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Review 1 of 1
Price Paid:
$1250.00
from Direct fro manufactu Summary:
Ok this is one usual product. It's just a PCB attached to a piece of wood. No power supply either, you have to run this from a car battery. Now before you freak out, let's explain the technology and then get to the sound. Ah - you want to the sound first ? OK folks - let's go down to business : THIS DAC IS THE BUSINESS ! It is non-fatiguing, you can listen to CD for hours, with or without a tube amp. This DAC will make your CD sound analogue and similar to Vinyl. And last but not least, you will ENJOY music through this DAC. Which was the point all along wasn't it? OK now the technology. The designer is not crazy to ask you to power this with a car battery. It is because in the DAC game, particulary with a 16 bit dac - power supply is crucial to obtaining good sound. NAIM with their flagship cd555 CD player charge you 4000 GBP for the power supply alone. Charles the designer says, you can get pure power supply from a car battery. I'll take the car battery any day over a 8000 dollar Power supply unit. This Dac also doesn't have a digital filter. In PCM technology you can either have perfect frequency response with some time smearing, or no or little time smearing, but this will affect the frequency response. So the treble is slightly a bit lower on this dac, but I will take this any day, and I repeat, any day, over a perfect frequency response. Once you listen to this dac with no time smearing and no or little ringing, you will not be able to anything else. I believe it is the time smearing that makes CD sound bad. I have compared SACD versions and CD versions of the same albums and this DAC can hold it's own against SACD in terms of musicality and enjoyment. (in fact I prefer the dac for sheer enjoyment) Strengths:
Analog like sound
PRAT
No fatigue
Musical
Enjoyable, can listen for hours
Make your CD's sound as close to Vinyl as possible with PCM Weaknesses:
The physical appearance of this DAC needs to improve, but the designer says, this is the key to it's musicality. I'll take the music !
Battery powered from a car battery, but slightly inconvenient. But the sound, is just superb.
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5 of 5
