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The 131 is older and the LME "upgrade" for it is actually the chip that is shipping in the 151. So if you own a 151, you already have the LME chip. The 131 ships with a burr brown by default.
__________________ Sources: Airport Express (optical), Denon 1920 (digital coax) DAC: Keces DA-131 with upgraded LME49710 Amp: Little Dot MK IV Headphones: Grado RS-1 Feedback: Head-Fi and Ebay
The 131 with the LME chip upgrade sounds incredible.
Thats what I have waiting for me at the post office.
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*Iriver H120 (rockbox)mp3 player with Px100/ Westone UM1 for portable use.
*Nicely burned in (years) HD280pro for work
*Er15 earplugs for work
*Cmoy Amp (hardly used, dissapointing)
*Ubuntu PC -> HAGUsb -> Keces DA-131 -> NAD c740 -> Wharfedale Diamond 9.1
It was hard to do a A / B comparison between the burr brown 131 and the LME 131 due to the amount of time elapsed during the chip replacement. You would honestly need two 131's side by side with the respective chips installed to do a fair A / B comparison. I listened to the burr brown 131, wrote down some thoughts on paper did the chip upgrade and wrote down some thoughts.
To me the 131 with the LME chip had much deeper fuller richer sounding bass. My RS-1's are still fairly new and were a little bright sounding. The Keces DAC gave them a fuller more complete sound. The LME chip took that one step further... definitely worth the $10 for the upgrade. The mids are clean, the highs are very prominent without being harsh or annoying. The bass is nice and punchy... a great DAC if you ask me.
A friend of mine was over during the comparison. He is just in the "curiosity" stages of head-fi (his wallet hasn't flown open and began leaking yet). I asked him his initial impressions and thoughts of the sound from the Keces 131. He described to me in his own words the soundstage being very nice. As he put it you could hear separation between the various instruments as if you could walk through the band.
__________________ Sources: Airport Express (optical), Denon 1920 (digital coax) DAC: Keces DA-131 with upgraded LME49710 Amp: Little Dot MK IV Headphones: Grado RS-1 Feedback: Head-Fi and Ebay
The 131 is older and the LME "upgrade" for it is actually the chip that is shipping in the 151. So if you own a 151, you already have the LME chip. The 131 ships with a burr brown by default.
My 151 showed up today ... fast shipping, excellent packaging .... outta the box and into the system in 5 mins ... plug and play.
First impressions ... with zero hours on the unit ... clear tight highs ... and plenty of bass ... great separation.
Playing Apple Lossless from G3 Laptop>DAC>Vestax mixer>300B tubes>Klipsch La Scalas.
I have not tried it with headphone system yet.
The 151 is replacing a Imic .... which ... with 5 mins of having a "real" DAC ... there is no comparison. The Imic was chopping off the highs and lows.
I will post back when I get some more time on it and run some of my standard tracks.
Linear Mode
