Hello everyone. This is my first post here, as I am very interested in the LKS mh-da004 and, before buying it, I would like to give me your opinion regarding:
-This will be my first dac. Do you think that currently (spring 2020) is still a very good dac ...?
-Does there still support firmware updates on the LKS website ...?
Thank you very much for your opinion. Greetings from Barcelona.
The LKS 004 in stock form is nothing special in 2020 but it has a lot of untapped potential.
A modern DAC is 2 main parts
1)Digital to Analog converter
2)DSP for sample rate conversion for PCM and SDM remodulation for DSD
LKS004 main strength is (1) in particular, the analog stage with the final operating state in a high bias Class-A.
One of the reasons Class-A output stages when properly designed, can have very wide bandwidth and this is needed if the DAC is expected to show improvement with music of higher sampling rates. The LKS 004 performs very well with high bitrate material, at DSD512 the highest sampling rate is 24.576MHz
The analog stage will need at least 50-100MHz in order for the converter to not run into signal induced slew rate limiting of the output stage.
One element of that is a high bias current.
The LKS 004 has a measured idle output stage current of between 60-70mA this is about 3-6x that of competing designs.
This makes the DAC expensive to manufacture and prices have not moved since it was introduced in early 2017
There is stiff competition from the likes of Gustard and Matrix at this pricepoint.
The analog portions of these competitors are not as good, relying built in custom DSP processing to make up the difference.
The LKS uses the stock filters from ESS relying on a good analog frontend for the performance.
Either option (LKS or the competition) will do the job, more so if you are looking for a single box to plug in to you digital music source.
If you go with the LKS you never have to worry about firmware updates as it does not have any custom "special sauce" that requires firmware maintenence.
The USB interface is licensed from Amanero and the updates come from Amanero directly, updating is optional.
If you want to take this further, major portions of the DSP processing chain can be done outside of the DAC, typically with a reasonably capable PC, running specialized audio DSP software for example Roon or HQPlayer.
This can be done with the LKS or any of it competitors, with the competition much of the custom DSP is bypassed and with it the money spent there.
This gives LKS the advantage as most of the manufacturing budget is spent on the good analog stage and good quality power supplies so there is less waste.
When used with a properly implemented outboard DSP resampling, ordinary 44.1kHz CD source material can take a greater advantage of higher sampling rates on offer today.
Higher sampling rates give more headroom to implement sophisticated DSP algorithms, which in turn, can do more to move the sampling noise and artifacts further away from the audio band.
This, of course, assumes that the analog part of the DAC is up to the task, as it under a lot more stress with increasing sampling rates.
Beyond this is hardware modification like installing a better master clock.
