NAD M51 Direct Digital DAC Impressions | Page 10 | Headphone Reviews and Discussion - Head-Fi.org

BoogieWoogie · Apr 29, 2012 at 6:58 PM

Quote:

mcullinan said:
Found it. It won't work on the Nad USB. Has anyone gotten it to function?
Thanks!
M

Some one here reported to work over USB a couple posts behind. But weren't you using coax ?

mcullinan · Apr 29, 2012 at 7:16 PM

I have a USB cable lying around. It said 192 on the Nad USB screen, but no sound.

BoogieWoogie · Apr 29, 2012 at 7:35 PM

Quote:

mcullinan said:
I have a USB cable lying around. It said 192 on the Nad USB screen, but no sound.

With the plugin ?

mcullinan · Apr 29, 2012 at 9:14 PM

Forgot to change output under settings, works fine.

BoogieWoogie · Apr 29, 2012 at 9:30 PM

Quote:

mcullinan said:
Forgot to change output under settings, works fine.

With usb ? If so you may want to report on the thread for the working list of dacs.

DaveBSC · Apr 30, 2012 at 2:43 AM

Can anyone confirm whether the USB input on the M51 is actually asynchronous, or is it some kind of custom isosynchronous implementation like the ARC DAC8? I'm interested in this DAC and the new Anedio.

obzilla · Apr 30, 2012 at 3:04 AM

Quote:

davebsc said:
Can anyone confirm whether the USB input on the M51 is actually asynchronous, or is it some kind of custom isosynchronous implementation like the ARC DAC8? I'm interested in this DAC and the new Anedio.

It's asynchronous, they claim in the data sheet.

http://nadelectronics.com/products/masters-series/M51-Direct-Digital-DAC

Go down, check manuals and downloads.

[size=7.000000pt]USB Audio Codec 2.0: asynchronous 24/192 support [/size]

DaveBSC · Apr 30, 2012 at 3:59 AM

Thanks. Unfortunately it seems that while both are asynchronous, the inputs on both still aren't as good as the upper end converters.

BoogieWoogie · Apr 30, 2012 at 7:43 AM

Quote:

davebsc said:
Thanks. Unfortunately it seems that while both are asynchronous, the inputs on both still aren't as good as the upper end converters.

Does any ? From what I read, every one who tested the dacs usb against those ultra dollar converters found the same. I have my doubts though.

obzilla · Apr 30, 2012 at 8:19 AM

Quote:

davebsc said:
Thanks. Unfortunately it seems that while both are asynchronous, the inputs on both still aren't as good as the upper end converters.

Curious... what do you base this deduction on? What specs or parts are you referring to?

mcullinan · Apr 30, 2012 at 9:58 AM

I still couldn't get sound out of USB. Could be my settings... don't know. Thought it would be fine, since there is a setting under digital out for NAD USB, I have a lot of other plugins which may affect it. So I jumped the gun. The SB restarts and still no sound. I had volume Lock on, took it off. Haven't done testing. Have to box it up tonight and ship it back because of the remote issues :frowning2:

M

DaveBSC · Apr 30, 2012 at 2:57 PM

Quote:

boogiewoogie said:
Does any ? From what I read, every one who tested the dacs usb against those ultra dollar converters found the same. I have my doubts though.

The one I know of that genuinely doesn't need or benefit from a converter is the Empirical Overdrive. The USB input on that is basically the same as the Off-Ramp (one of the best converters on the market), and Steve from Empirical has said that the sound is essentially the same whether driven from the OR4/5 or direct.

DaveBSC · Apr 30, 2012 at 3:05 PM

Quote:

obzilla said:
Curious... what do you base this deduction on? What specs or parts are you referring to?

Only on listening impressions. Some even very expensive DACs like the Meitner don't have galvanic isolation on their USB inputs, so in that case its obvious why the sound would be better from a converter that's isolated from the PC ground. The Anedio's input is just their converter card internally wired to the DAC's digital receiver - so it probably sounds the same as the U2 into the S/Pdif input and many of the other converters.

Others I don't know as much about. The Calyx is supposed to sound significantly better via USB than the coax input, so presumably they did something right there.

MorbidToaster · Apr 30, 2012 at 5:00 PM

This was my finding. I was pretty surprised at what I was hearing. USB implementations are usually pretty poor.

I know I'd made a good choice when the USB from my computer sounded better than my SA8004 playing Redbook.

Quote:

davebsc said:
Quote:

obzilla said:

Curious... what do you base this deduction on? What specs or parts are you referring to?

Click to expand...

Only on listening impressions. Some even very expensive DACs like the Meitner don't have galvanic isolation on their USB inputs, so in that case its obvious why the sound would be better from a converter that's isolated from the PC ground. The Anedio's input is just their converter card internally wired to the DAC's digital receiver - so it probably sounds the same as the U2 into the S/Pdif input and many of the other converters.

Others I don't know as much about. The Calyx is supposed to sound significantly better via USB than the coax input, so presumably they did something right there.

mcullinan · Apr 30, 2012 at 8:07 PM

Switched out my Nad as it goes back to the dealer. Pulled out my Theta Chroma 396. Oof. Old school Dac that just doesn't. I will miss my nads.

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