Dan Clark Audio Stealth Review, Interview, Measurements

[Arniesb]

The sub par sound is due to quality of signal chain, power supply and transport. Solid state is preferred since tubes will just ruin the transparency that the Stealth can deliver.

If you have great soucre like Innuos pheonix then you dont need conditioning. Just clean amp and dac.
Many headphones can sound harsh with source like usb since very few dacs have built in reclockers.

 

[801evan]

If you have great soucre like Innuos pheonix then you dont need conditioning. Just clean amp and dac.
Many headphones can sound harsh with source like usb since very few dacs have built in reclockers.

Innous phoenix is not a 'source' and it only uses 2x lt3045 voltage regulators. I use 100x lt3045s and still scale greatly optimizing the zen stream on the upstream. So the innous Phoenix is not a bullet proof solution.

 

[Arniesb]

Innous phoenix is not a 'source' and it only uses 2x lt3045 voltage regulators. I use 100x lt3045s and still scale greatly optimizing the zen stream on the upstream. So the innous Phoenix is not a bullet proof solution.

Anything that feeds to dac is called source...

 

[801evan]

Anything that feeds to dac is called source...

Which can be vague coz you got ppl saying 'source' is important then turns out they are talking about the amp...

 

[theveterans]

In most cases SS will be better. Because of the low impedance. However something like a Woo WA33 or WA5le have plenty of power. I’m sure there are plenty more, I only have experience with those and the Stealth.

Overspecced power and output transformers that have proper impedance damping factor provide ample current for hard to drive planars in general

 

[ahmonge]

Many headphones can sound harsh with source like usb since very few dacs have built in reclockers

UAC2 protocol over USB uses receiver (DAC) clock to tell the source to send the next packet faster or slower, effectively making the DAC clock the one that controls the data rate.

 

[JLoud]

Absolutely. The two Woo amps I mentioned are transformer coupled so work well. OTL amps probably not. Of course nothing wrong with trying it.

 

[DarginMahkum]

UAC2 protocol over USB uses receiver (DAC) clock to tell the source to send the next packet faster or slower, effectively making the DAC clock the one that controls the data rate.

Any DAC, especially a $200+ DAC that cannot deal with simple USB jitter / noise and produces audible artefacts, does not belong to this century, because the designer of that particular DAC was not competent and s/he failed to implement a very basic part of asolved problem in digital audio.

Let's think about this: We have mobile phones that can communicate with a base station through air, behind multiple levels of walls, hunderd meters away, signal being constantly scattered everytime it hits an obstacle, which are mostly moving and emitting signals themselves, both our mobile phones and base station receiving tens of variations of the same signal due to the delays, irregular phase shifts, amolitude changes etc., and this is happening for hunderds of other communication channels (people) between mobile phones and base stations. And still, we are able to send and receive megabytes of data in seconds. Yes, there's error correction, yes there is coding, yes there's time and frequency multiplexing, yes there is modulation, yes there's many other forms of signal processing applied to do this, but what I want to say is: These little devices with their small chips can cope with much more complex cases of communication issues at such a low price (I am not talking about latest Apple or Samsung). If a DAC, which is connected with a 1m cable (not air) without any obstacles on the way is not able to cope with a much much simpler problem in this century and we need devices that cost multiple thousand $/€ to fix them, there's something definitely wrong there. Both with the DAC (because it was not properly designed), and with that "fixer", as it is not a problem that needs multiple thousands to fix.

 

[theveterans]

UAC2 protocol over USB uses receiver (DAC) clock to tell the source to send the next packet faster or slower, effectively making the DAC clock the one that controls the data rate.

The DAC clock comes from XMOS USB chip (not from the source) in UAC2 / Async unless that DAC has a VXCO/OXCO crystal oscillators are included for reclocking. The SPDIF clocks are derived from the source wordclock unless once again that DAC has VXCO/OXCO crystal oscillators are included

 

[theveterans]

Absolutely. The two Woo amps I mentioned are transformer coupled so work well. OTL amps probably not. Of course nothing wrong with trying it.

While they won't ever give an accurate representation of the recording, they do give a more engaging presentation for most recordings IMO

 

[xirxes]

Don’t let 801 get going again about signal chains.

The power potential of the amplifier is absolutely at play for the value and experience provided by the DCA stealth HP. In general the more power the merrier, to a point.

I have run my set off DCA stealth on easily 25 different rigs, from dragonfly to Wa33, from topping A90, monolith, Yggy, Wells audio and XI audio and now Enleum amp 23R and M17.

To at least sidestep the insanity of constantly delving deeper and deeper into the cabling I can say that reproducibly, all interconnects remaining static, the increase in power supplied to the DCA stealth amplification yields more and more SS size, bass extension/weight/presence, musical separation and all the rest.

When people say “Hard to drive” the more accurate statement is that they will not be the limiting factor in your chain. Either quality of reproduction in DAC, or quantity of clean power to amplify them definitely will be.

 

[801evan]

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hifiman-susvara.853031/post-17117914

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hifiman-susvara.853031/post-17123997

...and Stealth beats the Susvara on m17, go Blu, go bar. Bigger soundstage, less resonance, clearer and faster,

 

[Widell]

So is there a DAP that can sufficiently drive the Stealth? Read DX300 Max and the M17 would be contenders but.... better than Chord H2?

 

[801evan]

So is there a DAP that can sufficiently drive the Stealth? Read DX300 Max and the M17 would be contenders but.... better than Chord H2?

I prefer Hugo 2 by a lot vs m17.

 

[DarginMahkum]

So is there a DAP that can sufficiently drive the Stealth? Read DX300 Max and the M17 would be contenders but.... better than Chord H2?

Do you need a DAP or are you asking if you can find a DAP than can give better results than H2?