myinitialsaredac
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2008
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That's it, I've heard quite enough. Just got the Ultra Micro DAC and been listening for about two hours now and all I can say is wow. The unit came in to replace my 06 Micro DAC (dated 8/20/07 but its the one that can take 2 9v to be portable) and I actually didn't realize time had passed. I simply hooked it up via the optical input to my computer and the old cardas 6 in mini to mini to the micro amp and set up a playlist to play through foobar (wasapi) and just
.
As some specifics towards SQ the attack has a ridiculous improvement over the 06. The crunch of the guitars, the punch of the kick, the snap of the cymbals it's all there and so organic. In comparison I would say the 06 has a much softer edge to all the notes, almost pillow like. The next major area of improvement is the separation and soundstage. Through the 06 the soundstage was large, but had a bit of artificial feeling and on tracks such as "Deliver us from Evil - B4MV" the instruments sounded clustered together. Now the sound paints a picture of each individual guitarist, the singer, the drummer, everything falls into place inside the frame of my minds eye. That artificial feeling is completely gone and sounds real. Like it should be. Voices sound lovely. I just finished listening to Krall's "Frim Fram Sauce" and just switched to Cole's "Waters of March" and I am simply falling for their voices. They are now full and endearing. They pull you into the music, like a siren's call, simply awaiting to bring you into their world and hold your mind there permanently. As a final major note the sound is far more forward, it seems to surround more, also bringing me deeper into the music and making my mind lose focus on whats happening, pushing me into a state of simply being.
As for some more specific tracks, Slightly Stoopid's "Circle House Blues" the guitars in the intro have gained a lot of forwardness, texture, and have a far more realistic decay with the Ultra Micro DAC. Tha Formula's "Get Low" seems to be more open, as if they are actually performing in my head instead of a mile away. The background is Pitch Black. It is simply void of anything. Music has become extremely clean with the Ultra. Bass is more pronounced, especially welcome on the 701s, but it is a night and day deal, it is still very articulate though. Haha, the noise is so lifelike, organic, real, and clean that I actually turned on David Banner's "9mm" that has a lot of background sound that is so clearly defined now, and the voices are-I hate to repeat myself but for lack of a better word-real.
All I can say is why did I wait so long to do upgrade to the Ultra Micro DAC? The sound is overall better, with specific improvements in cleanliness, texture, realism, soundstage, bass, separation, I'm running out of adjectives but you get the point. Highly recommended upgrade whilst they are having this sale. For extra information I did purchase the astrodyne with the Ultra and was just running the 06 through the stock wallwart. All the files I listened to are ALACs through Itunes Multiplugin with Foobar throughput using wasapi and are off of CDs.
Headroom Guys, you did a great job on this one! Special thanks to Jorge for helping me out on this decision!
I can't wait for my new amp!
Dave
As some specifics towards SQ the attack has a ridiculous improvement over the 06. The crunch of the guitars, the punch of the kick, the snap of the cymbals it's all there and so organic. In comparison I would say the 06 has a much softer edge to all the notes, almost pillow like. The next major area of improvement is the separation and soundstage. Through the 06 the soundstage was large, but had a bit of artificial feeling and on tracks such as "Deliver us from Evil - B4MV" the instruments sounded clustered together. Now the sound paints a picture of each individual guitarist, the singer, the drummer, everything falls into place inside the frame of my minds eye. That artificial feeling is completely gone and sounds real. Like it should be. Voices sound lovely. I just finished listening to Krall's "Frim Fram Sauce" and just switched to Cole's "Waters of March" and I am simply falling for their voices. They are now full and endearing. They pull you into the music, like a siren's call, simply awaiting to bring you into their world and hold your mind there permanently. As a final major note the sound is far more forward, it seems to surround more, also bringing me deeper into the music and making my mind lose focus on whats happening, pushing me into a state of simply being.
As for some more specific tracks, Slightly Stoopid's "Circle House Blues" the guitars in the intro have gained a lot of forwardness, texture, and have a far more realistic decay with the Ultra Micro DAC. Tha Formula's "Get Low" seems to be more open, as if they are actually performing in my head instead of a mile away. The background is Pitch Black. It is simply void of anything. Music has become extremely clean with the Ultra. Bass is more pronounced, especially welcome on the 701s, but it is a night and day deal, it is still very articulate though. Haha, the noise is so lifelike, organic, real, and clean that I actually turned on David Banner's "9mm" that has a lot of background sound that is so clearly defined now, and the voices are-I hate to repeat myself but for lack of a better word-real.
All I can say is why did I wait so long to do upgrade to the Ultra Micro DAC? The sound is overall better, with specific improvements in cleanliness, texture, realism, soundstage, bass, separation, I'm running out of adjectives but you get the point. Highly recommended upgrade whilst they are having this sale. For extra information I did purchase the astrodyne with the Ultra and was just running the 06 through the stock wallwart. All the files I listened to are ALACs through Itunes Multiplugin with Foobar throughput using wasapi and are off of CDs.
Headroom Guys, you did a great job on this one! Special thanks to Jorge for helping me out on this decision!
I can't wait for my new amp!
Dave