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d10 vs pico dac vs headroom micro dac

post #1 of 6
6/30/09 at 9:04pm
Thread Starter 
I am really looking for a good portable dac in the price range of $250-$350. I really am basing my purchase on sq as the priority with everything else taking a secondary importance. From my understanding the d10 uses a independent battery the pico slim uses the computer for it's power and the headroom stuff functions primarily off of a wall wart. I would just like to hear some cross comparisons but it sounds like the pico dac for sq is going to be number 1. (I only need the dac the fact that the d10 has a amp as well is just a addition but of little to no importance).
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post #2 of 6
7/1/09 at 1:35am
D10, also has SPDIF input (TOSLINK and RCA). So you can use any cheap DVD. CD player or PC/Laptop with SPDIF as transport.

Thank you

p/s: This topic should be in Portable Headphone Amps - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio
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post #3 of 6
7/1/09 at 2:06am
Thread Starter 
well I was thinking about it but I am considering them in terms of dac's and source purposes so I wouldn't want it in the amp section since only one of the devices has a amp in it. Note I said pico dac not pico
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post #4 of 6
7/1/09 at 5:07am

Not exactly answers but hopefully helpful

I have the Pico amp/DAC, so I have not heard the DAC alone but the integrated unit is pretty fantastic. I have not been using it in critical-listening types of situations, but I have put a lot of hours on it, enough that any deficiencies would have started to nag at me by now, and I have heard none. It's really, really good. I'm not rigged up to A/B it against my DA10 at the moment, but however much they might differ objectively, subjectively I don't think the Pico gives me any less pleasure.

The Pico amp/DAC is not computer-powered. All power comes from the wall-wart (edit: I should have said from the wall-wart or the internal battery which lasts so long I've never run it down), and the USB supplies signal alone. The Pico DAC announcement seems to me to suggest it has the same power configuration as the amp/DAC, unless I missed something in a later post (edit: looks like I did. OK, the Pico DAC seems to have no wallwart).

I also have a Micro DAC, but mine is first-generation and I suppose not representative of what HeadRoom is producing now. Nonetheless it too sounds very, very good and I spent many happy hours with that rig. So whatever improvements HeadRoom's made since that first one came out are on top of an already very good baseline.
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post #5 of 6
7/1/09 at 9:53am
I also have not heard the Pico DAC by itself. However as an amp fed by other DACs the Pico (well burned in) didn't impress me, but when I listened to it including its internal DAC it was obvious the Pico DAC was outstanding. The D10 DAC is also impressive but in terms of a comparison between the two I'd go with what HeadphoneAddict says...

Quote:
Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict View Post
To my ears, the Pico sounds better when driving another amplifier's input than when driving headphones, and it is pretty darn good with headphones. The Pico DAC/amp sounds gorgeous as a DAC/Preamp for my Woo GES and Stax O2 or HE60. The Pico DAC-only (to my ears) has even a little better depth and detail than that. However, I had several people listen to my Woo GES fed by the D10 optical DAC over the past few months, and in an A/B comparison to the Pico DAC/amp they could not tell whether I was using the Pico or the D10 to feed the signal into the GES.
Ref: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f105/i...5/#post5808743

And in terms of the merits of the various inputs to each of these DACs...

Quote:
Originally Posted by HeadphoneAddict View Post
The D10's DAC via optical is closer to the Pico's DAC via USB, than the D10's USB DAC is to the Pico. The D10's DAC only pulls ahead of the Pico's DAC (in areas like micro-detail, space, ambience, soundstage) when using optical with native 24/96 files. There is a slight improvement in dynamics and liveliness to the D10 output when using the headphone-out to drive the other amp rather than the D10 line out - but that may be due to the difference in output levels - the D10 line-out is fairly soft compared to other DACs with a line out only. The D10 headphone out in high gain at max volume is closer to the output level of the Pico DAC-only line out.
Ref: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f105/i...5/#post5808886
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post #6 of 6
12/21/09 at 1:50pm

24/96, D10/Pico DAC

I'm confused:

"The D10's DAC only pulls ahead of the Pico's DAC (in areas like micro-detail, space, ambience, soundstage) when using optical with native 24/96 files."

Well, I'm quite the noob at music hardware, but I do have access to my favorite music in 24/96 lossless vinyl rips, so I'm really interested in how the D10 surpasses the Pico in the aspect of upsampling 16/44 to 24/96 as afaik USB only handles as high quality as 16/44, since the Pico's supposed to have a dedicated chip for this specific task.

I'd also love to have the upsampling explained, since from what I've read it seems it's not as good as not needing to upsample, like, you do lose sound quality? Because then I could just buy myself a M-AUDIO - Audiophile 2496 - 4-In/4-Out Audio Card with MIDI and Digital I/O.

But then I guess I'd still need an amplifier! Though there is a offer here in Sweden for a used X-Can V3 with a pair of HD650's for 550$, which is okay I guess? Maybe I should just register on eBay? Probably way better deals to be found there I guess, especially since I do not in any way fear buying used even from across the Atlantic.

But then would the 2496+x-can+hd650 sound a lot better than the other alternative with is D10 or Pico+hd555 (which I have right now).

Guess this is a long post, but I dread creating threads with zero posts, as I know how it angers some people.
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