O2 AMP + ODAC

[HotIce]

Voltage is right, though I'd be interested to see the E12's distortion vs the O2 with a 32ohm load.

 
My take, at the power level you get on 32Ohms, your ears become much less linear (if not damaged) than the amp will.

 

[Zankes]

I have to say this odac is fricking awesome. Sounds really good

 

[WilliamLeonhart]

 
Actually I am asking about the more powerful, more expensive amp (GS-X) versus the O2. Aside from the fact that the GS-X could, in theory, deliver higher SPL to a headphone capable of higher SPL, I am curious as to whether it would sound similar to the O2 - fast, black, with great extension.
 
I know that is isn't typical to place products of dissimilar prices into direct comparison, but then again I am always curious as to whether the $7 bottle of wine is "as good" as the $100 bottle! My guess is that the two amps measure so alike that they wouldn't sound very different at all - I see that the O2 has a lower noise floor, but the GS-X has excellent crosstalk, for example. Any reason they shouldn't sound alike?
 
Us poor people (me) like to think our O2 is giving us a top performance for the money!

Better or worse depends on perspectives, but I can say that if you're seeking neutral, clear sound then I've only seen amps/DAC definitely above 700 USD that can "beat" the O2+ODAC. That's almost 3 times the price.

 

[MrMateoHead]

  Better or worse depends on perspectives, but I can say that if you're seeking neutral, clear sound then I've only seen amps/DAC definitely above 700 USD that can "beat" the O2+ODAC. That's almost 3 times the price.

Which models are you referring to? Sometimes it is interesting that "price level" rather than some other attribute (power / sound quality) seems to be the way we all organize our determinations of where "better" should be. I can honestly say that, aside from better aesthetics, I haven't come across a headphone amp since the O2 that really seemed like a genuinely good deal. IMO, high power and useful features should be available for $200 or less, unless someone can explain how getting low-distortion milliwatts is just as hard/simple as getting low-distortion watts.
 
For car audio, the old $1 dollar / watt is usually a good indication of a good amp (then again I've rarely spent more than about $200). For home theater forget it - the amps are pretty much the "same" until you spend up to and north of $600 (80-100 watts/channel, no real low impedance drive) - what you get for your money are features / better room correction. About $600-$1000 for better DACs and Amps (where some "high current" power seems truly available).
 
I get that headphones are hot right now, but jeez, the value equation is all over the place.

 

[KeithEmo]

The short answer there is that, from a technical engineering point of view, it's not at all difficult to design a low powered amplifier with very low distortion, low noise, and excellent frequency response - and it doesn't require expensive or exotic parts. Now, it is true that the design requirements are different than they are for a speaker amplifier, which means that some engineers may not be used to designing that sort of amplifier.
 
However, I think that the main reason is simply that it's a new niche market. (Until recently headphone outputs were an afterthought, and "high end headphone amplifiers" largely didn't exist.) To me it's also obvious that, to a point, the price is "riding" on the price of headphones themselves. Back when "an expensive headphone" was a Koss Pro4aa for $49, nobody would have bought a $1000 amplifier to go with it; now that we have multi-thousand-dollar headphones, it makes sense that people are willing to consider spending similar amounts of money for the electronics to go with them.
 
Now, to be fair, designing a new product and bringing it to market is expensive - and, the fewer you hope to sell, the bigger part of that development cost each customer is going to have to pay - that's just basic economics. (I could build you a really nice headphone amp with $20 worth of electronics - and about twice that for a case and knob - but it would take thousands of dollars worth of design time to work out the annoying little details, like making sure the board fits in the case, and that the knob turns, and to make sure that it actually does sound good.) And, also to be fair, some of the more expensive designs do in fact use some very expensive parts - and I'll leave it to you to figure out, in each case, whether those parts contribute to better audio performance, or a better "story" for the marketing brochures, or a more luxurious feel for the product (and don't doubt that's also an important "product feature").
 
(It's also true that some headphones are more demanding, while others sound just fine on less capable electronics.... and some headphones are downright quirky, and so only really sound good on electronics designed to work well with their particular quirks.... and that part of the design process can be a bit of an art - and, if so, then you don't price a painting based on the cost of the canvas and the paint. Personally, though, I think I'd just rather avoid the really quirky ones.)
 
Incidentally, if you want to see what - minimally - goes into a quite good headphone amplifier, attached is a data sheet for the Texas Instruments BUF634 high-current buffer amplifier chip, which makes an excellent headphone amplifier... you'll find the schematic for making one at the bottom of the first page - and you can check the prices for yourself

 
http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/buf634.pdf
 
Quote:

 
Which models are you referring to? Sometimes it is interesting that "price level" rather than some other attribute (power / sound quality) seems to be the way we all organize our determinations of where "better" should be. I can honestly say that, aside from better aesthetics, I haven't come across a headphone amp since the O2 that really seemed like a genuinely good deal. IMO, high power and useful features should be available for $200 or less, unless someone can explain how getting low-distortion milliwatts is just as hard/simple as getting low-distortion watts.
 
For car audio, the old $1 dollar / watt is usually a good indication of a good amp (then again I've rarely spent more than about $200). For home theater forget it - the amps are pretty much the "same" until you spend up to and north of $600 (80-100 watts/channel, no real low impedance drive) - what you get for your money are features / better room correction. About $600-$1000 for better DACs and Amps (where some "high current" power seems truly available).
 
I get that headphones are hot right now, but jeez, the value equation is all over the place.

 

[WilliamLeonhart]

 
Which models are you referring to? Sometimes it is interesting that "price level" rather than some other attribute (power / sound quality) seems to be the way we all organize our determinations of where "better" should be. I can honestly say that, aside from better aesthetics, I haven't come across a headphone amp since the O2 that really seemed like a genuinely good deal. IMO, high power and useful features should be available for $200 or less, unless someone can explain how getting low-distortion milliwatts is just as hard/simple as getting low-distortion watts.
 
For car audio, the old $1 dollar / watt is usually a good indication of a good amp (then again I've rarely spent more than about $200). For home theater forget it - the amps are pretty much the "same" until you spend up to and north of $600 (80-100 watts/channel, no real low impedance drive) - what you get for your money are features / better room correction. About $600-$1000 for better DACs and Amps (where some "high current" power seems truly available).
 
I get that headphones are hot right now, but jeez, the value equation is all over the place.

The Aune S16, paired with a solid-state amp that unfortunately I could not remember the name of. And no, I don't think that price equals quality, since I'd definitely take the O2+ODAC rather than any Fiio, iBasso or NuForce models. And yep I agree with you that the O2+ODAC offers arguably the best price/performance in the industry, especially considering that some guy in my country managed to produce these 2 at around $75 each. 
However in the past I've tried a integrated dac/amp that cost around $60 that offers around 90% of what the JDS O2+ODAC can bring, also made by the O2+ODAC guy I mentioned above. With open source designs it's very possible for people (especially people in China and neighboring countries) to drastically cut costs and maintain similar quality. The DIY guys in my country definitely learns a thing or two from nwavguy.

 

[adydula]

There is only one other amp that I would think of to give you more power and versatility and thats the desktop version type that AGDR has implemented...I have built one and tested with many other amps...its about a $300 + DIY and is not a beginners project. There are only 4 or 5 of these in existance....absolutley stellar amp.
 
Alex

 

[pocahontas]

Hi guys, i'm new and i got some questions. Who have a good gaming motherboard with shield iem protection,ALC1150 codecs and can compare to his o2+odac combo setup objectivly?
Does it sound really better? Have a nice day (quote my post for better sav )

 

[Zankes]

  Hi guys, i'm new and i got some questions. Who have a good gaming motherboard with shield iem protection,ALC1150 codecs and can compare to his o2+odac combo setup objectivly?
Does it sound really better? Have a nice day (quote my post for better sav )

I have ALC887 which is probably low tier one and it sounds terrible. Odac is way better sounding like worth the money.
 
ALC1150 might be better sounding, but I am having hard time believing that it would compare to dedicated amp/dac.
 
Just my 2cents and I am guessing here

 

[pocahontas]

Hi Zankes. But the question is, did your motherboard had an integrated amp & shields protection to counter parasites? It's a very important detail in this equation, don't you think?
No mater the DAC, even an integrated ODAC, or a more expensive one (500dollars DAC), in a motherboard like any ALC realtek codec DAC, would sound terrible too
 
Have a nice day Zankes, really want you to answere back to me. Any one else too Even more if you match the description of my upper post (ALC1150, shields protection and an integrated amp on it vs ODAC).
 
Back to an other question: Lots of people compare high end soundcard like the STX II vs the ODAC+O2. In the end, i think the DAC are basicaly the same quality.
But the integrated amp of the STX is not very good. Good for some headphone but bad for low impedance ones if i'm not mistaken. And people just say over it "drivers sucks and even with protections, it's still in a "dangerous" place and can not stop every parasites.
 
But if the STX II which does have better specs than the ALC1150 is the "same" in regard of the DAC, i do think (logicaly) that's the ODAC is better than the ALC1150..(??).
 
And an other thing bother me a lot, i'm sorry for not knowing so much on this subject, but an integrated codecs and a sound card does have a SNB value.
A very "marketed" value. The best integrated onboard is at this optimal performance "115db SNR" and for the soundcard it's never more than 124 if i'm not mistaken.
But this value... i don't see it on the ODAC or Schiit equivalent dac product? WHERE is the "Signal-to-noise ratio" of a DAC? is it the equivalent of the "Dynamic Range (A-Weighted)" you can find on odac specs? but the ODAC revb is "> 112 dB" so it's inferior to an optimal integrated onboard dac and it's even more the same for the soundcard

 

[adydula]

Sometimes we forget looking at specs that many of these "specs" are into areas of human inaudibility or not discernable in most any way. The O2 and ODAC were designed to have specs,if thats your thing, that
are basically what we call a 'don't care"...any better specs at these limits are well...just that better numbers.

I do a lot of AB'ing in blind testing and the differences in the actual sound based on specs alone is very hard to tell in controlled environment.

That said I often can tell differences that over time change as well, depending on the mood I am in, time of day, and amount of cold beer consumed!

Alex

 

[pocahontas]

Sometimes we forget looking at specs that many of these "specs" are into areas of human inaudibility or not discernable in most any way. The O2 and ODAC were designed to have specs,if thats your thing, that
are basically what we call a 'don't care"...any better specs at these limits are well...just that better numbers.

I do a lot of AB'ing in blind testing and the differences in the actual sound based on specs alone is very hard to tell in controlled environment.

That said I often can tell differences that over time change as well, depending on the mood I am in, time of day, and amount of cold beer consumed!

Alex

Hi, so by your logic, you really tried and sow no difference between an odac and a ALC1150? best regard

 

[adydula]

I have listened to an mobo with alc 1150 and have several ODACS, I doubt you would notice any real world difference.
 
A.

 

[raoultrifan]

Hello, 
 
I did a complete test with the new solid-state BURSON V5-D op-amps in my Objective2 headphone amplifier. Everyone knows that O2 sounds very good "by default": it has a dark background, sounds quite neutral and doesn't emphasis treble nor bass, so I didn't expected much improvement over original sound, though I was hoping to get a little bit of a bigger sound-stage.

 
Headphones used for this test were Dr. Beats Solo 2 (32 ohms), AKG K701 (62 ohms), Beyerdynamic DT880 (600 ohms) and DAC used was ASUS Essence One MKii MUSES.
 
All music used for this test was FLAC:
- Chesky Records - The Ultimate Demonstration Disk
- Ultimate Demo Disk
- Super Audio Check
- Legendary Sound (LS3/5A)
- The Nordic Sound - 2L Audiophile Reference Recordings
- Ayre - Katie Mahan Collection
- Head-Fi And HDtracks - Open Your Ears (2010)
 
What am I comparing these BURSON op-amps with? Well, I already have MUSES8820 in my O2's VAS right now and I'm quite pleased because I found MUSES sound being a little bit more  spacious and cleaner than the original NJM2608. As output buffers I have NJM4556A, original O2's paralleled buffers.
 
Test with SS V5-D in Voltage Amplification Stage (VAS):

- Sound is definitely more detailed with V5 then with MUSES8820, especially when cymbals are involved...hmmm, I didn't expected that. Details in cymbals were immediately noticed, without feeling any increase in trebles, so the same neutral sound but more detailed and with much better sound accuracy; now cymbals sound like I'm on the scene.
- Women voices are very clear and "mild" even when singing loud, not fatiguing at all. Also Kenny Roger's saxophone sounds better in every way, like a delicate immersion into the music. I am sensitive to saxophone and to women yelling, especially when DT880 are used, so BURSON V5 is really helping me here with their sound.
- Bass sounds about the same as MUSES to me, noting has changed I'd say. I tried "Chesky - Percussion Test" and also "Ultimate Demo Disk - Percussion" and I couldn't realize any differences; I got the same fast and powerful bass, especially with my K701 headphones.
 
Test with SS V5-D as output buffers:

- I was unable to get any noticeable differences between the original NJM4556A op-amps and BURSON V5-D, though scene might get increasing a little bit, but not much to make a difference.
- As O2's output buffers are directly connected to headphones, DC-output voltage of SS V5 op-amps might be a little bit higher for low impedance headphones (see V5's datasheet). For 60 ohms or higher impedance I don't see any concern here.
 
PROS:
- Upgrading Objective2's VAS op-amp with solid-state V5-D from BURSON will get you the same neutral, natural, clean and balanced sound, but with more details in sound and with increased sound-stage.
 
CONS:
- Price, especially comparing with O2's MSRP.
- Size, because you'll definitely need a taller case like B4-080 model or some DYI case made of acrylic or anything else (3D printer perhaps?). 
 
Note 1: BURSON V5-D op-amps were both tested for any possible oscillations or strange harmonics by using Pico-Scope. Nothing strange was found, of course, feel free to check attached screenshot.

 
Note 2: V5's temperatures during this test were between 43-49C in free air/open case (24C room temperature), depending on the volume uses. IR thermometer was used to read the temps.
 
Note 3: Many thanks to BURSON for providing me those 2 dual solid-state op-amps to do this test!

 

[pocahontas]

  I have listened to an mobo with alc 1150 and have several ODACS, I doubt you would notice any real world difference.
 
A.

Ok, so they are no audible differences between a well implemented mobo with shields and the last DAC available than casual DAC like ODAC or the schiit one on the market.
Thanks you, you certainly saved me some money.
But if you have the chance to try it, did you do it with an very good headpone? because i'm planning on getting an AKG k712 (or lower) and i don't know if my integrated amp will support it.
Best regard