Member Reviews: NuForce Icon uDAC-2 (Black) USB DAC (24bit/96kHz) and Headphone Amplifier

This little amp is a surprise. Alone it is actually not that bad with some HD650's. The sound is typical dark, liquid, and pretty nice to listen to if you're into that sort of tubey coloration.   Later, when you try to put this DAC into a revealing system, perhaps as a source for a revealing amplifier, the surprise is that the uDac 2 is actually quite terrible. And it has nothing to do with anything that has been ranted and raved about, forget the tech specs. The DAC section simply has a flat out horrid frequency response, it's boosting the upper mids in a way that makes revealing amplifiers sound ear piercingly bad...  This DAC could go well driving a tubey sounding tube...

Keep in mind that my star rating is weighted against price, and I'm reviewing the uDac2-HP. It sounds just like my laptop's out even though there are legitimate reasons to expect it not to. There's a sense of quality to the unit and its volume knob from their feel but the USB cable that came with it is poking wires out of the plastic shroud. Lame-o. I have another cable hanging around that I used instead. Anyway, I like the sound well enough despite its supposedly massive shortcomings that others talk about. It isn't spacious like the Icon HD (which is an awesome product) but it sure sounds fine with some of the hidden details in the recordings no longer getting drowned out in the...

I often make the off color joke that, when i look for audio equipment i want something sturdy enough to club a baby seal to death (in self defense, of course) and still keep on kicking out music as good as the day i bought it. This little box gives me absolutely no qualms about my readiness to combat the droves of radiation mutated seal offspring vulnerable only to audio equipment we will surely face in the dystopian future that awaits us all. The enclosure is made of a very sturdy material i assume is some aluminum alloy held together by some easily removed screws in case maintanance becomes nessisary, the output contacts are all very secure and there is absolutely no looseness in the...

The NuForce Icon uDAC2 is the first Dac I have ever owned and with that came some unsure expectations and uncertainty. My laptop is a relatively budget one with a noisy headphone out. When using sensitive earphones like my JH5's and CK10's the static and other noise being sent out was just too much. It ruined the quite parts of songs and was actually borderline uncomfortable. As a result I set out to find a relatively cheap DAC that would solve this problem.    After a bunch of reading and research I settled on the uDac2 which I ordered from a local audio shop. The uDac2 seemed to be exactly what I was looking for, small, compact, transportable and would cut the hiss along...

Consider this an in progress review, just received the unit yesterday and it is not yet burned in.