MSII stomps uDac2 in Headfonia review

Mike's writing is a bit too esoteric in my opinion. He's one of those guys that make you believe a cable upgrade will be a "night and day difference". Also, his descriptions of DACs and the differences between them seem pretty exaggerated. 

Had both, none of them stomp over each other. The differences were slight at most to the point where exaggerations in comparisons are needed to tell them apart. I could live with either but functionality wise I thought the uDAC-2 offered more for its price. The volume can be muted in Windows and its headphone amp for its size are pluses for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Negakinu 

Mike's writing is a bit too esoteric in my opinion. He's one of those guys that make you believe a cable upgrade will be a "night and day difference". Also, his descriptions of DACs and the differences between them seem pretty exaggerated. 

X2, and I agree with the previous poster as well, changing a DAC doesn't make much difference either way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by estreeter 

I have to question this - are you saying that changing from one *budget* DAC to another doesnt make much difference, or that DACs in general dont make a difference ?

 

I've never tried a really expensive DAC, so budget DACs - however all DACs are supposed to perform roughly the same so I would never spend hundreds of $$ on a DAC anyway, but that's just me. . . 

Please note I said *much* of a difference, not no difference - only the extremely objectivist people claim everything sounds the same. 

I have the MSII btw and that's the only reason I posted - it's nice but didn't make much difference at all over the DAC in my cheap DAC/AMP.

Difference between DACs are smaller than headphones for sure, and unless you are a picky listener (many of us are), it might not even matter.

However, DAC quality also becomes more apparent when your headphones are more transparent and unforgiving.

The difference between uDAC2 and HRT MS2 is more audible through my Stax setup. The uDAC2 compresses the soundstage, color the mids here and there. The MS2 has a more neutral sound which is good for the Stax, and sounds noticeably cleaner with a more realistic decay, though it does have a little coarseness in the treble.

However, with something like HD598 or M50, both of which focuses more on their coloration/fun factor than the Stax, I would care less about the difference between the MS2 and the uDAC2.