AMB Gamma2 DAC sound impressions? - Page 6

lol

I actually prefer boring to misinformation.
Thanks Beefy for not providing a comparison when he has none.

Dang Beefy, you’re killing me - aren’t you a little inquisitive to compare! You gotta put both those babies in the ring, fight to the death. lol

For those of you who have the y2 in combination with a HD650 and an amp what are your thoughts and impressions? My plan is to use the y2 with a MacBook Pro along with a La Figaro 332c (cousing to the Darkvoice 332). It seems that some of you thought the HD650 and the y2 alone didn't synergize too well.

I used a y2 with my HD650s and loved it. In fact, I've never heard them sound better. My amp was the M^3 though.

I ended up acquiring a y2. Here are my impressions. I'm going to keep it short. My initial set up was an iPhone with a LOD into my La Figaro 332c tube amp to a pair of HD650s. The sound was quite good coming from an iPhone. It was definitely better than going straight out of the headphone out to my 332c. I felt in general the iPhone as a source was a little bass heavy. Still there was pretty good separation and detail. When I put the y2 in the mix and sent it out of my Mac Book Pro the music totally came alive. The best way I could describe the y2 with my 332c and MBP is "liquid". The sound is clear and crisp and the separation gets to the point that it has a holographic feel. The iPhone LOD never had this, nor did straight out of the cpu to the amp. Thus, it's the DAC that's doing a good amount of heavy lifting.

My wallet hates you....
Will order one from MisterX.
A lead time of two weeks... but him who waits for something good and so on and so forth...

good to hear that the y-2 is getting some more love around here.

i finally placed my Digikey order and will have a proper USB cable and wall-wart connector arriving today to compare PSs along with my o-11. i'll have a lot of time this weekend for listening .

I'd be interested in hearing if you find any differences between the power supplies.

i can hear differences between cables and the 3 different digital filters, but i cannot hear any differences between USB, regulated wall-wart, or a o-11 powering the y-1. differences in noise, tone, timbre, timing, details, soundstage etc...ziltch.

unfortunately, i'm getting some ground noise via the Bijou with USB (not with coaxial), no matter how the y-2 is powered, with the lower impedance K271/K601 - dead silent with the DT990/600ohm. the B22 and M3 are dead silent no matter what.

i'm also a bit surprised by the improvement that FLAC/foobar/ASIO has over coaxial via my Pionner or Oppo dvd players. hi-rez...yes!

Just want to chime in here that I also think the y2 is superb.

I built a kit for my SACD with an AD1896 and a Tent labs xo a few years back and that dropped my jaw it was so good.

I think if this was the first time I had heard a high quality upsampling DAC my jaw would be between my toes. The y2 is way way out of it's price range for quality.

I definitely recommend this dac to any and all. And apart from the mssop chips, it's quite easy to build too.

Well done AMB !

Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback. Little surprised you could hear ziltch differences when you can hear a diff between the filters. I hear no diff. between the filters. Wonder if any improvement would be had by bypassing the onboard reg. at least the 4.5V one that powers the opamp.

Ditto. I cannot hear a difference between the filters reliably. Thanks for your impressions fishski.

I do hear differences between the 3, but they are subtle. C setting has a little more treble, A setting sounds smoother with more soundstage, B is somewhere in between.
As far as which one I prefer, it depends on the recording, although I could live with any of them because they all sound excellent.

People shouldn't forget that the filters are much less likely to have an effect if the ASRC is installed......