REVIEW: Keces DA-151 DAC 800+ hours burn-in

[PhaedrusX]

the Monica originally used passive current to voltage conversion, resulting in lower output voltage.

the Rudolf Broertjes SS I/V Gain Stage was added not so much to add output, but to increase dynamics and bass response. this was using a 3.3kohm resistor in the gain stage, as spec'd for the TDA1545A Dac chip.

by using a larger resistor (up to 10kohm), you can use a higher voltage power supply (up to 24V), which will increase the output further. you should add a heatsink to the voltage regulator at this point, but you can increase the output voltage to over 1.0V this way, enough for most systems i believe (haven't tried with speakers as of yet).

[tjumper78]

after waiting for 3 months and more, i finally received my headamp pico. it has a high-end wolfson dac in it.
i compared its dac section vs da151.
to my ears, da151 was clearly better than pico's dac.
da151 brought out more prominent bass, more sparkling sound, and more details to every bit.
one thing to note is that my pico had something dangling/moving inside and i am sending it back to headamp. i wont find out what was moving inside until headamp examines it. it could have affected the sq. i'll post again when i get the pico back.

[badmonkey]

Forgive the noob question, but I have just decided to consider external DACs after getting frustrated looking at internal soundcards as an upgrade from an M-Audio Revo 7.1.

Originally Posted by Maniac

Hello, it is using PCM2702's internal DAC, the receiver itself is also the DAC, and thus there's no need to send the digital signal outside of the chip.
Thanks.

Maniac, in your experience how does this DAC chip compare to the ones on these cards?

Card			DAC
-------------------------------------------
Prodigy 7.1 HiFi	WM8766
Prodigy HD2		AK4396
E-MU 0404		AK4396
E-MU 1212		CS4398
HT Omega Claro+		AK4396VF
Auzentech Prelude	AK4396
Auzentech X-Meridian	AK4396VF
Onkyo PCI-SE200		WM8740
Juli@			AK4358
Asus Xonar D2		PCM1796

I am trying, without the benefit of experience, to gauge the realistic differences and what improvements I may expect.

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by badmonkey

Forgive the noob question, but I have just decided to consider external DACs after getting frustrated looking at internal soundcards as an upgrade from an M-Audio Revo 7.1.


Maniac, in your experience how does this DAC chip compare to the ones on these cards?

Card			DAC
-------------------------------------------
Prodigy 7.1 HiFi	WM8766
Prodigy HD2		AK4396
E-MU 0404		AK4396
E-MU 1212		CS4398
HT Omega Claro+		AK4396VF
Auzentech Prelude	AK4396
Auzentech X-Meridian	AK4396VF
Onkyo PCI-SE200		WM8740
Juli@			AK4358
Asus Xonar D2		PCM1796

I am trying, without the benefit of experience, to gauge the realistic differences and what improvements I may expect.

Hello, it won't be accurate to compare a product simply by comparing the DAC chip itself, as it would be rather like comparing cars just checking their horsepower rating and not the rest of the car itself. As the components and designs of the rest of the unit is critical to its performance, just a good DAC along is not guarantee of its performance.

I cannot reasonably say that which one of the above is going to be better or worse than our DACs, what I can really say is that most of them will not have as good as the analog output of KECES DAC. As well if you are going to use DA-131, I can honestly recommend 1212M as the digital source of DA-131 as the digital output quality of 1212M is of very high quality and pairs well with DA-131.

[TheMarchingMule]

Huh, I just realized that the KECES DA-151 model utilizes USB 1.1, and not USB 2.0.

Just curious: any reasons for using 1.1, and not 2.0?

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by TheMarchingMule

Huh, I just realized that the KECES DA-151 model utilizes USB 1.1, and not USB 2.0.

Just curious: any reasons for using 1.1, and not 2.0?

Simple, one of the best sounding USB DAC chip around is PCM2702, and it supports only USB 1.1 That's the chip we use now, and we could not find a similar chip that works at higher sampling rate and USB 2.0

[TheMarchingMule]

Simple enough. So is the only downside of using USB 1.1 that one cannot listen to 24-bit music?

Regardless, after reading this thread, I need to find a lot of loose cash soon.

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by TheMarchingMule

Simple enough. So is the only downside of using USB 1.1 that one cannot listen to 24-bit music?

Regardless, after reading this thread, I need to find a lot of loose cash soon.

You still can listen to them, but Windows will downsample them to 16bit and some appropriate sample rate. If you need to do that, I recommend using Foobar's SSRC or simply go with DA-131 directly.

[John Reeves]

Hi,

I'm currently using a Juli@ fed into Linn speakers, obviously by an appropriate amp. FLAC on a jukebox PC (Actually a full HTPC) is used as the source.

Would the DAC offer an improvement in sound quality or do I need to set my sights higher (ie. DAC 1), which will mean waiting until sufficient funds are available.

I would be using an optical output from the Julia@ to feed the DAC.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Cheers

John

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by John Reeves

Hi,

I'm currently using a Juli@ fed into Linn speakers, obviously by an appropriate amp. FLAC on a jukebox PC (Actually a full HTPC) is used as the source.

Would the DAC offer an improvement in sound quality or do I need to set my sights higher (ie. DAC 1), which will mean waiting until sufficient funds are available.

I would be using an optical output from the Julia@ to feed the DAC.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Cheers

John

Well, comparing to recording cards like that, a properly designed external DAC will offer significant improvement over the internal solution provided by such cards.

However, coax would be the way to go if you can, since it will offer the most performance for buck with pretty much any DAC.



Thanks

David

[rappsy]

Hi:

Still confused about the 131 with the modified ops against the 151. Seems to be that Maniac is saying that overall, the 131 sounds better and with the modified OPS the machine is a current as the 151 even though it is an earlier machine.

I originally started looking to better my CD player, but have come to the conclusion that getting a DAC is the way to go. I also realize that the 131 would work fine with the digital out of my player. Seemingly, this is the way to go, BUT, and you knew that there would be a but, that the future is computerized music and I have been loading my CD's onto a computer as well as picking some up ttracks with downloads. So to be prepared for the eventuality of having my computer playing all my music, I need to have a USB input on my DAC.

So do I opt for the better sound on an older CD player with the 131 or use the computer which I am leaning to and then I have to use the 151 for the USB input? The 151 doesn't go as high (96 instead of 192) so what will I be missing? Is there a way to convert with a cable a USB out of the computer to the SPDIF cable or is there a USB/SPDIF cable and then would I still get the benefit of the 131?

I am leaning to these DAC's as the seem to have the sound I am looking and hoping for, but I also am looking at something like the Musiland MD10 which has every input, but is there a noticeable different between the Musiland and KECES?

Thanks very much.

Lenny...

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by rappsy

Hi:

Still confused about the 131 with the modified ops against the 151. Seems to be that Maniac is saying that overall, the 131 sounds better and with the modified OPS the machine is a current as the 151 even though it is an earlier machine.

I originally started looking to better my CD player, but have come to the conclusion that getting a DAC is the way to go. I also realize that the 131 would work fine with the digital out of my player. Seemingly, this is the way to go, BUT, and you knew that there would be a but, that the future is computerized music and I have been loading my CD's onto a computer as well as picking some up ttracks with downloads. So to be prepared for the eventuality of having my computer playing all my music, I need to have a USB input on my DAC.

So do I opt for the better sound on an older CD player with the 131 or use the computer which I am leaning to and then I have to use the 151 for the USB input? The 151 doesn't go as high (96 instead of 192) so what will I be missing? Is there a way to convert with a cable a USB out of the computer to the SPDIF cable or is there a USB/SPDIF cable and then would I still get the benefit of the 131?

I am leaning to these DAC's as the seem to have the sound I am looking and hoping for, but I also am looking at something like the Musiland MD10 which has every input, but is there a noticeable different between the Musiland and KECES?

Thanks very much.

Lenny...

Well, a few points about the difference between the two.

DA-131 and DA-151 are both the same generation of KECES DAC, but DA-151 is geared toward computer user that is looking to go beyond entry level without spending too much. While DA-131 is designed to be one step above that.

DA-151's supported sample rate is 16bit 32/44.1/48KHz, and it does extremely well playing back musics from CD quality recordings. I feel it is safe to say that it will give a lot of similarly price product a good run for the money. As for what you would be missing, unless you are using recording that already have much more data (Like those ones from Linn Record downloads), then you might miss something. But if all you do is CD playback, you won't miss much other than the inherent advantage that DA-131 have over DA-151.

DA-131 can be viewed as a completely different beast, as it does not have most of DA-151's limitation, such as the sample rate is up to 24bit/192KHz, and the signal path contains no coupling capacitor or DC Servo.


If you need to use your computer as source, you can also consider getting a high quality digital output card like EMU 1212M or RME's card. When paired up with DA-131, they perform extremely well, and you can support much higher sample rate than otherwise possible.

[Screamager]

I had the same doubts you had, but ended up seeing the DA131 as a more versatile solution, as I could use it both with a digital output from my PC as well as with other sources like a CD player, optical out on my iriver H120, or any other device with an SPDIF stereo digital output.

I am very happy with my DA131, it made my speakers shine in a new light.

[anadin]

I have had the KECES DA-151 USB DAC for about 3 days now.

I have it connected up to a Little Dot Mk V, headphones are a pair of Senn Hd650's.

Unless there is a dramatic change in the bass area then I am going to have to let the KECES DA-151 go and get myself a CD player.

The bass is all over the place, really boomy not my thing at all.

It could also be that the Little Dot Mk V doesn't quite have enough power to push the Hd650's to where I want them to go, anyone else found this to be the case.

[rappsy]

Thanks for the above responses. Let's keep it going.

I have it down to a few in the $300 price range and need more opinions on them.

They are:

KECES 131

Musiland MD-10

Diyeden DAC's (March 2, SCDAC04 or 5)

I originally was looking to upgrade the sound of CD player, but after reading a bunch of posts, I realized that most of my music has been going on the computer and that is the direction I am going, but probably will also want to use my CDP as well. I know that the 131 does not have USB output, but I will get a card for it that outputs correctly.

The Musiland has all sorts of inputs so from that standpoint it will work on my CDP and the computer.

The Diyeden have USB's so I'm okay there.

Seems like the 131 has a lot of positive reviews but I need to know more from people who know the others and some comparisons if possible. I am ready to pull the trigger when I find it. My wife wants me to make up my mind before Sunday so she can give it to me (or at least have ordered it for Father's Day.)

How do they sound? I listen to everything, with Rock, Blues, Swing and Broadway as my main tunes. I can easily go from from Brian Setzer to Buddy Guy to Guys and Dolls.

Also, I was starting to put everything on my computer in MP3 320k format, but it seems that FLAC is something that everyone is recommending. More later.

Thanks very much.

Lenny...