uDAC-2 vs X-Fi HD USB (mini review)

I am going to try to do a mini review on these external dacs as I have not been able to find much review information on them. I am pretty new to the high end audio scene so please leave any thoughts about how I can improve this comparsion. I have had the uDAC-2 for over a months time and have had the X-Fi HD for less than week. I use both of these dacs on my computer to drive my JVC HARX 900 headphones. Both units seem to have their pros and cons.

The uDAC-2 is small and extremely portable and puts out enough power and sound to drive most high end headphones. I'm also sure most people here are familiar with the current "drama" that the uDAC-2 is involved with, but I'm going to try not to let that influence my thoughts. The uDAC-2 has been accused of having high levels of distortion and channel imbalance at low levels, but these were issues that my inexperienced ears couldn't really detect. The uDAC-2 is simple to use and sounds great without any drivers needed for operation. I feel like I cant really use all of the uDAC's power with the windows and player volume at 100%, as anything over about 30%-40% on the uDAC is almost too loud to listen to.

The X-Fi HD USB is a slightly larger unit that has some decent weight to it (enough to keep it from sliding around on your desk). One aspect I really like about the X-Fi HD is the fact that it has mic input. In fact I used an old detachable flexible boom mic from my old Fatality usb headset with the X-Fi HD. My friends reported that the mic sounded loud and clear during Teamspeak sessions even though the mic is a good distance away from me. I like to listen to music often but I also play several mmos and a decent mic setup is highly desirable. The X-Fi HD has a software suite that is available and neccessary to access all of the features of this dac, though you can still use it as a plug and play device. One thing I did notice about this dac is that volume nob on the unit actually moves the volume slider in windows itself. This is something the uDAC-2 doesnt do so windows volume can be left at 100%. I am not sure if this has any affect on bit perfect playback through windows. Anything over 30%-40% volume is extremely loud. 

As far as a striaght up sound comparison goes I'll just have to use my ears as I don't have any kind of sound measuring products. Just from doing an A/B comparison I would have to say that the X-Fi sounds a little bit cleaner and transparent than the uDAC-2. The uDAC-2 sounds a bit more colored, lively, up front, and possibly a little more distorted. To be honest they both sound very good with my current setup (which I know is not as good as most around here). But atm I would have to give the edge to X-Fi HD USB simply for the fact that it has more connectivity and has a slightly cleaner more transparent sound. These comparisons are still in the early stages and I plan to update this review as I get more time with both of the dacs.

Bottom line is that both of these units offer amazing bang for the buck which is what I am all about. If anyone has any questions please feel free to post them and I will try to get the information you want. I know this review won't be as indepth as some people would like but I am trying to do the best I can atm. Let me know what you think.

I spent some more time with the X-Fi HD USB last night. I contacted creative support via email about the possible bit resolution problem, but have not received a decent response from them yet. According to what I have been able to reasearch online there should be no bit loss from having the windows volume at less than 100% as Windows 7 no longer uses Kmixer and should upsample everything to 32 bit. The Creative dac uses a digital volume knob that interacts directly with the windows volume slider, whereas the the uDAC-2 uses an analog volume knob. I have seen many people complain about Creative drivers and bloatware in general and just wanted to report that I had zero problems installing and using the full functionality of the software provided with the Creative dac. I personally find the sofware included with the Creative dac to be mostly useless as I don't use any of the EAX or THX processing effects. So I unsintalled all the drivers and use the Creative dac as a plug and play device. You even have the option of disabling all the Creative enhancements in the sound control panel, which I did. I gotta say this little thing sounds almost too good for what you pay for it. Another reason I think I may prefer the Creative dac is because of the headphones I am paring with it. The HARX900 headphones have been described as having a big soundstage with big bass at the same time. I have done the felt ring mod to the headphones to open up the highs and mids. This might be why I feel the Creative dac sounds better with my rig. The neutral and transparent tone of the Creative dac may simply be a better pairing with the headphones I own. I know Creative havent always had the best reputation when it comes to audiohpile sound, but I think they really got it right with this product. For the money I'm not really sure how you could do better for the sound fidelity and connectivity you get with this dac. I'm gonna spend more time with it this weekend, and hopelfully have more to add to this comparison. Keep the comments coming :)

I have another small follow up on this unit. I have been firing emails at Creative to get more information on this dac. The only thing that bothers me about this unit is the lack of proper driver support. This dac only supports 16-48, 16-96, 24-48, and 24-96 natively. I hooked up my old Onkyo 502 receiver to my computer last night to do some listening. I ran digital coax to the Onkyo, fired up Foobar with the Wasapi plugin and did listening tests. My music files were flac. With the receiver I was able to achieve bit perfect playback using Foobar and Wasapi with no problems. I then switched over to the X-fi HD USB and listened to the same flac files. Even though I can not use Wasapi with the Creative dac because of lack of driver support, I was easily able to tell that the Creative Dac sounded much better than my receiver. The improved clarity of the Creative dac was very apparent, even though I had to use DirectSound. I'm sure this is really no surprise to many people here. The X-fi HD USB sounds great, and has plenty of power. I think the only thing keeping the Creative dac from being a wonderful product is the driver support. I know the fact you can't achieve bit perfect playback with this dac is a big turn off to many people. I have notified Creative of this problem and I received an email saying that they actually forwarded the recommendation to the driver team, but it wasnt a guarantee that 44.1 Khz support would be added. I really like the unit, but the decision to not support 44.1 playback really confuses me on this one.

I have installed all of the drivers that came with the unit. This did not change the output modes available.

I clearly stated that I was using Foobar with Wasapi in the above post. I swear I have installed all the drivers and didn't notice any different output modes. The only way I could get Wasapi to work was in conjunction with a resampler (Sox) which kinda defeats the purpose. Anyways I'll try uninstall/reinstalling the drivers later tonight. I really hope this output problem is something that can be resolved with drivers.

Also stated above: 16 bit-48 khz, 16 bit-96 khz, 24 bit-48 khz, and 24 bit-96 khz.

Listen, I appreciate your help but could you be a little more precise? I realize people you Foobar to achieve bit perfect playback, but some of your comments just lead me to believe you didn't fully read my post.

I reformatted my computer to ensure I wasn't having any driver problems. I also installed all of the Creative software prior to hooking the dac to my computer. I am still NOT able to select a 44.1 Khz output on the dac. Foobar is up to date and so is the Wasapi plugin. Device settings available in the drop dwon menu are Null, DS, and Wasapi for all output devices. Are you using just usb for the connection?