ELE DAC Thread

[mib91]

thanks but I'm looking for something really portable.

Anyone knows whats the output impedance for el d00?

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

As a D02 user, I can safely tell you that you'll find absolutely no difficulty to carry around D02 unless the usb cable is too long.

 

[kaiteck]

As a D02 user, I can safely tell you that you'll find absolutely no difficulty to carry around D02 unless the usb cable is too long.

its for my mobile phone. I may even have difficulty with d01. I know if its for laptop, its another story.

 

[stillshot2]

Can anyone comment on the sound quality of the D00? I too am looking for a super portable dac

 

[stillshot2]

Welp, I bought one (an ELE EL-D00 that is). It is probably the cheapest DAC you can buy (under $7) and came from straight from China though shipping was actually quite fast. I planned to use it with an Asus laptop I have that sounds very muddy and unbalanced when played through my stereo receiver setup. This DAC installed quickly on its own on both my Windows 7 and Vista machines and the sound is now noticeably much better on my Asus, but there was not much difference on an older Toshiba laptop I have been using in place of my Asus for music. I am guessing the Toshiba must already have a decent sound card. Plugging headphones straight into this DAC is a bad idea (as others have already mentioned). The signal was really hot, I had to have windows main volume on the lowest setting and adjust from the music player I was using. It didn't sound too great used this way either, so it is essential to use an amp with this DAC. I wouldn't recommend using it with headphones unless you amp them too, but to clean up sound from a poor laptop sound card and playing through a stereo receiver it was well worth the purchase. The only negative is that the DAC came without a metal casing (being so low cost) and the little red light on top is very annoying so I had to put a piece of electrical tape over it. 

 

[eldus]

Would it be wise to use the D02 version from my PC to a PA system with the line out jack?
 
*EDIT silly question

 

[eldus]

I was also wondering, do any of you have experience with any upper-tier DACs/Amps in comparison to the ELE D02 in terms of sound ?

 

[CoiL]

What do You mean with "upper-tier"?
I have compared ELE EL-D02 (hardware modified) to Aune T1 and DX50 and it does fairly good against them, definitely worth the price and modding imo.

 

[eldus]

  What do You mean with "upper-tier"?
I have compared ELE EL-D02 (hardware modified) to Aune T1 and DX50 and it does fairly good against them, definitely worth the price and modding imo.

I actually do not know as I have little experience with them. I was hoping that you guys would. hah
 
what about unmodified?
 
I am also considering this one    X5  PCM2706 + CS4344 +Dual TDA1308 Parallel Output USB DAC headphone Amplifier PC
 
I mostly want to bypass my on board Pc Dac  and for the moment will be using it the most with the Supperlux 668B
 
here is a pic without the case which also available for purchase.

 

 

[CoiL]

They both have no-name/bad quality caps in stock configuration (despite claiming legit ELNA`s etc.) and ELE D02 capacitor upgrade is highly recommended by me.
PCM2706 has no benefit over PCM2704 SQ-wise. ELE D02 is cheaper to upgrade and smaller. Yes, X5 has potentiometer but I don`t need it personally.
Read some more reviews and make Your own decision based on Your needs.

 

[Samueru Sama]

Hey guys! Today (Sunday at night) I couldn't do anything, so I decided to perform a proper test between my ELE EL D02 and my Xonar DG, but I realized that in order to do it, I would need two auxiliary cables that I already had, but then when I was ready to start I noticed that one cable was broken, so I had to fix it.
 
Now it is working perfectly, so I arranged everything and began the blind test, I even took a picture. 

 

 
 
First I have to say that What did I say, I remember that here I said that the EL D02 and the DG had an "equal amp", but I was completely wrong, In order to get a equal volumen I had to set the ELE DAC at 48 on Windows and the Xonar... well... 60.
 
BTW, I needed a program called Virtual Audio Cable to output both devices at the same time.

Well it did not take too much to notice a difference, basically on the Evos, their bass is faster on the ELE DAC and better controlled, but I wasnt 100% sure (After many ABX test on Foobar2k you know how powerful the placebo effect is).

So, I called my father and told him what to do, I basically went to another room and told him to select a source randomly, then I went back to my room and started playing some music, he covered the yellow selector with his hand the whole test then he switched between sources while I was looking away.

In less than 30 seconds I told him. right know the PC is playing and I was right. He even tried and confirmed it, the Evos bass is different on the DAC.
 
 
And that is it, Is the ELE DAC better than the Xonar? Well it depends on what are you going to use, on the 668s I cant notice anything, Evos do sound better on the ELE DAC but, there's a lot of hiss on my 2nd Piston, So I do recommend this DAC/Amp as long as you dont use very sensitive headphones on it.
 
But something is sure, I will be using this DAC more frequently. 

 

 

[CoiL]

Samueru Sama, You should try Elna SilmicII + Panasonic FR capacitor change

 

[Samueru Sama]

  Samueru Sama, You should try Elna SilmicII + Panasonic FR capacitor change

 
I cant. My country's economy has plummeted terrible since the oil price dropped to 50$
 
I even had to fix a stupid auxiliary cable that was 150 BsF 6 months ago, now the cheapest that I´ve seen is 700 BsF.

 

[eldus]

Is the D02 worth buying without the Cap replacement? Or should I spend more say about $40 on different DAC.

 

[Samueru Sama]

  Is the D02 worth buying without the Cap replacement? Or should I spend more say about $40 on different DAC.

 
It's worth every penny

 

[Samueru Sama]

Updating stuff... I measured all my devices again with RMAA, this time I also included my motherboards audio (A58M-E).
 
When I finished, the program showed that my motherboard's IMD + Noise was 1.5%! (At this point I said, "*****! something most be wrong") So I checked everything and this time I conected everything to my Motherboard's line-in instead of XonarDG's line in. And compare results, now everything is "normal", and XonarDG's and A58M-E's results are good but also odd, I mean what the program shows in the Summary does not match with the graphs.
 
Anyway, here it is: http://i.imgur.com/xSW5y0W.png
 
I also tried to measure my Motherboards output impedance, I couldn't... Same thing that happened with the D02.
 
My motherboards just reached 0.7V with the volumen at max, then I added the resistance the result vas 0V, and then my DMM starts to show crazy results, one was 3.53V!
Maybe by using a lower resistance everything would be "normal", I read that I can use a pair of headphones as resistance with a Y cable, so I´ll try with my pistons that are 16 Ohm.
 
 
EDIT:
 
Well, I just tried to measure the output impedance using my piston as load. It did not work either...
 
But, I also took that as an opportunity to run RMAA again with the ELE DAC and the Xonar to see how they behave with each load, and well...
 

 
That roll-off on the D02 with the Evos is really bad... And it will get worse on the Piston . This confirms that this thing needs a capacitor upgrade).
 
Also, the IMD + Noise was... bad. (Not even the Xonar DG made it well there).