Worth upgrading? DIYEDEN SVDAC04-U to Musiland MD-10?

[cheezies]

I just purchased a Little Dot MKIII from David to drive my SVDAC04-U and HD595's. I will also be getting a pair of HD650's soon.

With the "source" being the most important component in terms of audio quality, would it be worthwhile to upgrade my SVDAC04-U to a Musiland MD-10? I'm afraid that the Little Dot MKIII may go to waste if my source isn't any good. I primarily use the USB input, and the optical when playing games or SACD's on the PS3.

DIYEDEN SVDAC04-U
Pacific Valve & Electric Company DIYEDEN SVDAC04
PCM1716
96 kHz sampling

Musiland MD-10
Pacific Valve & Electric Company Musiland MD-10
Cirrus CS4398
Up to 192 kHz sampling

[classicalguy]

I have the SVDAC05 which uses the CS4398 dac. I have not heard the 04 or 06 to compare, but I think the difference in dacs is a matter of taste. cs4398 is more detailed, which some people like and others don't.

[andrew jc]

In the May issue there is a review of the Musiland MD-10. Affordable$$Audio: The E-zine For Frugal Audio Enthusiasts Hope it helps....

[tfarney]

Originally Posted by cheezies

With the "source" being the most important component in terms of audio quality, would it be worthwhile to upgrade my SVDAC04-U to a Musiland MD-10?

Who said the source is the most important component? Once you get to a respectable level of quality - ie: a good quality 16 bit DAC or DAC-including component made in this decade, I would expect upgrading phones, or even amps, to be much more audible. In fact, if I made a DAC change that was more dramatic than upgrading from your 595s to 650s, I would think something was seriously wrong with one of the DACs.

Tim

[spacemanspliff]

Originally Posted by tfarney

Who said the source is the most important component? Once you get to a respectable level of quality - ie: a good quality 16 bit DAC or DAC-including component made in this decade, I would expect upgrading phones, or even amps, to be much more audible. In fact, if I made a DAC change that was more dramatic than upgrading from your 595s to 650s, I would think something was seriously wrong with one of the DACs.

Tim

Good advice. A dramatic upgrade that I have is the Trends Audio TD-10 usb to digital converter. With the battery pack, I got a huge improvement with my ancient sony digital pre.

[cheezies]

Originally Posted by tfarney

Who said the source is the most important component? Once you get to a respectable level of quality - ie: a good quality 16 bit DAC or DAC-including component made in this decade, I would expect upgrading phones, or even amps, to be much more audible. In fact, if I made a DAC change that was more dramatic than upgrading from your 595s to 650s, I would think something was seriously wrong with one of the DACs.

Tim

That's a very good point! Perhaps I've spent far too much time reading DAC reviews and their importance may been greatly overrated in my mind.

[tjumper78]

ive never had a musiland but i'd say keep the svdac04.
i had it before, sold it, and now i have keces da-151 which is being praised by many people here.
da-151 costs about $100 extra. it sounds very nice and all but i dont think its $100 better than svdac04.
svdac04 was better than super pro usb by a large margin, and it was also better than emu0404 sq-wise imo.
if you ask me, svdac04 is a great usb dac for its price. if i had to pick one between svdac04 and da-151, i'd pick svdac04 b/c its just as good as da-151 but cheaper while having more useful features. and its built-in amp is not too bad either, and its placed on the front of the dac. musiland's amp jack is in the back.

[cheezies]

Originally Posted by tjumper78

ive never had a musiland but i'd say keep the svdac04.
i had it before, sold it, and now i have keces da-151 which is being praised by many people here.
da-151 costs about $100 extra. it sounds very nice and all but i dont think its $100 better than svdac04.
svdac04 was better than super pro usb by a large margin, and it was also better than emu0404 sq-wise imo.
if you ask me, svdac04 is a great usb dac for its price. if i had to pick one between svdac04 and da-151, i'd pick svdac04 b/c its just as good as da-151 but cheaper while having more useful features. and its built-in amp is not too bad either, and its placed on the front of the dac. musiland's amp jack is in the back.

Thanks for the advice tjumper! I was even thinking about "upgrading" to a EMU 0404. I believe I purchased the SVDAC last year after reading about your opinions.

Since I mostly use the SVDAC04-U via USB I began to wonder if the Burr Brown PCM2704 IC may not sound as good as the EMU 0404. I know there are a handful of USB DAC's using this IC, but looking at the data sheet it doesn't look too impressive. The sampling rate is only 48 kHz, and only 16 bits? Looking on M-Audio's website, they list 192 kHz and 24 bit for the EMU 0404, but I'm not sure if they're talking about the USB functionality. But if you found the SVDAC04 to sound better, I suppose there's a lot more to a quality of a USB DAC than just the IC being used, but I can't help but wonder what USB IC is used in the EMU 0404.