Essence HDACC in the house

halo · May 2016

msg wrote: »

Yes, instead of the Sonos, in a manner of speaking. Depending on which software you load, it can provide some/most of the functionality of the Sonos, but again, something like the Sonos is going to be clean, refined, plug and play, easy to network with other players, etc.

Re: the computer, it depends on how you mean. Do you mean for storage of music, as a control interface, or some other way?

Well, I ordered the Sonos and I'm planning to use it with the HDACC.

I got it from Amazon so, technically, I could return it in favor of a RPi if it would take the place of my laptop & the Sonos. After looking at the links you posted, I'd be saving about $100 by going with the RPi instead of the Sonos.

The laptop that I use is a Toshiba P840-ST2N01 which is running Windows 7, a Core i5, 16GB RAM and a 240GB SSD. It also has three USB 3.0 ports, a VGA port, an HDMI port, and separate headphone out / mic in ports. 14" LED display.

The display on the laptop is broken. The screen is fine but the hinge on the left side is busted and the back of the display is just flapping in the breeze. It's no longer reliably portable and I wanted to repurpose it. I restored the computer to its factory fresh status. I did not install antivirus because I don't go on the internet with it, it's only purpose is to handle the music transfer to the HDACC via USB.

The laptop is in the same room as the router/gateway but there is no way to directly connect the PC to the gateway so I have an ASUS EA-N66 Bridge that provides access to my home network so I can stream music (Pandora, Spotify, etc.).

I have used an SB3 in the past but I wanted something that can control everything in one neat package so I went with Sonos.

I have my FLAC library on an external, powered HDD, and I also have music on iTunes. I like the SQ of foobar2000 and I have JRiver because I was planning to have music and movies all on one PC through one engine (JRiver).

My music library is all wonky and I believe I have to re-rip the whole thing because files don't pop up in the proper order (CD tracks are alphabetical on some albums but not all and I have no idea why). CDs ripped through EAC don't have album artwork and don't always show up when I'm searching for them. I did rip all of this stuff years ago so it may not have been done properly.

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. I would like to be able to stream music to the set up in the bedroom as well but it's not a deal breaker if I can't do that.

tonyb · May 2016

You can do that....if you get another Sonos box. Look on your local craigslist, sometimes you can find one for 150 bucks.

msg · May 2016

Nice on the Sonos, and good thinking on Amazon - one of the benefits of "big box" shopping. Skip mentioned the UI on the Denon is just okay, but as I understand, the one for the Sonos is top notch, so you should be pleased with that.

+1 to what Tony says on the additional player. This would also let you run synced players. It's a pretty cool thing, synced music, if you are running multiple systems.

I'm gonna take some time to digest the setup. Interested to see how this plays out for you. I'm learning here as well as I've not yet settled on a method for hi-res ripping. I know Tony is a huge advocate for 96k .mp3 files, but I think that's kind of low.

I'm sure you can probably get all your music organized and the album art downloaded using some kind of utility. Shame iTunes doesn't support FLAC; I always thought it was pretty good management front end for adding information and pulling down art and such for multiple tracks at once. I never let it take over the library though.

Quick question - I'm just getting in after an out of town work day and maybe it's already been addressed - but are you good with 48k/16bit? I think the only possible drawback for you with the Sonos is the qual/bit depth limitation. The HiFiBerry Digi+, otoh, can apparently output all the way up to 196kHz/24bit which could really let you utilize the full capability of the Essence, but I haven't tested this personally yet, so I don't know how it performs.

Either way, great that you're getting started, and as you noted, you can play with Pi anytime.

halo · May 2016

msg wrote: »

Quick question - I'm just getting in after and out of town work day, and maybe it's already been addressed - but are you good with 16-bit?

Thanks man, I'm not running any high resolution audio at this point. I have a SACD player which is connected to the preamp and I have a few SACD discs. As far as I know, everything else that I have is CD quality so I don't know if anything I've ripped is above 16-bit anyway. ?

msg · May 2016

okay, cool.
yeah, I have no idea what anything that high sounds like. and yeah, duh, you're right - I think CDs are just 44k/16 anyway. this is how little I know, lol

I've taken the lazy route thus far and do everything with Spotify, but I think that's just 320k/CBR, and as I understand it, CBR isn't doing any favors to the music.

halo · May 2016

msg wrote: »

okay, cool.
yeah, I have no idea what anything that high sounds like. and yeah, duh, you're right - I think CDs are just 44k/16 anyway. this is how little I know, lol

I've taken the lazy route thus far and do everything with Spotify, but I think that's just 320k/CBR, and as I understand it, CBR isn't doing any favors to the music.

I disagree as far as you taking the "lazy route." You built your own music streamer if the form of a RPi, right? lol, not lazy. Anybody can buy a streaming device, most people don't go the diy route man. I gotta give credit where credit is due.

tonyb · May 2016

msg wrote: »

Nice on the Sonos, and good thinking on Amazon - one of the benefits of "big box" shopping. Skip mentioned the UI on the Denon is just okay, but as I understand, the one for the Sonos is top notch, so you should be pleased with that.

+1 to what Tony says on the additional player. This would also let you run synced players. It's a pretty cool thing, synced music, if you are running multiple systems.

I'm gonna take some time to digest the setup. Interested to see how this plays out for you. I'm learning here as well as I've not yet settled on a method for hi-res ripping. I know Tony is a huge advocate for 96k .mp3 files, but I think that's kind of low.

I'm sure you can probably get all your music organized and the album art downloaded using some kind of utility. Shame iTunes doesn't support FLAC; I always thought it was pretty good management front end for adding information and pulling down art and such for multiple tracks at once. I never let it take over the library though.

Quick question - I'm just getting in after an out of town work day and maybe it's already been addressed - but are you good with 48k/16bit? I think the only possible drawback for you with the Sonos is the qual/bit depth limitation. The HiFiBerry Digi+, otoh, can apparently output all the way up to 196kHz/24bit which could really let you utilize the full capability of the Essence, but I haven't tested this personally yet, so I don't know how it performs.

Either way, great that you're getting started, and as you noted, you can play with Pi anytime.

No, Tony is not a big advocate of MP3's. Just that with music streaming services that's what you get with most of them, maybe slightly better than your run of the mill MP3 quality. Which is just ok for casual listening and background music at parties. Tony doesn't touch them when he wants to sit down and listen.

I make no bones about the Sonos's limitations. It is cd quality 16/44. Though for some reason, on my Cullen modded box, I can play 24/96. I believe his dac will upscale a 16/44 file to higher resolutions if he wants, but no....the sonos will not play a native file higher than 16/44.

For a lot of people, cd quality is fine, and if you have a house full of kids, a wife who is not a tech guru, it's about as easy to use and setup for streaming digital as your going to find anywhere. It's also easy to use in expanding to other rooms, grouping zones together, playing different music in different zones.

msg · May 2016

a joke, Tony - was just seeing if you were paying attention

I'll add that to the list of things Tony doesn't joke about - wine, canolis and .mp3's

No, Tony is not a big advocate of MP3's

The HDACC does upscale, but it sounds a little off, imho. I had best results sticking with source quality. The upscaling might work better with a lossless file type though, as opposed to what's delivered by streaming service, or by .mp3.

tonyb · May 2016

Upscaling is hit or miss, people like it or they don't. Also depends on the dac doing the upscaling and how well it's designed to do it.

My Cary dac does it very well, but I still prefer native signals. Unless that native signal is MP3, then it needs all the help it can get.

halo · May 2016

It's been a little while since I commented on this piece and I had one more observation in that it runs pretty warm. Definitely needs a lot of ventilation. I have it sitting on 4 vibrapods so it gets airflow underneath and there's plenty of space on top but it is very warm to the touch. Bob thought heat may have been the culprit with the first one that I had which died. It was sitting in the same spot so the heat probably wasn't what did it in.

andrew82 · May 2016

@msg if you're interested in streaming integration for Rune, take a look at Volumio, which has had Spotify integration for a couple of years I believe. It's supposed to be similar to Sonos in that you enter your Premium credentials and then it integrates Spotify's library into the UI.

Volumio and Rune were created by the guys behind RaspyFi, so they're pretty much identical in regards to the GUI and webUI. Although I hear Rune is a bit snappier, as the guys who designed the WebUI founded Rune whereas the RaspyFi founder started Volumio.

I don't have either program myself, but have played around with Volumio at a friend's in a RPI B+.

msg · May 2016

Ah, good heads up, Andrew - I've seen Volumio in some reading, but hadn't looked into it. I'll check it out. Got a spare memory card and have been meaning to play around with a few other distributions.

grigorianvlad · July 2017

Looks like some of you here actually own or at least heard this DAC. I am considering buying an Essence HDACC II-4K UHD. This DAC does HDMI and DSD, which is what I need. But there is no point in buying one if it will not be an improvement from what I have now, which is just an AVR. So, let me ask you this.
1) How does this DAC perform as a standalone DAC? How does it compare with non-HDMI DACs like Wyred4Sound or Peachtree?
2) Will it be an improvement from the internal DAC in my Marantz AV8801 AVR?
3) I cant find any information on which DAC chip it uses.
Thanks for your input.

halo · July 2017

grigorianvlad wrote: »

Looks like some of you here actually own or at least heard this DAC. I am considering buying an Essence HDACC II-4K UHD. This DAC does HDMI and DSD, which is what I need. But there is no point in buying one if it will not be an improvement from what I have now, which is just an AVR. So, let me ask you this.
1) How does this DAC perform as a standalone DAC? How does it compare with non-HDMI DACs like Wyred4Sound or Peachtree?
2) Will it be an improvement from the internal DAC in my Marantz AV8801 AVR?
3) I cant find any information on which DAC chip it uses.
Thanks for your input.

1) In my humble opinion, this is a very good stand alone DAC. I had the HDACC & the the DACiTx at the same time and I preferred the HDACC.
2) In my humble opinion, this will crush the DAC in your AVR.
3) I'm not sure of the chip used in this DAC, sorry.

I cannot comment on the newer version of the HDACC as I don't own it, never owned it, and haven't ever heard it.

grigorianvlad · July 2017

halo wrote: »

1) In my humble opinion, this is a very good stand alone DAC. I had the HDACC & the the DACiTx at the same time and I preferred the HDACC.
2) In my humble opinion, this will crush the DAC in your AVR.
3) I'm not sure of the chip used in this DAC, sorry.

I cannot comment on the newer version of the HDACC as I don't own it, never owned it, and haven't ever heard it.

Thanks . I found this review where he not only auditioned the DAC, but measured its performance. Objectively.

Here is what bothers me. On page 2 of the review there are comments from Bob (the maker of the DAC). Here is what he writes:

"Data rich hi res audio content like that found encrypted on Blu-ray requires an HDMI connection, the content is copyright protected so USB, Optical, and Coaxial connections will not allow you access to the highest resolution content in the history of audio. "

Does that mean that my downloaded DSD and 192/24 FLAC will not be played if they are coming from my MediaServer via an HDMI connection? Meaning since this is an HDMI 2.0 it will not play any ripped and torrented hi-rez files because they have no copyright stamp on them? Did I misunderstand?

halo · July 2017

grigorianvlad wrote: »

Thanks . I found this review where he not only auditioned the DAC, but measured its performance. Objectively.

Here is what bothers me. On page 2 of the review there are comments from Bob (the maker of the DAC). Here is what he writes:

"Data rich hi res audio content like that found encrypted on Blu-ray requires an HDMI connection, the content is copyright protected so USB, Optical, and Coaxial connections will not allow you access to the highest resolution content in the history of audio. "

Does that mean that my downloaded DSD and 192/24 FLAC will not be played if they are coming from my MediaServer via an HDMI connection? Meaning since this is an HDMI 2.0 it will not play any ripped and torrented hi-rez files because they have no copyright stamp on them? Did I misunderstand?

Like I said earlier, the HDACC that I owned did not/doesn't do DSD. I don't know if that applies to the newer model. If you want the most from your DSD/hi-rez collection, the original HDACC isn't what you want.

grigorianvlad · July 2017

halo wrote: »

grigorianvlad wrote: »

Thanks . I found this review where he not only auditioned the DAC, but measured its performance. Objectively.

Here is what bothers me. On page 2 of the review there are comments from Bob (the maker of the DAC). Here is what he writes:

"Data rich hi res audio content like that found encrypted on Blu-ray requires an HDMI connection, the content is copyright protected so USB, Optical, and Coaxial connections will not allow you access to the highest resolution content in the history of audio. "

Does that mean that my downloaded DSD and 192/24 FLAC will not be played if they are coming from my MediaServer via an HDMI connection? Meaning since this is an HDMI 2.0 it will not play any ripped and torrented hi-rez files because they have no copyright stamp on them? Did I misunderstand?

Like I said earlier, the HDACC that I owned did not/doesn't do DSD. I don't know if that applies to the newer model. If you want the most from your DSD/hi-rez collection, the original HDACC isn't what you want.

Thank you

grigorianvlad · July 2017

Looked up which DAC chip it has - Sabre ES9018. This chip is a bit old (6 years), but still has most of the features of audiophile level chips like the new ES9038. The price of the chip is around $60, which is pretty good for a $499 or $699 DAC.
It has a pretty good THD of 122dB (–107 dB THD is the norm) and DNR of 135dB. The pro-level new audiophile chips like the ES9038 measure even better - 140dB of DNR, but cost more as well ($75 per chip vs $61 for the ES9018).
Regardless, it is a reference level chip and the fact that such a low cost DAC contains such a solid chip is surprising.
But DAC chips are just a part of a story. There is also input/output stage, the quality of parts, the wiring, etc. All of them matter too.

Essence HDACC in the house

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