[r0ss1992]

Audibly notably better. Life is fleeting, I now am using the Singxer SU2 to convert USB to Coax and feed that to the NT-503 and the C16 clock into the Singxer. Just slightly better high frequency detail. Same wide soundstage as the C16 into the NT-503 that turns the room into the performance space though. Looks like you can get an inexpensive TXCO `10mHz on ebay for around $175 though. May be worth trying that. It certainly appears that TEAC crippled the 503 with a bad USB clock in order to.... what sell their $1.5K clock? For a $1K DAC? Not sure what the motivation was. But I like you can only observe and wonder.

I have an UD-503 since two years and I've used it for a long time via USB with a MacBook Air and Audirvana installed on it. In the last 3 months I'm using the Teac via coaxial with a Panasonic UB9000 that I purchased for movies but also for CDs playback. Well, I'm totally agree with you about USB clock quality of the Teac: via coaxial input Teac sounds much better and this means that internal master clock of the Panny is more precise than the Teac one. At least to my ears. Cheers!

 

[milkdudd]

Curious if any of you are using this mainly for its preamp? Already have a topping D90 that I'm happy with. Being the dual mono design I'm wondering if the preamp would be a great match for my ATC P1 Pro Poweramp which is also a dual mono design. Of course I'm talking for my two channel listening room rather than a headphone setup which I keep separate

Should also have mentioned that my amplifier has XLR inputs that I would connect to the XLR outputs of the UD-505

 

[r0ss1992]

Curious if any of you are using this mainly for its preamp? Already have a topping D90 that I'm happy with. Being the dual mono design I'm wondering if the preamp would be a great match for my ATC P1 Pro Poweramp which is also a dual mono design. Of course I'm talking for my two channel listening room rather than a headphone setup which I keep separate

Should also have mentioned that my amplifier has XLR inputs that I would connect to the XLR outputs of the UD-505

I'm using two active speakers (Elac Navi's ARB 51) with a Teac UD-503 as dac and preamp. Well, they sound great. 503 has the same analog circuit of 505, the only difference is the Dac's chips, that are substituted by new models of AKM 449x, the Bulk Pet implementation via USB and the Bluetooth receiver.
By the way, I'm using XLR's that delivers 12V as max voltage in variable volume control.

 

[milkdudd]

I'm using two active speakers (Elac Navi's ARB 51) with a Teac UD-503 as dac and preamp. Well, they sound great. 503 has the same analog circuit of 505, the only difference is the Dac's chips, that are substituted by new models of AKM 449x, the Bulk Pet implementation via USB and the Bluetooth receiver.
By the way, I'm using XLR's that delivers 12V as max voltage in variable volume control.

Thanks for the response. Would it be your opinion that if I'm using my Topping D90 dac and the Teac only as a preamp, that the sound of the 503 and the 505 would be identical? Obviously I should be able to get a 503 much cheaper. Thanks

 

[KalvinK]

Hi, I've just seen very vague comparisons around the forum regarding the UD505 and UD503. Looking to pick up a 503 if anyone who tried both can give me insights(mainly sound) on the differences asides from the Dac chip change and bluetooth. On this thread itself one person is said that the 505 is much better than the 503 in a lot of ways but i've heard others say that there is not that much of a difference.

 

[jmimac351]

This is an old thread (obviously), but I'll share this as I see the commentary about using an external clock / the clocking input available for the UD-505, etc. I've also seen commentary elsewhere about the folly of even using an external clock for this and that it's not the proper "use case". Commentary for that is in the context of "timing correction" being necessary for live broadbcasts... not what we're doing. Apart of all of that, I'd suggest for folks to just find a used Schiit Eitr. It was their (at the time) latest improvement to USB, and it has clocks in it. USB into Eitr / SPDIF OUT to UD-505. I'll have a UD-505 next week, and that's what I plan to do.

Whatever Teac and UD-505 are or aren't doing for USB / Clocking, I have confidence that Schiit is doing it right. And I expect the Eitr gadget I own makes it so.

 

[jkorten]

This is an old thread (obviously), but I'll share this as I see the commentary about using an external clock / the clocking input available for the UD-505, etc. I've also seen commentary elsewhere about the folly of even using an external clock for this and that it's not the proper "use case". Commentary for that is in the context of "timing correction" being necessary for live broadbcasts... not what we're doing. Apart of all of that, I'd suggest for folks to just find a used Schiit Eitr. It was their (at the time) latest improvement to USB, and it has clocks in it. USB into Eitr / SPDIF OUT to UD-505. I'll have a UD-505 next week, and that's what I plan to do.

Whatever Teac and UD-505 are or aren't doing for USB / Clocking, I have confidence that Schiit is doing it right. And I expect the Eitr gadget I own makes it so.

This is exactly the use case for an external clock. You can't believe the improvement in sound until you try it. The alternative, which I think you are getting at by using your Schiit audio will do exactly the same thing. I use a Singxer SU-2 for exactly this purpose on my TEAC that's located in a different venue. But even a high end DAC like the Singxer SDA 6 benefits from the use of an external clock. The soundstage is deeper and wider.

 

[jmimac351]

This is exactly the use case for an external clock. You can't believe the improvement in sound until you try it. The alternative, which I think you are getting at by using your Schiit audio will do exactly the same thing. I use a Singxer SU-2 for exactly this purpose on my TEAC that's located in a different venue. But even a high end DAC like the Singxer SDA 6 benefits from the use of an external clock. The soundstage is deeper and wider.

Yes, and the good news is (whether it provides better clocks for the TEAC or not) the Schiit Eitr is a lot less expensive than boutique alternatives. The Eitr was focused on fixing USB, but has the additional feature of clocks.

Might as well plug it in.

 

[sygnus21]

I own a Teach UD-503, and though not a "clock" I'm actually considering adding a Denafrips Iris DDC to it for a cleaner USB connection.