[Iving]

I have had both an Yggy and a Convert-2. imo the Yggy, although good, is light, airy and thin in comparison.

 

[someonewhoactualyownsgear]

I was just scrolling around the internet and thought I'd throw my 2cents, because I feel like hearing is believing.

I have worked in nashville, NYC, and now reside in dc doing very critical listening and mixing. I own ATC scm25a's as monitors and have had high end dacs ranging from apogee, Sony, Burl, to antelope and finally dangerous.

After really honing in on this, and testing a ton of speaker/dac combinations in the pro world, the dangerous convert2 wins by far, and I've yet to hear a system match it.

If you research who chris muth is, this becomes sort of a moot argument on what is 'the best in class' for this price point.

Anywho, I have installed hifi-dac's in celeberties/musical professional's homes, where money is not an object, and it doesn't even come close to a convert2. Just saying.

Cheers

 

[Psalmanazar]

Has anyone compared the Convert 2 to the Source in terms of tone and timbre? The Source sounded fairly normal to me when I briefly heard it and in this thread someone mentioned that the Convert was warmer than the Yggy, which I already consider to be warm and have fat bass.

The Gearslutz guys all say the Converts are warmer and midbassier than the currently being hyped-up Crane Song Solaris and RME ADI-2 Pro but it won't have that AKM "Velvet Sound" overly-politeness in the highs/upper mids that all the gear using the current generation of AK chips has.

 

[pibroch]

Psalmanazar, unfortunately I haven't compared it to a Source but have just started A/B ing it now to a Solaris.

After less then an hour of comparison my ears/brain agree totally with what you relayed from others about the Solaris' sound. It lacks lots of mid bass - for instance acoustic drums don't sound like the real thing like they do on the Convert and saxophones sound bloodless.

Also agree with the politeness in the upper mids and highs - to me this sounds unnatural. Some have said that its resolution of detail is a step above the Convert. Overall it certainly makes individual elements in the mid-mids to highs easier to notice but I'm not a recording engineer so not especially needed by me.

One Gearslut posted on their mastering section that they had finally found the analog-like sound they had been yearning for. I do find the Solaris beguiling and sweet sounding. It's very un-fatiguing due to the clear separation of instrumental voices whereas the Convert takes more effort. I think that's at least partly because the Convert is presenting more lower mid information for the brain to process, plus the Solaris' low mid shyness ALSO avoids naturally muddying the sound. My AKG K551 headphones deliberately do exactly the same thing - a nice smooth easy listening experience.

For this reason and because it gives me the choice of a very different flavor to the music I listen to, plus has a headphone out and a second pair of outs I can use for my sub, I've decided to keep the Solaris.

But in terms of tone and timbre, the Convert makes acoustic instruments sound real and has the scary ability to often make it seem like the musicians are present in the listening room. (So if I had to choose between them I'd take the Convert in a heartbeat!)

[mac mini usb into each dac then straight into a pair of Geithain RL906 active monitors]

 

[Zoom25]

Leave them both on 24/7 with something running through them. I'd love to hear how you feel a week or two later.

 

[Psalmanazar]

Psalmanazar, unfortunately I haven't compared it to a Source but have just started A/B ing it now to a Solaris.

After less then an hour of comparison my ears/brain agree totally with what you relayed from others about the Solaris' sound. It lacks lots of mid bass - for instance acoustic drums don't sound like the real thing like they do on the Convert and saxophones sound bloodless.

Also agree with the politeness in the upper mids and highs - to me this sounds unnatural. Some have said that its resolution of detail is a step above the Convert. Overall it certainly makes individual elements in the mid-mids to highs easier to notice but I'm not a recording engineer so not especially needed by me.

One Gearslut posted on their mastering section that they had finally found the analog-like sound they had been yearning for. I do find the Solaris beguiling and sweet sounding. It's very un-fatiguing due to the clear separation of instrumental voices whereas the Convert takes more effort. I think that's at least partly because the Convert is presenting more lower mid information for the brain to process, plus the Solaris' low mid shyness ALSO avoids naturally muddying the sound. My AKG K551 headphones deliberately do exactly the same thing - a nice smooth easy listening experience.

For this reason and because it gives me the choice of a very different flavor to the music I listen to, plus has a headphone out and a second pair of outs I can use for my sub, I've decided to keep the Solaris.

But in terms of tone and timbre, the Convert makes acoustic instruments sound real and has the scary ability to often make it seem like the musicians are present in the listening room. (So if I had to choose between them I'd take the Convert in a heartbeat!)

[mac mini usb into each dac then straight into a pair of Geithain RL906 active monitors]

Thank you for your impressions.

To my understanding, that's politeness is all in the AKM "Velvet Sound" DAC chip. The Solaris has a custom filter too so it's not the filter. I'm using an AK4490 based Grace M900 as a headphone amp and portable dac/pre (monitor controller I guess) around the house and while it needs to warm up for a bit, it has all of those same "overly politeness" problems. Pairing it with the dry but detailed in the midrange Yamaha HS7s was no good.

A friend had exactly the same problems with his Solaris and returned it while the RME ADI 2 Pro/DAC has similar reports coming in with even drier upper bass / low mid. This seems common to all AKM "velvet sound" DACs that don't have the warmth and bass dialed like many of the consumer ones do.

On the plus side, the Grace does have the best bass texturing I've ever heard, while also robbing many recordngs of any body whatsoever as it's utterly ruthless at exposing terrible solid state guitar amps, compressed pop with no bass/low mid punch, and guitar digital reamping on modern recordings. It does get some low mids/upper bass if you leave it plugged in for an hour but it's still dry even if you leave it on for a week. I presume it's just what the AKM chip sounds like.

But yeah, guitar distortion and violins have no bite to them though, unlike irl where you can get a disgusting high gain distorted tone with almost any guitar, any modernish amp (solid state is even more disgusting), and pretty much almost every 80s onward pedal in ten minutes that will make ears bleed. I've checked this myself with a low rent Steinberg recording interface. The bite is muted on the Grace and my car stereo unless I crank up the treble (to guitar tracks that had a David Bowie style EQ on the amp and pedal) but not out of other my other gear.

I read that entire Gearslutz thread and some of those guys seem to be openly preferring veil. Describing this veil as being an "Analog sound" is ridiculous to me. Have they heard a typical MC cart?

I've thought about this over the past couple of weeks and am probably going to go for the Source as I've heard it and it's a better desktop replacement for what I'm using the Grace for. I want the second out for a different sounding pair of monitors and don't really feel like buying a separate headphone amp again right now as that will be just another box to cart around and take up space.

 

[smodtactical]

How come there isn't more talk about this dac. Everywhere I've read people praise it. One experienced audiophile in my discord likes it more than denafrips Terminator.

Any thoughts why it's not more popular?

 

[mhamel]

How come there isn't more talk about this dac. Everywhere I've read people praise it. One experienced audiophile in my discord likes it more than denafrips Terminator.

Any thoughts why it's not more popular?

I think some of it is that it isn't marketed at all to the consumer market. I've noticed that there can also be some bias against pro audio gear in the consumer audiophile world. It's kind of funny to me since the gear that the recordings people love so much were recorded, mixed and mastered on that very same pro gear.

I also recall when Purrin was doing his big shootout between DACs, I had recommended it and it was shot down because it looked like pro gear and didn't have the visual appeal he wanted. Yet much more recently over on his forum, there has been a ton of discussion about the Convert-2 and just how good it is.

 

[Iving]

How come there isn't more talk about this dac ... Any thoughts why it's not more popular?

there can also be some bias against pro audio gear in the consumer audiophile world.

This ^ - except in uncarpeted houses - and also because audiophiles with carpets don't like SMPSs.
(Still love my C-2 after a few years now ...)

 

[smodtactical]

This ^ - except in uncarpeted houses - and also because audiophiles with carpets don't like SMPSs.
(Still love my C-2 after a few years now ...)

What is SMPS ?

 

[Iving]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=WKecXeikAZLTkgXP0JyQDw&q=smps

 

[smodtactical]

Ohhh right

 

[chris.d.m.]

I'm a studio dude and can say fwiw, I now have a Solaris here to test and also have a Dangerous Source I've used for years now. (it's being fed a linear PSU my tech built however)
Plan to keep the Source for a monitor controller and run the "monitoring DAC I inevitably chose" into the Sources analog input. I say this because I now want / need to get the Convert 2 in here asap to hear.

The Solaris (in stark contrast to many of my pro audio type brethren) is not the DAC I hoped it would be. Elegant, spacious, non-fatiguing yes. But too polite and simply put, lacking in impact and punch...for me & IMO etc etc. Heck, I find myself feeling a more preferred listening experience even from the the D Source, albeit it's 3-5k peaki-ness has been a bit more revealed.

I mention this because, I hope the Convert 2 will provide an even more appreciable "YES" experience listening than it's little source brother.
Down side for me is the convert cost quite a bit more than the Solaris. Oh well.

BTW/ I hear fwiw the Mytek Manhatten 2 is real real nice, but a bit outta range for my budget.
10/4

 

[MarkusTubesNow]

I'm interested in reading additional comments on this DAC and how it compares with other "audiophile" style type DACs. Please, those of you who are using this DAC or have compared it with others please post your impressions.

 

[chris.d.m.]

Wondering if anyone has experience with using / trying a high quality attenuator to live between the Convert 2 outs and the monitor amp ?

Been considering a Goldpoint SA1X or 2X as I've had trouble with other "monitor controllers" being able to "deal with" reproducing the full 18dbu of the Convert.

That, and although I've never been able to find an attenuator to live between the Converts outs and monitor amp that doesn't compromise, or subjugate the Converts Full bodied extension (& full 18dbu output) ...
I'm also painfully aware that there was "a real clarity gained" when I used for example, the 2400 audio controller.
Shame there was such a db and body loss with that one.

ie; Still hunting for a reasonably priced and most important, compatible solution.
My main issue is the Convert (at very low monitor levels) does become troublesome with clear L/R staging imbalance.