Stello DA100 (show-off/impressions thread)

[PhaedrusX]

thanks Andrew_Wot and LeChuck for inputting your opinions.

as for "high treble energy" or "over pronounced treble," i'm not too sure what fine differences you guys are referring too.

semantics aside, i have no aversion to treble per se.
my concern centers around any "harshness" that would contribute to listening fatigue. i want to be able to have long listening sessions without tiring my ears out.

the setup, as i envision it now, will look like this:
da100 > xin reference > rs-2

does anyone see any problems in this system in terms of overly bright, too harsh, or fatiguing?

[LeChuck]

semantics aside, i have no aversion to treble per se.
my concern centers around any "harshness" that would contribute to listening fatigue. i want to be able to have long listening sessions without tiring my ears out.

I don't quite understand what MaloS means by treble energy, which is probably a sign that my audiophile lexicon is weaker than most around here, but that being said I still can't say I notice any prominent characteristics of the DA100.

In response to your concern regarding harshness, I can say that I preferred the DA100 to the Benchmark DAC1, which I found to have slightly pronounced treble and it sounded a little shrill. Obviously the DAC1 is well regarded here, and I am not by any means making a universal statement, but to my ears the DA100 was more natural in its presentation and a little smoother than the Benchmark.

Fatigue is probably the last word I would use in a description of the DA100, and that isn't to say it lacks detail. I think people often correlate a lot of resolution to fatiguing and unlistenable sound, which I don't think is true association.

[MaloS]

Originally Posted by LeChuck

Fatigue is probably the last word I would use in a description of the DA100, and that isn't to say it lacks detail. I think people often correlate a lot of resolution to fatiguing and unlistenable sound, which I don't think is true association.

On the other hand, resolution implies less fatiguing qualities. Resolution -> resolving power -> ability to reproduce detail without grain basically (in layman's terms). Hence very detailed headphones are not necessarily very resolving. Shrillness seems to also come from poor resolution on a product.

[outmatch]

Just got mine today Happy with the sound, a nice upgrade from X-Fi.

But I have a problem when using this DAC via ASIO4ALL v.2+USB. There's some pops while playing (is this jittering?) and for once in a while, there is buzzing sound in the left or right ear of my cans, the noise will disappear when I pause the track and then resume. I guess the culprit is ASIO, since turning the DAC off and on again doesn't solve the problem. Anyone knows the solution?

My ASIO setting is as follow:
ASIO buffer size = 2048 samples
Latency compensation = both set to zero
Use hardware buffer = off
Kernel buffer = 4
Always resample 44.1 <---> 48 = off
Force WDM driver to 16 bits = off

Any help is appreciated.

[pianomav]

As far as the popping sound, this seems to be an issue with all usb dac when running asio4all. One thing that helps is to minimize foobar while playing audio tracks. Try that and see if that helps.

[Andrew_WOT]

It can also be a ground loop. Try to lift the ground on your amp (use cheater plug).

[Patu]

Do you know anything about DA100's (and HP100's) power consumption? I couldn't find any information in the manual or from the website. I'm just curious.

[Iron_Dreamer]

Originally Posted by Patu

Do you know anything about DA100's (and HP100's) power consumption? I couldn't find any information in the manual or from the website. I'm just curious.

I measured this back when I owned them. I can't find the specifics anywhere, but I recall it being somewhere around 25W for the DA100 and half that for the HP100. It might be a bit less in your case, on 240V.

[Patu]

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer

I measured this back when I owned them. I can't find the specifics anywhere, but I recall it being somewhere around 25W for the DA100 and half that for the HP100. It might be a bit less in your case, on 240V.

Thanks Iron_Dreamer.

Kinda small power consumption when compared to my new plasma screen (around 275W).

I just noticed Benchmark DAC1's power consumption in its manual so I got interested.

[outmatch]

Wanna know if anyone here using DA100 with HP100?

How do they perform together?