[Currawong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bostonears /img/forum/go_quote.gif I touched up the scratch with a black ultra-fine Sharpie, and now it's hard to see. I don't think it would show in a photo unless I rub off the marker. As long as it wasn't on the front face, it wasn't a big issue for me, which is why I didn't even mention it until someone else said "scratch". I think my main suggestion is that the condition of the housing be inspected before a unit gets the OK to be packed up for shipping.

I think it's a cultural issue. Chinese culture, from what I understand, just isn't so big on presentation as Western culture is, which isn't even a patch on what the Japanese like.

 

[iron_gr]

come on... let alone the scratches war... speak about the quality of the sound, this is what matters!

 

[squall343]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iron_gr /img/forum/go_quote.gif come on... let alone the scratches war... speak about the quality of the sound, this is what matters!

x2
definitely

 

[Townyj]

Ok im actually glad i upgraded my source

Im not going to give impression's! Just going to say that i have more of a smile on my face then ever

 

[iron_gr]

me too, sound is so much better!

but I can't say much... I can't judge, no experience...

 

[haloxt]

My headphones didn't have open airy highs since I put the blue dragon headphone cable on it 6 months ago, and the dac19mk3 did what I thought was impossible and gave it highs ^^. Now at ~75 hours, I am noticing the "thin" or "unsentimental" sound is finally starting to leave, might be the shark interconnects burning in (I ordered 2 pairs, I believe its unlikely they were given any burn-in at the shop). The bass isn't reined in or excessively sharp now, but can be as strong as with the compass, dac19mk3 is less continuously boomy and more accurate. Female vocals still do not sound as sweet as with the compass but still sounds expressive, but hopefully with burn-in that'll improve more then I'll be very happy ^^.

 

[Townyj]

I was considering selling my SA5000's because they didnt seem like what i was after. But now that i have changed my source, they have been brought to a fairly new level and sound very good. So im definitely happy with my DAC19MK3.

 

[shampoosuicide]

For those of you who have received the DAC-19, could you share what DAC you were using prior to the DAC-19? And how you feel the DAC-19 has improved over your old DAC? That would give a better idea as to how the DAC-19 fares against the competition.

 

[Patu]

Just as I thought it would go, the DAC is in Finland but I can't go pick it up yet. It's in the arrival terminal. Tomorrow is holiday here so I have to wait till Monday.

 

[K3cT]

Bump in hope for more impressions.

 

[haloxt]

You guys must be tired of my impressions

, but something new I can say is that you don't want to use 128-192kb too much on the dac19mk3, you lose a lot of details and ambience. Use a good bitrate and encoder or best use lossless.

 

[K3cT]

More comments on how the DAC19MK3 better the Compass' one will be very enlightening, haloxt. Since you're still using the Compass' amp section, the comparison will be very interesting.

And I surmise you end up settling on the PMD100?

 

[haloxt]

I'm burning in the PMD-100 first, have ~90 hours on it while DF1704 has 14 hours. I feel reluctant to go DF1704

but maybe tomorrow I'll do it and burn it to 100 hours too and see what happens... but right now I really suspect you should just go PMD-100 and bear with its extra honest transparency, I remember you said you like to game and PMD-100 will actually probably be much better for gaming than DF1704 because of how un-embellished it sounds, you want those explosions to sound like explosions not music

.

At 100 hours now and it's got something over the compass dac in most areas except it's perhaps on equal footing when it comes to expressing emotion, with the dac19mk3 on the cerebral side and compass on the sentimental side. But despite that, the most interesting thing about dac19mk3+vocals is how much more detailed and present they are, especially background vocals, it sounds like real life singers and not random MIDI sound effects.

I really have to feed dac19mk3 lossless or at minimum 250kb vbr or 320kb cbr (320kb LAME or ogg aotuv b5 q9-q10), a lot of ambience and micro-details is lost with low bitrates or bad formats and encoders. My entry level furman power conditioner gave minimal improvement to the dac19mk3 whereas the compass received significant improvement. Judging from my particular setup, without power conditioner compass is maybe ~60-70% of dac19mk3, with power conditioner compass is ~75% of dac19mk3. Margin shrinks a bit with less revealing cables and lower quality files. Compass is very forgiving and probably good enough for most setups ESPECIALLY if you don't recable the headphones, or like me refuse to get a real transport

.

 

[K3cT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm burning in the PMD-100 first, have ~90 hours on it while DF1704 has 14 hours. I feel reluctant to go DF1704 but maybe tomorrow I'll do it and burn it to 100 hours too and see what happens... but right now I really suspect you should just go PMD-100 and bear with its extra honest transparency, I remember you said you like to game and PMD-100 will actually probably be much better for gaming than DF1704 because of how un-embellished it sounds, you want those explosions to sound like explosions not music .

Well, honest transparency in a DAC sounds good in my book. Moreso if the DF1704 channels its aggressiveness in over-brightness which I despise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif At 100 hours now and it's got something over the compass dac in most areas except it's perhaps on equal footing when it comes to expressing emotion, with the dac19mk3 on the cerebral side and compass on the sentimental side. But despite that, the most interesting thing about dac19mk3+vocals is how much more detailed and present they are, especially background vocals, it sounds like real life singers and not random MIDI sound effects.

Perhaps this sentimental effect is the character of the Compass' DAC itself? Or this could be the character of the amp section.

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif My entry level furman power conditioner gave minimal improvement to the dac19mk3 whereas the compass received significant improvement. Judging from my particular setup, without power conditioner compass is maybe ~60-70% of dac19mk3, with power conditioner compass is ~75% of dac19mk3. Margin shrinks a bit with less revealing cables and lower quality files. Compass is very forgiving and probably good enough for most setups ESPECIALLY if you don't recable the headphones, or like me refuse to get a real transport .

Interesting. I remember Kingwa claiming that the Compass' DAC is only 50% as good as the DAC19MK3 but the former seems to be doing better in your case. Hmm...if that's the case then perhaps I should upgrade my amplification first before trading the Compass eventually with the DAC19MK3. The M^3 and S11 combo look really tempting for me at the moment.

And about transport, I surmise you're still using wavelab's ASIO? I can imagine me using this setup for quite some time so we're in the same boat!

Thanks anyway for your detailed impressions, haloxt.

 

[haloxt]

I either use 0.8.3 foobar or else my iriver h120 optical output, both are a bit worse than wavelab asio in their own way, wavelab asio has more fullness but it's too expensive and not convenient whatsoever, I do not recommend it as a media player.

I wouldn't worry about the sentiment thing, I think it was done deliberately to try to get the most analyzing detail out of the dac19mk3. Should be fine with most setups unless your headphones tend to sound sterile, then heavy sounding cables should be a good way to improve vocals.

Maybe the compass is 50% of the dac19mk3 in certain circumstances, but I wouldn't say so in mine. Anyway what Kingwa considers 50% is certainly different from me, I think of the grading system in the public schools I went to. 50% would be a really bad F, 75% is a passable C

. If you really don't upgrade things like transport, file quality, cables, detailed headphones, but you have very clean power to help out the compass PSU, it might not be worth it to upgrade to the dac19mk3.