denon da-300usb first impressions, after 3-4 hours of use.
gear used: desktop pc running win10 and foobar, xiaomi mi3 phone with
hibymusic, marantz mcr610 for comparison, and obviously my nad viso hp50. files played: whatever i could find, from 128k mp3 to various flac and dsd files. some files were local, some were played from my nas via dlna.
connection, ergonomics, ease of use:
- the dac connects to both my pc and phone seamlessly, installation is pretty straight forward
- whether i use the phone or the pc as a source, makes no audible differences
- the dac played every format and bitrate i could find at home
- some clipping is present on the pc when skipping/changing tracks. i guess that's a foobar config issue, i'm new to that.
- i could configure the foobar to native dsd playing in about 3 minutes with no previous foobar experience; the little display on the denon provides some useful feedback about the stream format and bitrate, and that makes configuration a lot easier
- the dac's build and ergonomics are perfect for the price, the only minor nuisance being the somewhat slippery volume pot; a $0,01 rubber ring around the pot would make life a bit easier (3rd world problems, i know)
sound:
- the denon's fun
- dynamics are similar to the marantz, obviously way better than the phone
- both ends of the frequency response curve (sorry, i'm no expert in these terms, i mean lower bass, like below 60hz, and highs) came alive after a couple of hours of listening; highs are the only department the denon seems to be considerably better than the marantz
- soundstage seems to be on par with the marantz, wider and more stable than the phone alone. the same goes to headroom, sheer power, mids, resolution.
so basically, the denon sounds like the marantz, with some better extension at the higher register. denon and marantz are the same company after all, so the same fun, popular sound is expected from both of them. my final evaluation on the denon coming in a couple of weeks.
just on a sidenote: i've heard the audio-gd nfb-29 at a headphone/amp meeting at the weekend with the nad, and oh boy, did it sound awesome. just pure dynamics and transparency, with ease. just a tiny bit too analytical for my taste, still, it had me after 2 songs. also, the teac ha-501 (headphone amp only, not the dac or the dac/amp) had similar character, without the overwhelming dynamics of the audio-gd. both are better headamps than the denon or the marantz.
an other sidenote: hibymusic is a great free player for android, providing local, dlna or lan playback via an external dac.