FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Nuforce uDAC USB DAC AMP with line out and S/PDIF out - Page 86

If you're handy with the ol soldering iron, have you considered building a cheap impedance adapter? Two resistors and an extension cord will set you back less than $3 - even a boutique one with good parts would be less than $15. It can change the sound a bit though, maybe a little rolled off trouble - depends how much you need to attenuate.

Tried, I could not detect any differences at all between a 6ft or a 12ft gold plated usb cable compared to the original one that comes with the uDac. The usb cable limiting the performance of a DAC should be the least of your worries.

I received mine today. I can't believe how tiny it is. It's much smaller than an altoids cmoy. While I can't say the dac itself is the best I've heard, it's very clear and leaps and bounds above laptop audio. The headphone amp though is amazing. I've been struggling for over a year with finding something to drive my 701's. Including 2 adcom preamps, 70's silver receivers, modded cmoy, little dot 2, the list goes on and on. I've finally found something to drive the akg's properly and for $99. I'm very happy. If only it had a line in so it could be used just as a headphone amp.

What sort of maximum volume are you getting on the 701s?

I just received mine as well. I am surprised to see that channel imbalance is not bad at all for low volume listening compared to other amps I have tried (using my PK1). Sounds good so far. I will do a quick A/B later and report back...

Well, not meaning to start one of those 'cable conversations' - and I know absolutely diddley about USB DACs - but isn't the DAC basically taking raw data from the computer (ie: the encoded audio file) and decoding it? Its not carrying (AFAIK) an analogue signal, so there is very little chance of signal degradation?

As best I can work out (and I'm sure someone will set me straight soon enough ) unless you are using a terrible quality cable, it should make virtually no different.

The cable between your uDac and your amp (if you have one) may be a different story...

Well, that's hard to describe but let's just say that 10'oclock on the Udac is MUCH louder than 2'oclock on my bedroom adcom GTP-450. Seriously, the LD2 and others all clip before yielding any kind of volume out of the 701's. The Udac actually gets them loud, as in louder than I'm ever likely to listen to. In my 2 channel rig I run 4 completely rebuilt/recapped stacked large advents that are driven by a Adcom 545II and it lacks the punch I prefer for certain types of music. The UDAC is delivering that missing punch to the 701s.

BTW now several hours later the DAC is starting to "warm" up

Yes theoretically digital is digital providing it's getting all the bits. That said I have personally heard the difference a quality 75ohm coax cable can make, so it's possible that something matters when it comes to USB too. Also note that I said quality and not expensive. I personally doubt I will ever hear the difference between a quality $10 cable and a $1k cable but I can hear the difference a $10 cable makes over the "in-box" stuff.

I should state that I am using the "inbox" udac cable for my perceptions I've been describing.

In my belief, if the cable meets the USB specifications in design they shouldn't sound any different. I'm not a huge believer of cables and instead I believe psychology comes into effect when dealing with such things. Cables would be the last things I would ever consider being a weak link in a setup.

My best guess is (guess being the operative word) that, although the uDac apparently punches well above its weight, its still a $99 piece of kit. Quality USB cables etc might be a bigger concern if you were running Phonitor > HD800 type setups... Unless the supplied cable quality was just obviously cheap and terrible, I very much doubt I'll be tempted to 'upgrade.'

Speaking of the uDac, where the heck is mine!

I have finally bite the bullet and decided to go with uDAC for now, hard to go wrong with $100 bucks. Really wanted Nuforce HDP, but after all those revisions and delays and now that stupid L/R channel defect in the "final final" revision, I'm not touching HDP for a while, if ever.

Received my udac today. I really like it so far. I think it sounds a bit better than my x-fi xtrememusic. Does anyone know if burning it in will help it any?

A really terrible cable will cause erratic behavior, sound cutting out, weird computer issues, etc. Otherwise, they will all sound literally identical.

Its not like music degrades in quality when you put it on iPod using a USB cable. Words don't get randomly misspelled on documents you put on a USB flash drive. There is no reason for any loss in quality when you send audio to a DAC with USB(or optical/coax).

The one thing I might be worried about though is that the power from the USB cable causes static and background noise. The irony of this, of course, is that the uDAC actually has less background noise than anything else I've used. In fact, it has quite literally no background noise with my HD 580s.

usb/udac

Can't see how usb quality would do anything, its the analog cable after the DAC thats more important isnt it? USB length over Phono/rca length makes a differance though. I feed my uDac into an amp, swapping to a 5m usb cable rather than a 5m rca made a huge difference.

Got my uDac last week, they delivered to the uk from the netherlands in just 2 days. And (to state the obvious) it has made a big differance in sound clarity over my previous setup of using the 3.5mm laptop jack to my amp, like a blanket has been lifted from my tracks, also the volume on this thing to my phones is astounding for such a little bugger - my acdc tracks can now be played until my ears bleed...£115 well spent imo.

It seems the udac is very popular on head-fi, just wondering would a transition from the turtle beach microadvantage external sound to the nuforce uDac improve the sound a lot?
By a lot I mean very noticeable change in the quality of the sound projected through a laptop?

If anyone feels their nuforce udac is not up to their standard, and would like to sell it, I'm willing to try an used one. Do pm me.