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rega dac, cdq, young dac bake off

I previously had the Dacmagic and had the itch to see what better solutions were out there. Trouble was once I heard the Rega in the shop and more importantly at home I had to have it.
I had seriously considered the Young Dac and maybe the future Audiolab standalone Dac. However with the obvious quality control issues that both of these products have been experiencing I opted for the Ford rather than the Ferrari as I didn't want to spend all my time in the garage. Thats not to say when these 2 products have got their quality issues well and truly sorted I will give them a good listen to.

Hi Pete

How does the SQ of your new DAC compare with the Dacmagic, using the same inputs, particularly USB?

Does your new DAC excel in every area or did the Dacmagic do some things better?

If so what?
 
The DacMagic is a very good piece of kit for the price but when you do a direct A - B comparison then the DacMagic sounds like it is playing MP3' compared to the Rega. This was more so in the shop where just the USB was used. At home I use a Coax from the Squeeze receiver.
The Rega is more musical altogether and the DacMagic has a bit more forward edge. My one criticism of the Rega is that on less well recorded tracks it can sound a bit veiled whereas the DacMagic didn't.
 
The DacMagic is a very good piece of kit for the price but when you do a direct A - B comparison then the DacMagic sounds like it is playing MP3' compared to the Rega. This was more so in the shop where just the USB was used. At home I use a Coax from the Squeeze receiver.
The Rega is more musical altogether and the DacMagic has a bit more forward edge. My one criticism of the Rega is that on less well recorded tracks it can sound a bit veiled whereas the DacMagic didn't.

Hi Pete

Thanks for that.

Reading between the lines I guess the Rega sounds a bit more warm and cuddly.

No bad thing. Just depends what's playing at the time and the overall sound you prefer from your system.

The search continues.
 
Hi Pete

Thanks for that.

Reading between the lines I guess the Rega sounds a bit more warm and cuddly.

No bad thing. Just depends what's playing at the time and the overall sound you prefer from your system.

The search continues.

Yes the Rega is a warm sound yet very musical not perfect but yery easy to listen to. The only way with any of this kit is to try it in your own system. I expect the Young may tick more boxes but the quality issue was a real concern for me.
Just listening to a bit of Count Basie reminded me that I have never really liked a bright in yer face sound which is why it took me a while to catch onto CD players in the early days, I even returned one as the dynamics were giving me the jitters.
 
I am more disappointed by the fact that the SPDIF input on the Rega sounds considerably better than the USB input. The bake-off indicated this is probably also true for the Audiolab DAC too (I may be wrong here; someone please correct me if so). In my opinion, this rules out the USB input on the Rega for serious listening, and so makes its limited input range irrelevant.

Andy

That does open up a can of worms . . .

Where the Young, W4S DAC2 and Calyx score high for plug-and-play excellence is that they are USB specialists. I think the Rega can live with that company, but only when the transport clocking via SPDIF is top-notch. And that's relatively expensive - particular from a computer source. If you want to borrow some toys to play with, just shout.
 
Using an Async USB to s/pdif converter does improve the Rega , if you are primarily using PC/Mac as source, and it allows you to play 24/192 .
Keith.
 
Hi Pete
My DAC has no problem being connected via a 5meter USB2 cable.
The Emotiva XDA-1's User Manual under USB states ' NOTE: Do not exceed 2 meters in cable length' so that's ruled out.

The Emotiva works fine for longer cable lengths when a £5 repeater is used, so direct USB connection is still an option.

But as the bake-off demonstrated, the best way to hear what the XDA1 can do is to convert from USB > AES/EBU: the reclocking and buffering of the digital converter enables the total cable run to be longer without issues, too . . .
 
Hi

The only DAC I heard to have a notably better noise floor was the Calyx.

I couldn't detect any noise floor differences with any other DAC.

YMMV.
 
The Emotiva works fine for longer cable lengths when a £5 repeater is used, so direct USB connection is still an option.

But as the bake-off demonstrated, the best way to hear what the XDA1 can do is to convert from USB > AES/EBU: the reclocking and buffering of the digital converter enables the total cable run to be longer without issues, too . . .

Hi item

Can you explain why the newer more expensive Emotiva's USB connection only works up to 2 meters (without help from a repeater), yet my older cheaper DAC complies with USB2 specs by working fine up to 5 meters?

Is this one of the areas where corners have been cut to keep the price down?

Regarding USB to AES/EBU converters. Do you mean like this http://www.itemaudio.co.uk/kingrex_usb_spdif_converter.html at £159 plus p&p from Item?

What else does the Emotiva need help with to work properly?
 
Hi item

Can you explain why the newer more expensive Emotiva's USB connection only works up to 2 meters (without help from a repeater), yet my older cheaper DAC complies with USB2 specs by working fine up to 5 meters?

Is this one of the areas where corners have been cut to keep the price down?

Regarding USB to AES/EBU converters. Do you mean like this http://www.itemaudio.co.uk/kingrex_usb_spdif_converter.html at £159 plus p&p from Item?

What else does the Emotiva need help with to work properly?

Where are you item?

Your reply may be helpful to potential customers.
 
Where are you item?

Your reply may be helpful to potential customers.

Hold your horses, I'm only twenty minutes away! As you approach 5m, things do get tricky for USB but I suspect that Emotiva's 2m 'limit' is just manual-speak for 'optimal configuration'.

I know we're a bit biased, but the combination of the KingRex UC192 with the Emotiva (roughly what we heard on the day) was commonly agreed to be a decent step up from all three flavours of USB connection we auditioned. If you take the UC192 with KingRex' own Mini XLR > XLR cable (not included with the UC192), we throw in a free linear 7.5V power supply.
 
Hold your horses, I'm only twenty minutes away! As you approach 5m, things do get tricky for USB but I suspect that Emotiva's 2m 'limit' is just manual-speak for 'optimal configuration'.

I know we're a bit biased, but the combination of the KingRex UC192 with the Emotiva (roughly what we heard on the day) was commonly agreed to be a decent step up from all three flavours of USB connection we auditioned. If you take the UC192 with KingRex' own Mini XLR > XLR cable (not included with the UC192), we throw in a free linear 7.5V power supply.

Thanks for your reply item.

It's staring to get more expensive so should perhaps be compared with a £500+ DAC.

Any idea why the Emotiva needs an, arguably, unnecessarily large case (mostly air)?

Is it just a matter of matching the size of 'normal' CD players?
 
There is some air: http://emotiva.com/xda1.shtm

But also, two separate power supplies and two boards. The case could be smaller - Emotiva aim at a common form factor in terms of width for all their products.

The M1, Emotiva, Rega, and Audiolab - all benefit from optimal configuration (as we heard!) Even the USB specialists respond to power conditioners and better cables. They sound pretty good out of the box, but each has its preferred input - delivering it involves cost.

To get that niggly extra X% from his Rega, BobMaximus is doubtless looking at SPDIF reclockers and fancy cables, which will add a reasonable amount to the cost of his DAC. And will probably be worth it.

The beauty of the Emotiva is that you're starting at a lower price: spending £150 optimising the digital input will very probably raise it to a higher level than a £500 DAC connected with a 99p USB cable.
 
I noticed that in amongst all the other variables was a change from foobar to jriver.

Did anyone have any thoughts on the relative merits of the software?

Maybe another bake off at some stage?
 
I noticed that in amongst all the other variables was a change from foobar to jriver.

Did anyone have any thoughts on the relative merits of the software?

Maybe another bake off at some stage?

An easy one do to with a single DAC.. Try a multitube of different players and see which you prefer. I am planning on doing exactly this with my Audiolab 8200CDQ.

Sam
 
Just wanted to say thanks to all for sharing their thoughts and for bringing the Emotiva to my attention.

I've been looking at the Beresford and DACmagic for a few months now. I didn't know the Emotiva existed. If anyone has any experience with all 3 of those DAC's (Emotiva/Beresford/DACmagic), I'd love to hear them. I will be using toslink from an Airport Express and either toslink or coax from an inexpensive DVD or CD transport. The rest of the chain is a humble NAD C320BEE > Vienna Acoustics Bach Grand.
 
in an attempt to avoid being overly obsessive and audiophiley, i just went ahead and ordered the Emotiva. 300 bucks shipped and 30-day money back guarantee. I've never owned an external DAC and my digital front end is simply an Airport Express' analog output. I'll report back with impressions of the Emotiva vs. the APX, if anyone cares.
 
Never heard any difference with USB cables into my Young including the much vaunted Wireworld ones.

But then the 5v lines aren't terminated in the Young so there's nothing flowing down them that could possibly pollute the ground plane anyway.
 


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