[K3cT]

For this particular DAC you need at least 4 of them for balanced operation because it's a mono chip IIRC. 

 

[.Sup]

I did the same thing! DAC19DSP at first, and now the Ref 5 (original version). Both are great DACs!

Have you tried the newer DSPs in your Ref 5?

 

[D2Cowones]

btw .Sup, I 've seen you pair your ref5 with an spl auditor, do they pair well?  in my case will be a phonitor and senn hd800 too...

 

[.Sup]

btw .Sup, I 've seen you pair your ref5 with an spl auditor, do they pair well?  in my case will be a phonitor and senn hd800 too...

About a year ago I said no. Not sure what changed since then but this is the only time in my audio journey that I said I don't need anything else. I don't need balanced, I don't need a tube amp. It is a good pairing because Auditor/Phonitor just relays the excellent DAC in Ref 5. Smoothness, darkness (in a good way, not a hint of brightness), extremely well defined bass, musical, detailed. I can actually hear quality going from this DAC. I needed a year to get fully used to the DAC, before it I preferred Wolfson DAC, I actually put it on sale once, locally. Removed it in a couple of hours. I think this DAC needs a lot of hours to get fully burned in or my mind needed a lot of time to adjust but probably both. It sounds better (smoother and more dynamic) when its on for a couple of hours. Its a must have DAC.

 

[Anda]

http://www.audio-gd.com/Products-EN.htm
 
The dedicated DAC section is now called "Decent DACs". A bit humble I guess 

 

[D2Cowones]

thanks a lot .Sup!

 

[.Sup]

thanks a lot .Sup!

Hey no problem, if you need anything more specific let me know.

 

[petemac110]

Have you tried the newer DSPs in your Ref 5?

Mine has the latest DSP. Sorry, I should have been more clear. When I said 'original version' I meant the Ref 5 vs the newer Ref 5.2. My Ref 5 is one of the last examples produced and is about 7 months old.

 

[Turn&cough]

Besides the single ended vs balanced outs I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between SA-1 and Ref 5.2 
One is "Dedicated Discrete  DAC applied Diamond Difference design" the other is "Dedicated Discrete Fully Balanced DAC"
 
Same price and they look the same to me except from the rather confusing description on Audio GD's website they appear to sound different.
 
Quote:

[size=x-small]     Both have built in DSP-1 and 4 pcs PCM1704UK .
     The SA-1  retains rich details and high clarity with its abundant music flavor with wide and deep sound stage . It is single-ended output.
     The Reference 5.2 sound dead neutral and monitor . It is balance output.[/size]

 

[Sapientiam]

Quote:

What are the benefits of having 4 DAC chips?  I can understand where having two would allow 1 to be used for left and 1 to be used for the right channel, but what are those other two chips doing? Just hanging out being cool until Quadraphonic systems catch on (remember those?)?
 

 
I'm guessing Kingwa is using a pair of chips per channel so he can take the difference between them. This means one chip has 'true' data fed to it and the other has inverted. The idea behind such balanced operation is that things that affect both DAC chips equally (power supply noise for example) will get cancelled out in the subtraction stage.

 

[threegr]

Slightly offtopic: do you know is it possible to connect balanced DAC (Reference 5.2) to a single-ended amp (C-2.1) via ACSS? Balanced/single-ended ACSS confuses me a bit...

 

[.Sup]

Slightly offtopic: do you know is it possible to connect balanced DAC (Reference 5.2) to a single-ended amp (C-2.1) via ACSS? Balanced/single-ended ACSS confuses me a bit...

kingwa once told me acss is non compatible with rca but acss to acss should work

 

[threegr]

I got a reply from Kingwa saying that his balanced DACs produced since 2012 can connect to single-ended amps via ACSS.

 

[runswithaliens]

Quote:

 
I'm guessing Kingwa is using a pair of chips per channel so he can take the difference between them. This means one chip has 'true' data fed to it and the other has inverted. The idea behind such balanced operation is that things that affect both DAC chips equally (power supply noise for example) will get cancelled out in the subtraction stage.

 
Thanks for the info Sapientiam as I was feeling a bit cynical about the more is just obviously better thing.  That is very clever what those electronic wizards can do.

 

[Kingwa]

Quote:

I got a reply from Kingwa saying that his balanced DACs produced since 2012 can connect to single-ended amps via ACSS.

 I maybe mislead in the email reply.
Any balance DAC ACSS output can connect to  Single-Ended amp's ACSS input.
All on sale balanced ACSS amps can connect Single-Ended DAC through ACSS and  working on full balanced state.