[ALRAINBOW]

Cool that will be a good match up What chip is in the yulong

 

[Esprit]

Sabre 9018.
Mytek uses 9016.

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Both saber is one balanced meaning two sides in one chip?

 

[Norway]

...
As Michal and I have discussed ad nauseum, for a budget of $1500 they had to make sacrifices, and one area IMHO, is the variable analog stage. It suffices, but is wayyy better (again IMHO ) in bypass mode, which then requires the user to use a preamp or integrated amp (or active speakers, etc). Also, as a Mytek-defined preamp the analog ins are clean and would suffice for someone who primarily listens to digital but needs a secondary analog source for those few times.
...

 
Way better in what ways and are there any DACs that does not compromise here? How about Lynx Hilo, Benchmark DAC2, Grace Design m903 or similar? Primarily I'm after a good preamp with a good DAC as I 99 % of the time only need the digital inputs. Currently using Mytek and satisfied, but what would be better as one concise unit?
 
It always seems like you need ten boxes for good SQ, they need to be matched and you need cables which should be at the cost of gold, lol! This is so backwards. How about making a good neutral preamp with a good internal DAC as that is what most people need nowadays.
 

  I'm using the Mytek with a preamp but I'm tired of the very high output level

 
Did you use the internal hardware gain jumpers to lower it by 6dB? Using Mytek as a preamp I've set those and prefer the analog volume control. With Emotiva XPR-1 monoblocks powering a pair of JBL 4343B it is silent and there is lots of headroom. I recon those gain jumpers are not bypassed when you use the unit as a DAC only?

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Here is how it is better in description . In my office I have a speaker rig large speakers . When I first set it all up I quickly used the mytek as the dac and preamp. And I was not happy with the sound, it is almost smeared , it lack body. Dull sounding . I thought it was my speakers and was not happy at all and really pisssed off. I had remembered reading an article about the pre amp and how much it improves with out tit. So I used another preamp and wow what a change . And the change is not my other preamp it's just the way the dac sounds in preamp. I am not sure if it is the way the volume control is done or what . Now further more the internal headphone is ok . But after you use
The dac with another headphone amp you will get a feel for the issue.
Google the mytek and read it is not a myth it is real. One more thing the USB and FireWire
Sound different too. As for me FireWire is better , but I'm sure this changes with Cpu used.

 

[Esprit]

Did you use the internal hardware gain jumpers to lower it by 6dB?

Isn't enough. I don't like the Mytek without a "real" preamp.
I have the Mytek since 2011...

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Yea I completely agree. I do the same mytek to M8. All is good

 

[Norway]

Here is how it is better in description . In my office I have a speaker rig large speakers . When I first set it all up I quickly used the mytek as the dac and preamp. And I was not happy with the sound, it is almost smeared , it lack body. Dull sounding . I thought it was my speakers and was not happy at all and really pisssed off. I had remembered reading an article about the pre amp and how much it improves with out tit. So I used another preamp and wow what a change . And the change is not my other preamp it's just the way the dac sounds in preamp. I am not sure if it is the way the volume control is done or what . Now further more the internal headphone is ok . But after you use
The dac with another headphone amp you will get a feel for the issue.
Google the mytek and read it is not a myth it is real. One more thing the USB and FireWire
Sound different too. As for me FireWire is better , but I'm sure this changes with Cpu used.

Oh, I believe you. Just frustrated that there always seem to be compromises.
 
As far as the USB and FireWire impressions are concerned I too find FireWire to be the better option. It is more stable as it doesn't suffer from the USB 2.0 connections' artifacts. I believe the unit to be optimized towards FW, as you can only flash it through that interface. It struck me as weird that they shipped it with only a USB cable when you need FW to flash the unit with new firmware. They should have included both imo, but of course most people have USB.
 
The onboard hpa is ok enough, nothing spectacular. Have tried it with many different HPA's. Woo Audio WA2, WA6-SE, Heed Canalot, Vioelectric V200, Auralic Taurus MKI, Burson Conductor ...

 

[ALRAINBOW]

Glad we agree , I do not get the FireWire thing either . If you play with the USB driver as increase the buffer and increase priority the USB is stable . I was at there office in Brooklyn and they told FA was better too. I asked them why is the pre not as good as the dac . He did have an answer , you will not like it. The dac is really used to mix as in pro use and the quality of the pre is not important and not used either. Same for the headphone amp. They really make just pro audio stuff and this is a crossover. If you notice it has a master word clock input . Most dacs do not.

 

[Soundwave76]

I read somewhere that the resistor on the headphone amp output is 20 ohm, but looking at the resistor that is bypassed, it is actually 5.1 ohm resistor, not 20 ohm.  So if it is 5.1 ohm, than the total impedance with 32 ohm headphone will be 37.1 ohm, so the max power is higher than 1.18 Watt.

 
It's a shame Mytek doesn't report the headphone output impedance clearly. Is it 20 ohms or 5.1 or what? To me this seems to be the dealbreaker, because I don't really want a separate DAC + hp amp if I'm spending this much money. The headphone output impedance 'rule of thumb' is below 2 ohms (NwAvGuy) and 20 ohms is just too much.

 

[Todd R]

   
It's a shame Mytek doesn't report the headphone output impedance clearly. Is it 20 ohms or 5.1 or what? To me this seems to be the dealbreaker, because I don't really want a separate DAC + hp amp if I'm spending this much money. The headphone output impedance 'rule of thumb' is below 2 ohms (NwAvGuy) and 20 ohms is just too much.

You know it's possible that not ALL the output impedance comes from just the 5.1 ohm resistor. 
Anyway, it's certainly not a deal breaker as the Mytek has a fairly decent headphone amp. 

 

[ALRAINBOW]

I have never spent the time to actually test the output imp of the dac. How ever when I went to mytek in Brooklyn I asked them that very question . His answer was that it's an op amp and had less than one ohm. He also said the 20 ohm resister was put there from people who blew up the output op amp by shorting it. He also said with headphones it would not matter at all. The headphone part makes sense since it is just a bit of attenuation to the headphones. But he did explain I was not the first person to ask about the IEM,S. .

I also asked about the noise floor buzzing with out the music playing . He had resolution for this , he just smiled. Very nice people there and a lot going on too.

Hope this helps .

 

[earfonia]

He also said the 20 ohm resister was put there from people who blew up the output op amp by shorting it. He also said with headphones it would not matter at all. The headphone part makes sense since it is just a bit of attenuation to the headphones. But he did explain I was not the first person to ask about the IEM,S. .

 
"with headphones it would not matter at all"... Was he sure with what he said?
Maybe you can send this article to him
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/meridian-explorer-case-study-effects-output-impedance
 
Maybe the effect is not so much for 300 and 600 ohms headphones, but for low impedance cans, it matters.
Anyway, not only about the output impedance, but where is the bass body on the headphone output?  Why the sound of the headphone output is not consistent with the line output?  That's what matters to me, at least for a high end DAC at this price range. 
Now I listen to Yulong DA8 most of the time, the headphone output is so much better than my Mytek.
 

 

[schawo]

Can DA8 play DSD over SPDIF?

 

[Soundwave76]

This is an even better article to send them. It is also from Innerfidelity and it's about amp measurements. Even if Mytek has enough power to drive all sorts of headphones, it does not mean the amp is still good. Sadly the evdidence seems to suggest it is not.
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/nwavguys-heaphone-amp-measurement-recommendations