vandaven
Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 5, 2011
- Posts
- 84
- Likes
- 11
I received my uDAC2 yesterday. After reading so much about that product, too big the urge to check out that fancy (and kinda infamous) micro-product, and I was kinda ready to send it back to the vendor. When I connected the small box to my Macbook I was ready to hear a whining sound or at least some sinewave weep, but surprise, surprise, nothing...pretty dead silent if you don't go past 4 o'clock. The sound, even in comparison with the new MBPs built-in audio, is quite astonishing. Clear and kinda warm with strong bass, can't complain, I love that product and thus keep it. Works also fine on the Mac Pro in the studio, btw.
Kudos to Nuforce for (obviously) solving all those issues people have been complaining about!!! In regards to those who complain about the stereo-image-shift related to the volume pot: at those positions close to full cut, any analog pot in that price range will display similar problems (at least I haven't experienced the contrary). I tried out the amp with my leisure (AKG Q460, Ultrasone HFI15G) and professional (Sennheiser HD25s, Sony MDR7506s, M-Audio IE-30) headphones, and it made them all shine.
It needs to be stated that despite all the measurement blah you can find on the web in regards to this DAC / headphone amp, it is a fantastic and good sounding product. By the way, the most sought-after professional studio devices had some (non-linear) flaws that made them legends.
Important sidenote for all new users: please use the audio setup of your OS (i.e. AudioMidiSetup - OSX) to set the unit to 96 kHz / 24 bit before starting to listen, at least on my Mac, it was set to 48 kHz 16bit by default - it will improve the general quality of sound playback, even with 44.1 kHz / 16 bit material.
Kudos to Nuforce for (obviously) solving all those issues people have been complaining about!!! In regards to those who complain about the stereo-image-shift related to the volume pot: at those positions close to full cut, any analog pot in that price range will display similar problems (at least I haven't experienced the contrary). I tried out the amp with my leisure (AKG Q460, Ultrasone HFI15G) and professional (Sennheiser HD25s, Sony MDR7506s, M-Audio IE-30) headphones, and it made them all shine.
It needs to be stated that despite all the measurement blah you can find on the web in regards to this DAC / headphone amp, it is a fantastic and good sounding product. By the way, the most sought-after professional studio devices had some (non-linear) flaws that made them legends.
Important sidenote for all new users: please use the audio setup of your OS (i.e. AudioMidiSetup - OSX) to set the unit to 96 kHz / 24 bit before starting to listen, at least on my Mac, it was set to 48 kHz 16bit by default - it will improve the general quality of sound playback, even with 44.1 kHz / 16 bit material.