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Teddy Pardo TeddyDac DAC review

I too came from the Naim camp having bought deeply into the 135, 52, DBL etc. I remember Julian first presenting Naim's CD player and he compared it to an LP12 into the same back end. I heard a glorious warm rich sound from the LP12 and a harsh brittleness from the CD player and I have heard that quality in digital media ever since. Until I swapped my Naim DAC for my first TeddyDAC. I rigged it so that someone could press a button on remote and swap DACs and neither they nor I knew which button did which (double blind). in 48 out of 50 tracks I preferred the TeddyDAC, by a country mile. I was taken back to that day in Marlow and I heard real sweet music. One did not clench every time a cymbal was going to be hit. It just sings as sweet as a bell.

That was in my main system (B&W 802 Diamonds, Classé SSP-800 AV processor, five Parasound JC1 monoblocks, Naim NDX, Naim Unitiserve, fully dedicated and treated room.

I now own 4 TeddyDACs, 7 Teddy SB100 monoblocks, and the Teddy Preamp. One of my favorite implementations is a Unitiserve, TeddyDAC VC and a pair of his monoblocks into a pair of speakers. I have that in my office into a pair of PMC IB1S speakers on the tall stands. When that is on, even at the lowest volumes, it just fills your world with a sweet wonderful soundtrack with the most extraordinary bass response.

I have the same system into PMC DB1s and my latest project was to use three Teddy SB100 monoblocks in a home theatre implementation powering the PMC TB2s (and a B&W ASW825 sub). That is a remarkable implementation, filling a huge space with such small components. The source is yet another Naim Unitiserve (my fourth).

Back to the original question, I still get a sense of 'The Emperor's New Clothes' with Naim digital components. If you listen hard enough you will hear flashes of genius, but I just spent too much time with uninvolving sound. And a lot of clenching at higher volumes. The TeddyDAC is simply the closest to music I have ever heard reproduced.

I am in Buckinghamshire and happy to demonstrate the 802 Diamond system and the PMC IB1S systems.

Ian
 
Lumos.
Did you have to pay any import taxes etc when you purchased Teddys gear?
I am considering the monoblocks myself.
 
muzzer said:
Lumos.
Did you have to pay any import taxes etc when you purchased Teddys gear?
I am considering the monoblocks myself.
Click to expand...

You will probably have to pay the duty on MB100s, but not other components. As far as I can tell, the weight of the package is a big factor and the smaller, lighter components generally go through without attracting any attention.
 
There is an arrangement between Israel and the UK and no duty is payable. VAT is payable but they rarely impose it. Perhaps there is a 1 in 6 chance of paying VAT from what I have read. The MB100s are extraordinarily capable and don't just humble the big Naim amps, in my experience they just render them irrelevant.

Ian
 
I just wanted to expand on my last comment. I did not mean to be unduly hard on Naim, by rendering them irrelevant I mean I just don't really care anymore how good they are, I am just for the first time so happy with my systems. I see on the Naim forum how people seem to be constantly searching for something to improve their sound and they are buying exotic power cables, exotic CAT 6 cables; heavens they have discussions about the huge impact that changing the power lead of their NAS makes to the sound. It seems that they are searching for something. I am not. I have found it and it makes me supremely happy. I never reached that in my Naim ownership, no matter how much money I threw at the problem.

I think that the Naim Unitiserve is a great product and the best UPnP source I have found. I do feel guilty that I have not written about my Teddy gear previously, I just have been, well, too absorbed in the music.

I love the fact that I can order from Teddy on Sunday morning and have the equipment on my desk by Thursday. I also love the fact that every item is flawless, no marks, scratches or blemishes.
 
Hi Guys

Is there any consensus on the Teddydac versus the TeddyDac VC.
If I end up streaming only, then the TeddyDac VC into the power amp direct could be an option.
Does the VC (noticeably) affect the sound ?
Also, what streamer is a match for the dac, I see the minimac mentioned however, with power supply and US2, any thoughts ?
 
Napsac, I asked Teddy the same question re TeddyDac vs TeddyDacVC, his reply "The difference is not significant, and not necessarily justified if you don’t have an analogue source."
Andrew.
 
Cheers for that ports1000, presume the fact if you use a TeddyDacVC direct to the power amp, you don't have the added signal path of the pre amp to introduce any further distortion / noise etc.
 
So this may be a little late into the game, with over 5 years since the last posting in this thread. But the TeddyDAC is still available and probably deserves a bit more exposure. I ordered one a couple of months ago-but it got hung up in the mail for a month before it eventually showed up-after a replacement unit had been dispatched and received. Sending it through the regular postal service does minimize shipping costs, but probably incrementally adds the the possibility that packages will get lost, misplaced or damaged. BTW this is about the variable-output version as I simply HAD to get rid of the Chord preamp upstream after I tried using the variable outputs of the Squeezebox directly into the power amps-which was a dramatic improvement over the SBT into the Chord preamp. This made me wonder how much better I could get using a variable-out DAC as I was (for now) without a preamp.

Anyway, it was easy to plug in and get working, so I was pretty eager to give it a listen. On day 1 it was obvious that the TeddyDAC was considerably better than the SBT analog output-which in comparison sounded quite lacklustre and tonally bleached with a subjectivelly rolled off top end. But in absolute terms I did not feel that the TeddyDAC was delivering what I had hoped it would....dynamics were still fairly muted and the low end lacked grip and wallop, sounding a tad loose and plodding.

However as clearly stated in the 'manual' it requires around 3 weeks run in, so I held off on making any assessment or doing any serious listening until I used it for a few weeks constantly feeding it internet radio and occasional TV output (via the SPDIF and optical inputs respectively). But this morning, having a bit of downtime, I thought it would be worthwhile to sit down and give it a critical listen to see if there had been any changes in performance. And indeed there were, and subtle they were NOT!

It was immediately obvious from the first few bars into Ani DiFranco's 'Dilate' (which I listened to on day 1 too) that the player had indeed greatly improved. The dynamic contrasts were now cracking with tons of subtle vocal inflections, and a crystalline clarity of the top end that was now full of vitality. Center fill imaging was also greatly improved. Initially it sounded a little diffuse and 'phasey'. The LF went much deeper with great tune than on day 1 too. And the sum of the parts was a very involving presentation that had deep silences inbetween the notes and absolutely no sense of grain at all. Hammered dulcimer music hand tons of harmonic overtones with great dynamics and subtle note decays that made the peformance that much more credible.

I can say without doubt that this is considerably ahead of the Naim NDS/XPS2 that I had in-house some time ago....when played into that same Chord preamp (which was probably turd in the punchbowl). But as an overall package of a DAC/multi digital input preamp combo, this really offers not only great value for money, but also a performance the probably punches way above its price.

The downsides....? Well apart from the lack of bling and decidedly low mass that loses the macho appeal of... say 15kg worth of XPS2. But fortunately the performance is not judged on its relatively simplistic (but adequate) cosmetics or its inertial mass, but how it grips your attention when listening to it-and it is PLENTY good at that. The lack of the ability to use various levels of external power supplies may also dissuade some from its high end aspirations.

I have not tried any fancy props yet. The power cord is standard fare and the long interconnect from the TeddyDAC to the tube monoblocks are pretty much budget 'magnet-wire' like AntiCable. The fancier cables I have are all way too short to span the 3 meter gap from the DAC to the power amps. Oh.. to come to think of it, the TeddyDAC IS installed on a Sonority Rollershelf which worked magic on the NAT01 before it, before it was decomissioned due to a dearth of even a single decent radio station here in South Florida. It ended up being a guinea pig for development of the RSL MPX driver cards for this tuner that others have raved about.

I have no idea of the 2019 TeddyDAC is different/better from those from 5-10 years ago when this thread was first started. But in its current guise it deserves serious consideration, even if it comes in 'below budget'.
 
I’m a big fan of Teddy’s products. I used a dac VC into a pair of MB100’s and loved every second of ownership. I never felt that anything was fundamentally “wrong” or a need to “upgrade” which I would say is a testament to the quality of the kit.

Replacing the interconnects with Teddy’s own might bring some improvements but for me the really nice surprise was changing the wall wart psu on my squeezebox touch for the Teddy equivalent. The noise floor dropped away to nothing leaving instruments easier to follow and making more sense in terms of a musical performance.

Sadly I had to sell the amps but the dac VC remains and I cannot imaging replacing this with anything else. I do have a Chinese built dac and psu which together cost a total of £45, yes £45 which gives 90% of the performance of the Teddy. In my system, the extra 10% is important but it does give you an indication of what can be done these days for very little money. On reflection, perhaps Mr Pardo has underpriced his products. Perhaps his amps would have sold more if they had been twice as expensive !
 
I ( similarly ) have been very pleased with the Teddy DACVC . I'd been itching to get away from pre-amps , as I don't use other sources anymore .
It's left on all the time , as have all the DACs I've had since the 203b from '92 .
 
I too have a Teddy DAC-VC being fed from a SBT with Teddy PS and agree that the latter does make a difference. For me the amount of buffering in the SBT was reduced, which makes no sense of course, so I eventually bought another for a 2nd SBT - works just as well.

Highly recommended.

CHE
 
Actually I do use a linear power supply with the SBT....a brute built with a 1200VA transformer, choke filtering, 40,000uF of filters and discrete regulators for the 5V. Made a world of a difference over the switching wall-wart supply that came standard when the SBT did the analog output too. I no longer have the original PS, so I cannot determine if (or if not) a linear supply also improves digital replay into the TeddyDAC.
 
Gandalf_fi said:
Hi, I strongly recommend to listen Teddy DAC first, having CDX2-2 & Naim DAC as well.
Sometimes it is a matter of taste & based on value/€ even better, clearly worth to try!
Click to expand...
Which dac do you prefer Gandalf?

Being a fellow CDX2.2 owner I’ve contemplated what would be the most complementary dac. Considering the CDX2.2 is effectively a top class CD transport with it’s digital out. Which is the best way to upgrade?
 
Great write-up Ron. I too own, and daily use, my Teddy DAC. I think it's one of the first ones that Teddy was making and, like you, even before the three week run in was completed it was obvious that it squarely beat my Naim CDX, XPS by a big margin. I used to hang out here quite a bit but only now check in a couple of times a year. That is entirely down to my 'system' being completely Teddy Pardo and just letting the music play without questioning the equipment. There are times when I question the musicianship, producer, recording quality etc etc but not the equipment. It took me many years to get to this point and don't regret the journey. If I'm honest I rather enjoyed the hobby side of upgrading, and switching things around, but I've done that and reached a very contented destination. Any thought about future upgrades...? In a word no, that said I wouldn't mind hearing my system into some large and efficient speakers, but that would mean a bigger room, house, and approval from my better half. Never say never I guess....
 
I too went from a Naim DAC to the TP DAC-VC. The TP was significantly better than the Naim DAC and about half the cost...

....so the NAP 250.2 was next to go, replaced by a pair of TP MB100's ran direct from the TP DAC-VC. This constituted the biggest sound quality improvement I have experienced from an amp upgrade.
 
I just received my TeddyDAC two days ago.. Purchased based on comments made in this thread and around the net. In general I have liked the sound of Wolfson converters in the past but have never heard it in a high-end implementation. The sound of the DAC is changing day to day as I run signal through it but it is already very promising. I can't wait until it's fully broken in.
 
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