The Wonderful World of DAC's
Two words for seperate Dac's--- VERY REVEALING--. It's sort of a double edged sword. Ok I'll start from the beginning.
I'm a bit, how shall we say, anal about accurate sound reproduction. IMO, sperates are the only way to go. As you break things down each individual piece really improves the overall sound reproduction when it's all put together.
Before I bought my DAC (Seprate Digital to Analog Converter) I was a bit skeptical about the degree of improvement it could make. I've had experience with 2 companies and 4 models. My younger brother, of all people, turned me onto Monarchy Audio and it's founder C.C. Poon. My younger bro grew up being in my audio shadow and that's why it's hard for me, the "audiophile", to learn something from him. I mean, I taught him everything he knows about good audio. It just goes to show you you can learn something new if you're willing to listen.....
Anyways, a mutual friend of ours, and my bro both bought Monarchy Audio dac's, a 22B and 33B respectively. They both use the same internal guts, except the 33B is also a line source preamp. Now, not really knowing the characteritics of each of their systems it was hard for me to judge the POSITIVE difference's they claimed. We did some half assed A-B'ing and I could hear a difference, but without really spending time analyzing it I couldn't get as excited as they did. Needless to say they both swear by outboard DAC's. The biggest thing that amazed me at the time was both of them had expensive audiophile cd players at the time. Top line Nakamichi and the best hi-end Denon made, and they were hearing very noticeable differences.
I had a Nak OMS-5 at the time which had been a real workhorse as it was manufactured in 1986. It had the "old" 16 bit dual ladder type dac's which I think still sound so "sweet", but unfortunately have been surpassed by the current Burr-Brown chips, atleast in terms of detail. Alas, the Nak tracking mech died and it sits in a closet now, because I can't bear to throw it out, and I don't trust anyone to fix it properly. Plus my current set up would kill it sound wise in many respects. Those old players had no digital out, which you have to have for an outboard DAC.
So then I bought my bro's Nak MB-2s 7 disc music bank cd player. I'm not a fan of changers at all, but if there was one company who'd do it right it'd be Nak, plus it was $100 and hardly used. That thing sounded so sweet in my system, with it's dual 18 bit Burr-Brown dac chips, discrete output stage, it was a real winner, had better detailing and sound-staging than the OMS-5 simply because of newer technology. Plus the music bank system was slick and quick, best $100 I spent. Manufactured in 1993 I think, plus it had a digital output.
I really had no need for an outboard DAC until I got my first DVD player. I don't care how much you spend on one, the audio sections suck on virtually every DVD player. Crappy crappy DA conversion, crappy crappy digital clock and, especially in the sub $500 units, crappy crappy transports. I primarilly listen to music DVD's and concerts, etc. and I was very very disappointed in the sound coming from the DVD player so I decided it was time to get an outboard DAC just for the DVD player. I chose the Adcom after listening to a borrowed GDA-600. The GDA-700 is newer than the GDA-600. The 700 is also HDCD compatiable , has a newer oscillating digital clock as opposed the the crystal digital clock in the 600, which theoretically means better 'jitter' reduction.
The 700 also had, at the time, the latest version of the Burr-Brown 20bit dac chipsets. Sonically there is very little dicernable differences. The 600 retailed for $850 and the 700 for $1000. I also chose the Adcom because it has (2) coax inputs, (1) optical/toslink input and (1) AES/EBU input. This makes them both very versatile for multiple digital sources. Both have discrete class A input stages and discrete output stages. In audio terms it's a dual-mono construction. The right and left channels are essentially discrete, (seperate from each other), they only share the power supply. Each stage has it own seperate power regulators, etc....
Ok, that's all the background out of the way now to the meat and potato's......
I really was skeptical in the beginning. I knew it would really improve the DVD player, but the way it made the Nak sound was incredible, mainly because the Nak was an expensive unit with much of the same parts the Adcom had. It's not always the parts, it's how they are put together. It was jaw dropping, really.....
The best analogy I cam come up with is someone who needs glasses. You can see pretty good w/o them but when you put the glasses on everything becomes vivid, crisp, sharp, etc.... and sometimes you see things you don't want to see so well!!!
It's the same with the DAC.. the bass tightened up and was much more extended and controlled. The soundstage is huge, both vertically and horizontally. The depth is fu**ing amazing. I can place intruments anywhere in the soundstage. I can tell the exact position of the snare and the hi-hat and where they are in relation to each other and each tom, etc. The natural decay of instruments can now be heard, so many little nuances I missed before. I literally turn off the lights and the speakers disappear. Background singers are actaully placed in the background, and if to the left of the main singer, then that's where you hear them. I've heard/sold SDA's in the past and this is a similar experience, but the imaging and staging is absolutely remarkable. When I first got it I actually had to take a day off work to stay home and listen. I did this over a 3-day weekend and listened almost 12 hours a day. I was simply blown away. It has such an open, airy sound. It is really amazing it could make such a difference. Imagine someone drapping a double folded sheet over your speakers, and then after years and years of listening to it that way have someone remove the sheet, that's kind of what it's like. When I leave the room and am in another part of the house I swear the performer is live in the other room. It's amazing
On the down side, and for some this may be a formidable draw back, poor source equipment and poor source recordings are only made worse. Marginally recorded music is going to sound shrill, compressed, unappealing using an outboard DAC. I have RTA-11t's and that annoying resonance/spike at 12-13KHZ has become much more annoying on certain musical passages. Most of the crappy, compressed top 40 rock cds are going to give you listener fatigue because the DAC is revealing all the deffeciencies of the source material. Forget MP3's, they sound horrible through the DAC, not musical at all. But, when you do get a good recording, it really makes a night and day difference and it becomes much more enjoyable. I highy recommend an outboard DAC if you have better than mediocre equipment, it will change the way you listen to music.
I listen to a lot of female vocal-Jewel, Sarah Mac, Sarah Brightman, Holly Cole, Lisa Loeb, Norah Jones etc. and lot's of acoustic music and it sounds phenomenal. However, Vanessa Carlton, Joss Stone, Michelle Branch although acceptable are not mastered very well and it shows. Just to name a few off the top of my head.
This is another damn-long post...hope this helps someone
Peace
Brock "heiney"
I'm a bit, how shall we say, anal about accurate sound reproduction. IMO, sperates are the only way to go. As you break things down each individual piece really improves the overall sound reproduction when it's all put together.
Before I bought my DAC (Seprate Digital to Analog Converter) I was a bit skeptical about the degree of improvement it could make. I've had experience with 2 companies and 4 models. My younger brother, of all people, turned me onto Monarchy Audio and it's founder C.C. Poon. My younger bro grew up being in my audio shadow and that's why it's hard for me, the "audiophile", to learn something from him. I mean, I taught him everything he knows about good audio. It just goes to show you you can learn something new if you're willing to listen.....
Anyways, a mutual friend of ours, and my bro both bought Monarchy Audio dac's, a 22B and 33B respectively. They both use the same internal guts, except the 33B is also a line source preamp. Now, not really knowing the characteritics of each of their systems it was hard for me to judge the POSITIVE difference's they claimed. We did some half assed A-B'ing and I could hear a difference, but without really spending time analyzing it I couldn't get as excited as they did. Needless to say they both swear by outboard DAC's. The biggest thing that amazed me at the time was both of them had expensive audiophile cd players at the time. Top line Nakamichi and the best hi-end Denon made, and they were hearing very noticeable differences.
I had a Nak OMS-5 at the time which had been a real workhorse as it was manufactured in 1986. It had the "old" 16 bit dual ladder type dac's which I think still sound so "sweet", but unfortunately have been surpassed by the current Burr-Brown chips, atleast in terms of detail. Alas, the Nak tracking mech died and it sits in a closet now, because I can't bear to throw it out, and I don't trust anyone to fix it properly. Plus my current set up would kill it sound wise in many respects. Those old players had no digital out, which you have to have for an outboard DAC.
So then I bought my bro's Nak MB-2s 7 disc music bank cd player. I'm not a fan of changers at all, but if there was one company who'd do it right it'd be Nak, plus it was $100 and hardly used. That thing sounded so sweet in my system, with it's dual 18 bit Burr-Brown dac chips, discrete output stage, it was a real winner, had better detailing and sound-staging than the OMS-5 simply because of newer technology. Plus the music bank system was slick and quick, best $100 I spent. Manufactured in 1993 I think, plus it had a digital output.
I really had no need for an outboard DAC until I got my first DVD player. I don't care how much you spend on one, the audio sections suck on virtually every DVD player. Crappy crappy DA conversion, crappy crappy digital clock and, especially in the sub $500 units, crappy crappy transports. I primarilly listen to music DVD's and concerts, etc. and I was very very disappointed in the sound coming from the DVD player so I decided it was time to get an outboard DAC just for the DVD player. I chose the Adcom after listening to a borrowed GDA-600. The GDA-700 is newer than the GDA-600. The 700 is also HDCD compatiable , has a newer oscillating digital clock as opposed the the crystal digital clock in the 600, which theoretically means better 'jitter' reduction.
The 700 also had, at the time, the latest version of the Burr-Brown 20bit dac chipsets. Sonically there is very little dicernable differences. The 600 retailed for $850 and the 700 for $1000. I also chose the Adcom because it has (2) coax inputs, (1) optical/toslink input and (1) AES/EBU input. This makes them both very versatile for multiple digital sources. Both have discrete class A input stages and discrete output stages. In audio terms it's a dual-mono construction. The right and left channels are essentially discrete, (seperate from each other), they only share the power supply. Each stage has it own seperate power regulators, etc....
Ok, that's all the background out of the way now to the meat and potato's......
I really was skeptical in the beginning. I knew it would really improve the DVD player, but the way it made the Nak sound was incredible, mainly because the Nak was an expensive unit with much of the same parts the Adcom had. It's not always the parts, it's how they are put together. It was jaw dropping, really.....
The best analogy I cam come up with is someone who needs glasses. You can see pretty good w/o them but when you put the glasses on everything becomes vivid, crisp, sharp, etc.... and sometimes you see things you don't want to see so well!!!
It's the same with the DAC.. the bass tightened up and was much more extended and controlled. The soundstage is huge, both vertically and horizontally. The depth is fu**ing amazing. I can place intruments anywhere in the soundstage. I can tell the exact position of the snare and the hi-hat and where they are in relation to each other and each tom, etc. The natural decay of instruments can now be heard, so many little nuances I missed before. I literally turn off the lights and the speakers disappear. Background singers are actaully placed in the background, and if to the left of the main singer, then that's where you hear them. I've heard/sold SDA's in the past and this is a similar experience, but the imaging and staging is absolutely remarkable. When I first got it I actually had to take a day off work to stay home and listen. I did this over a 3-day weekend and listened almost 12 hours a day. I was simply blown away. It has such an open, airy sound. It is really amazing it could make such a difference. Imagine someone drapping a double folded sheet over your speakers, and then after years and years of listening to it that way have someone remove the sheet, that's kind of what it's like. When I leave the room and am in another part of the house I swear the performer is live in the other room. It's amazing
On the down side, and for some this may be a formidable draw back, poor source equipment and poor source recordings are only made worse. Marginally recorded music is going to sound shrill, compressed, unappealing using an outboard DAC. I have RTA-11t's and that annoying resonance/spike at 12-13KHZ has become much more annoying on certain musical passages. Most of the crappy, compressed top 40 rock cds are going to give you listener fatigue because the DAC is revealing all the deffeciencies of the source material. Forget MP3's, they sound horrible through the DAC, not musical at all. But, when you do get a good recording, it really makes a night and day difference and it becomes much more enjoyable. I highy recommend an outboard DAC if you have better than mediocre equipment, it will change the way you listen to music.
I listen to a lot of female vocal-Jewel, Sarah Mac, Sarah Brightman, Holly Cole, Lisa Loeb, Norah Jones etc. and lot's of acoustic music and it sounds phenomenal. However, Vanessa Carlton, Joss Stone, Michelle Branch although acceptable are not mastered very well and it shows. Just to name a few off the top of my head.
This is another damn-long post...hope this helps someone
Peace
Brock "heiney"
ADCOM GFA-545 AMP
NAK CA-5 PRE-AMP
NAK MB2S CD
ADCOM GDA-700 DAC
POLK RTA-11T
MONSTER CABLE INTERCONNECTS
2 CHANNEL AND STILL LOVING IT!!!
NAK CA-5 PRE-AMP
NAK MB2S CD
ADCOM GDA-700 DAC
POLK RTA-11T
MONSTER CABLE INTERCONNECTS
2 CHANNEL AND STILL LOVING IT!!!
Post edited by HEINEY_9 on
Comments
-
Hi Brock
Very interesting post...an enjoyable read. Oh...and welcome!
Did I miss something? What DVD player are you using?
Brad"she had the body of Venus, with arms." -
Hi Brock,
I too have been looking at the Gda-700 for sometime as a possible upgrade. I am currently using a Sony CDP-x33es player with Adcom preamp and amps. After reading your review I am now convinced that it will be worth the expense.
Tim
Sony CDP-x33es
Adcom GFP-345
(2) Adcom GFA-555 II; each bridged for left and right channels
Polk rt-800i speakersTim -
Hi Tim,
I am absolutely convinced you'll be very happy and suprised if you decide to get the GDA-700. I don't know what your time frame is, but if your willing to wait for the right deal, it's even more of slam dunk. Besides e-bay also check audiogon.com.
I've seen them go for as little as $205 upto $500 the later being pretty insane for a used piece of audio, IMO. Expect to pay between $275-350 for a good one. They don't really break it's just the issue of condition and care.
I especially would like to hear about the results you get adding it to your system. Even if it happens to be a bit down the road I'd still like to hear your impressions.
Peace
BrockADCOM GFA-545 AMP
NAK CA-5 PRE-AMP
NAK MB2S CD
ADCOM GDA-700 DAC
POLK RTA-11T
MONSTER CABLE INTERCONNECTS
2 CHANNEL AND STILL LOVING IT!!!
