Audio Note DACs
- Thread starter Columbo
- Start date
He was impressed with a zero, it says something 
First, Denafrips Ares is a worst dac I ever had, so that’s a bit compromised comparison by design. I listened to AN dacs level 1, 2, 5 and 4.1x player (not 3 unfortunately yet). Many believe Dac 2.1Sig is a sweet spot in terms of value for money.
First, Denafrips Ares is a worst dac I ever had, so that’s a bit compromised comparison by design. I listened to AN dacs level 1, 2, 5 and 4.1x player (not 3 unfortunately yet). Many believe Dac 2.1Sig is a sweet spot in terms of value for money.
All are multibit chips
Beats it? How? Nothing beats easily anything in that price bracket. Especially a $2k unit.
I think Nait 3 trounces Supernait quite easily but most here would disagree. I had a chance to listen to comparison between AMR player with double crown pair of TDA1541 vs Playback Design player. and I would say that Playback was a better player to convey spatial reproduction and therefore was more impressive. It was so obvious that I couldn't focus on anything else.
I think Nait 3 trounces Supernait quite easily but most here would disagree. I had a chance to listen to comparison between AMR player with double crown pair of TDA1541 vs Playback Design player. and I would say that Playback was a better player to convey spatial reproduction and therefore was more impressive. It was so obvious that I couldn't focus on anything else.
I had SW1X 3rd level alongside AN 4.1x, similar but still different)
As are Abbas dacs from Ukrini for 1/5th the price. I have 2.2 , a monumental DAC but somehow lacking in engagement department. Mat Parvi was modding AN Dac 1 for some years and wanted a change of direction so he bought DCS. He liked it for what the DAC could do but preferred AN on some music. There is nothing in the world which can make you 100% happy
Here's my comparison between a few DACs for those who like a longer read:
I’ve enjoyed DDDACs in my own system since the kits were first released. I’ve built
DDDACs with one board, two boards and four boards and all have provided a great
amount of musical enjoyment and have never had a tiring sound. Of late I’ve built
versions with on board reclocking-Ian Canada and Kali principally-and also built in Pi
streamers.
The DAC kits have now been available for quite a few years. OK, the boards have
been upgraded, with built in Tent shunts and a bias module, and I’ve also
incorporated my own custom power supplies and valve output stages. But the years
have still gone by. So my question was: how does the DDDAC stack up against
some of the finest and much more expensive DACs now available and was I (or my
clients) missing out on a greater level of musical satisfaction.
In February this year I set out to listen to some of the best-rated DACs out there. My
sample encompassed dCS , Rockna, Mola Mola Tambaqui, and MSB Discrete and
Premier. At first I thought I would try and get them all at home for a week or so’s
trial. That quickly proved impossible, and I ended up buying a dCS Bartok, and
listening to the Rockna at a dealer’s. In truth if one of these had blown my mind in
terms of demonstrably better sound quality I would have bought it. Of course, any of
those DACs is considerably more money than the DDDAC: my own versions fully
built with custom power supplies, tube output stage and built in Pi streamer cost
around £3.5k whereas the cheapest among this crop is the Mola Mola at £10k with
the others coming in from £16k to 29k.In other words: a considerable difference in
price.
My own DDDAC for comparison was a four board version with and without a built in
Pi streamer, with an Ian Canada Q3 reclocker and a Wave IO board on USB duties.
The MSB DACs, dCS Bartok and Mola Mola Tambaqui were evaluated by a group of
musical /audio friends whereas I heard the Rockna at a dealer’s. My home systems
are as follows: Cisco network switch followed by Innuos Phoeix Network switch.
RPI streamer with custom power supplies connected via i2s to DDDAC four board
NOS DAC. Innuos Zen Mini Mk3 and Innuos Phoenix Reclocker tested with both
DDDAC DAC and ESS9038pro based DAC both with tube output stages. DACs
connected directly to various amps or via my own Satchmo preamp inc. Modified
Ming Da 805 monoblocks, Radford circuit sta 100 monoblocks, Mastersound 845 PSE
monoblocks. Speakers were Troels Gravesen Illuminator 4 built by Troels himself,
JBL S2 9800s, and Klipsch Cornwall IVs. Of my DACs, the DDDAC one is the most sophisticated with
separate analogue and digital choke power supplies. It also clearly trumps the ESS9038pro DAC in terms of bass performance, slam and overall musicality.
I am not presenting in depth reviews in the sense of detailed analysis of highs and lows etc. More the general listening impressions and any obvious faults or differences.
My listening experiences were as follows:
dcs Bartok
Close to the DDDACs performance on high res material, but quite inferior on
standard red book material. Strange artefact that a singer could be placed much
further back in the mix than on any of my DACs. Eg Joan Armatrading Walk Under
Ladders, her voice is very receded in the mix, whereas with my DACs the vocals are
correctly placed in front of the band. Internet Radio strangely limited (at that time:
may have changed with Apex?) to 320kbps which is a big disadvantage for me as I
listen to radio Paradise. Ethernet input inferior to USB using the Phoenix Reclocker.
Overall, a reasonable buy for a one box solution at its secondhand price of circa
£7,000.
Mola Mola Tambaqui
A real enigma this DAC. It could sound excellent with some material but truly awful
with other material. The dealer stated it was all working correctly so I can only put it
down to its processing / performance.
MSB Discrete
Of all the DACs I tried, this DAC was one that I could happily live with that gave very
similar performance to the DDDAC. Everything I threw at it came out as music in the same way as the DDDAC. The minus points for me are cost-£16k for thenetwork and USB addition-and the on all the time power supplies. To turn off the
psu, you have to reach behind the unit which is not practical in my set up.
MSB Premier
Reasonable performance overall but much more ‘hi fi’ than the organic sound of the
Discrete and DDDAC. At nearly £30k it is way above what I would pay for any DAC.
Rockna Wavedream Balanced SE
I heard this DAC at a dealers using their system. Expensive KT88 valve amplifier, my
own Satchmo preamp, and a £20k streamer feeding the DAC. The DAC was very
unimpressive in NOS mode. Using its upsampling options gave some very strange
results. Eg Leonard Cohen Live in Dublin. Leonard always has a chesty voice but
with this DAC it sounded like he had a severe chest infection. The dealer had set up
some electrostatic speakers a long way into the room and the soundstage was well
behind the speakers. Difficult to state what the effects of the system were but I heard
nothing to want to spend more time with this £16k DAC.
Overall Conclusions
I heard nothing from any of these DACs that made me think I was missing out sound
quality wise over the DDDAC. In fact, the only DAC that I could live with and enjoy
the same /similar sound quality was the MSB Premier with its drawback of price and
always on PSU. Given that that DAC is £16k I’m more than happy with my DDDAC. I
build and sell the same model at around £3,500 so it is exceptional value for the
resulting sound quality. I also heard nothing from expensive streamers that made me
think they offer superior results to an RPI 4 with custom power supplies feeding an
Ian Canada FiFIPI reclocker.
There also seems to be something in the way upsampling DACs change the mix within music. ASR and others show that all these DACs have vanishingly low measured distortion yet there is clearly some quite major changes being made to the way music is presented.
Update
So having tested my previous DDDAC against the Mola Mola Tambaqui, dCS Bartok, MSB Discrete and Premier, Rockna Wavedream Signature DACs and finding that non could best it, I decided to build my own signature DDDAC. As I have recently moved to 100db sensitive Klipsch Cornwall speakers I decided to use the Sowter transformers as output devices. So the spec of my latest DAC is:
-Sowter output transformers
-Ian Canada FiFOPi Q7
-Ian Canada Supercapcitor Pi psu
-RPI4
-5 separate power supplies using New Class D regulators
-Choke input psu for the DAC analogue side
-Choke psu for the DAC digital side
-Organic polymer caps on the digital side both for decoupling and small bypass caps
-New Class D regs for the DAC boards, main digital regulator and the two relating to the shift register and Tent module
-Elna Silmic caps for the analogue side
And how does all this sound? I can honestly say the DAC has exceed my wildest expectations. There is absolutely no digital artefact and reverb and bass response are right up there with the finest analogue devices. I’m particularly surprised by the SPDIF input. This has always seemed the poor relation of my other builds but with these latest mods it’s sound is well up there with the Pi streamer sound.
As well as my DAC shoot out above, I listened to many expensive streamers-and tried a few via HDMI i2s but none has equalled the Pi4 with the Q7 and decent power supplies. This DAC can now compete or beat the very best up to many thousands of pounds in price. The MSB Prestige above is £29.5k alone.
As a previous much lower spec proved more musical than the aforementioned AN 5.1 modded DAC and my Audial S5 pretty well matches my DDDAC I'm pretty confident the Audial outperforms the modded AN for my musical taste which covers baroque, classical, jazz, rock, indie, electronica and reggae. As noted above, I don't use any upsampling. YMMV
I had an Audionote 2.1 Sig on home demo. I really did not like it at all below 75DB, just lacked punch, textures thin sounding, soundstage width sorely lacking. Vocals pushed well back in the mix.
It got really quite good when you cranked up the volume, but too loud for me. I much preferred the internal dac of my Moon amp at any level.
Of course, we all have our own preferences, so I would not want to put you off auditioning, you might love that type of sound.
It got really quite good when you cranked up the volume, but too loud for me. I much preferred the internal dac of my Moon amp at any level.
Of course, we all have our own preferences, so I would not want to put you off auditioning, you might love that type of sound.
darrenyeats
pfm Member
I'm not connecting with your statement about vocals not being placed forward enough. What I would be interested in, is how far forward/backward the sound field goes based on the recording. Some recordings have the drums placed far forward of the singer or main instrument, some have backing vocals behind everything else, sometimes the vocal is forward etc. Can you give an example of a recording you used?
Audio Note dacs are superb sounding things, the amount of copy cats shows this. I’ve owned a Dac 2.1x, Chord Qutest and Border Patrol Dac Se and also had the AN Dac 2.1 Sig in my system; the Audio Note dacs are on another level, especially the Signature, fantastic levels of detail, weight, tone.
I don’t have any digital at the moment, mainly because I can’t afford an Audio Note dac and without it all sounds like a hard wall of sound without nuance compared to my vinyl setup.
If measurements get you hard, they’re probably not for you.
I don’t have any digital at the moment, mainly because I can’t afford an Audio Note dac and without it all sounds like a hard wall of sound without nuance compared to my vinyl setup.
If measurements get you hard, they’re probably not for you.