is why being a 'purist' audiophile listener is a futile endeavor - we only get to scribble in a small fraction of the kaleidoscope colouration chain. It's not fair!
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oldson
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Post by oldson on Feb 28, 2020 19:41:13 GMT
digging up an old one here, but as i am (again) interested to see if i can here a difference with dacs, what the heck
there are a few of the rme dac's appearing on the used market now. but i have been watching a "youtube" review and it does seem as though its intended for more studio scenario than home listening (as in me) in comparison would the teac ud505 not better suit the home listening environment? or even the chord qutest which only has a few selectable filters to choose from?
i used to own a meier stagedac, which had a few tweaks available but nowhere near as much as the rme, and i gave it away as i fealt the "tweaking" was just too much! i have also read somewhere that the rme can sound analytical where as the teac option has whats known as "velvet sound". any opinions?
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Post by lobalwarming on Feb 29, 2020 5:23:58 GMT
I have used various RME interfaces in my studio/editing work. Good for work. Not much fun for pleasure. Unless you like geeking out with variable filter/digital EQ settings. Settings that can generally make things worse or at least different.
Have heard the teac ud505 with the AKM 'velvet sound' DAC. Considered it decent, but over-priced. Barely preferred it to the AKM-equipped Schiit Modi for $99.00 - although the teac is a DAC/Amp combo. But didn't use the amp, because it's nothing special imo.
Also note, the RME adi-2 pro with all the digital filter presets whistles and fiddly bits, uses... uh-huh... the AKM 'velvet sound' 4490 DAC series chip as well. It's less velvet sounding and more burlap and chaffing. It's not just the DAC chip that ruins the music, there's the surrounding analog circuitry to help as well. ;-)
To be fair, the RME adi-2 headphone amp is pretty terrible with high impedence phones. The DAC part is decent. Way over-priced decency, however.
The best DAC filters I've heard are those designed by Mike Moffat. The super-burrito filter used in the Schiit multi-bit DACs provide satisfying tonality with the best depth and soundstage I've heard in sub $8k DACs.
If it were I making the suggestion... and I am.. would order a Schiit Bifrost 2 (https://www.schiit.com/products/bifrost-1) and use their 14 day try period to hear for myself.
If user filter fun is still on the table, the Soekris Engineering dac1541 is a good option. (http://soekris.dk/dac1541.html) - it offers not only a plethora of filter options, but downloadable tweaker filters from tweaking users.
I have heard a few of the Chord offerings and not on my top 10 DAC list. Tonally they don't sit well with my perceptions. The caveat is my perceptions may not sit well with anyone else's.
Have just started using a new MOTU interface for work. It uses an ESS 32bit DAC. Still evaluating for work use. Quite flat and clinical. Don't expect it will make it over to the pleasure rig and replace the good Schiit sitting there.
The Matrix X-Sabre Pro is another ESS-equipped DAC option that offers various filter options and other useless stuff. And measures stupendously. Unlike many other ESS implementations it doesn't suck the life force out of the music or me. ;-)
If you're one of the lucky ones where all DACs sound the same and filter tweaking is unsought OCD work, then look at some cheap Schiit or Box DACs. If you discover you can hear a difference, then expect financial doom and auditory dissatisfaction interspersed with momentary elation.
Happy hunting!
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oldson
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Post by oldson on Feb 29, 2020 19:01:43 GMT
i would really love to try the chord qutest but it may well be overkill for my system. i'm almost afraid to trial it , just in case i really like it. ideally though, my budget is around £500 as i have items that are surplus to requirements that potentially cover more than half that amount. there are a couple of used rme adi-2 dacs on ebay for slightly more money, but i doubt i would be able to get the best out of them, with all the option settings. so having hunted around a fair bit , i am thinking of one of these pro-ject offerings.................. www.project-audio.com/en/product/dac-box-ds2-ultra/cant find much in the way of reviews but may be able to try before i buy. to me the specs look ok, not that that means an awful lot
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oldson
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Post by oldson on Feb 29, 2020 20:58:36 GMT
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Post by lobalwarming on Feb 29, 2020 22:03:56 GMT
If you can try the dac-box before you buy, certainly give it a listen. If not, the resale value, at least on this side of the sea is not great.
Schiit Europe offers the 14 day in-home trial as well. The Modi 3 (AKM 4490) and Modi Multibit are well under your budget. I really enjoy the rich, organic presentation of the Modi Multi-bit. Still my fav low(ish) cost DAC. Highly musical and enjoyable with a convincing sense of space around instruments and depth of soundstage.
However, if the mystical pull to the qutest is strong, maybe you need to follow it. Even if it ends in disappointment and financial ruin. ;-)
While the more recent Delta-Sigma DACs (AKM 449x/ESS 9038) have improved sonically, the Delta-Sigma dac advancement was more about cost-cutting than pursuit of sonic virtues. Suggest you don't study the over-sampling, decimation, twisted filtering whitepapers. Best not to know how our sonic sausages are made.
In my experience, differences between DACs is more subtle than differences between amps. And far less significant that headphone differences.
Personal audio listening for pleasure is so personal, that only your experience counts. Best to ignore the internet raves and rants about gear. While it's fun to chat endlessly about gear and sonics, it's largely irrelevant to the actual listening experience. Which is best experienced rather than described.
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Post by lobalwarming on Feb 29, 2020 22:06:34 GMT
Hope it sounds great to you. And you can stop dac searching for months or years. Enjoy!
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oldson
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Post by oldson on Mar 1, 2020 19:14:01 GMT
so do i. just like the micro idsd it's a bit of a swiss army knife. im hoping it can replace the ifi and schiit mani with no loss of quality.
i do have one query that i cant seem to find an answer to. nowhere in the blurb on pro-ject's website does it mention if the unit has galvanic isolation! does that mean that it is safe to assume it hasn't ?
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Post by lobalwarming on Mar 1, 2020 20:55:38 GMT
I'm not seeing any reference to it either. Safe assumption is no, it does not.
Could ask their support. Or when the unit arrives, open it up and use your galvanized skills of observation to look for signs of galvanic activity.
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oldson
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Post by oldson on Mar 5, 2020 19:02:04 GMT
can anyone tell if the usb is isolated from this pic?
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