headnoob
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2008
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Sorry for a totally noob question, hoping someone in this thread would know the answer. I purchased D3(my first amp
) after reading so many rave reviews on head-fi including this thread. When connecting in analogue, it sounds fantastic. It even gets rid of most of the static sound that originally exists in line-out of my mac book. When I try to use it as USB DAC and here's my question, why does it sound so poorly compare to analogue?
It sounded very muddy as if vocal and instruments are mixed up then put behind a wall. Unlike the analogue line in from MBP and headphone out where it gives a much punchier bass and nice separation of vocal, DAC's output sounds terrible. I am probably missing something very fundamental. My original idea with D3 was so I can have clear/digital sound from MBP. Maybe it's not meant to be used this way? Maybe D3 just decodes the sound and I need another amp to bring the sound quality up?
Here's how things are connected.
MBP -> USB(one that came with D3) -> D3 -> Tri Fi 10
I ask my co-worker to try D3's DAC out on his MBP and his own headphone and surprisingly, D3's DAC improved the sound a little bit when using his IEM. I then asked him to use TF10 to see if he hears the degradation in quality and he also confirms the poor quality as I describe above. Could it be because TF10 just doesn't play nice with this DAC?
Would much appreciate someone in the know to shed on light on this embarrassingly noob question.
It sounded very muddy as if vocal and instruments are mixed up then put behind a wall. Unlike the analogue line in from MBP and headphone out where it gives a much punchier bass and nice separation of vocal, DAC's output sounds terrible. I am probably missing something very fundamental. My original idea with D3 was so I can have clear/digital sound from MBP. Maybe it's not meant to be used this way? Maybe D3 just decodes the sound and I need another amp to bring the sound quality up?
Here's how things are connected.
MBP -> USB(one that came with D3) -> D3 -> Tri Fi 10
I ask my co-worker to try D3's DAC out on his MBP and his own headphone and surprisingly, D3's DAC improved the sound a little bit when using his IEM. I then asked him to use TF10 to see if he hears the degradation in quality and he also confirms the poor quality as I describe above. Could it be because TF10 just doesn't play nice with this DAC?
Would much appreciate someone in the know to shed on light on this embarrassingly noob question.