[audioengr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by granodemostasa /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hello the owner of the dac just stopped by and i had a listen of it. He seemed like a very old timer, and he obviously didn't understand much of my "audiophile" talk so i didn't push him so far as opening it up and such. okay: frequency response: this is far more neutral sounding, less bassy and has more treble presence than the Wavelength brick- i obviously think that this is the flattest dac i've heard yet. while the zhaolu (on my system) had a tendency to go towards brightness and leanness, this one does have a tendency towards the midrange. Overall, i didn't hear a flat sound...instead what i got was a gradually lowering treble, not too much, but enough to be noticable. Frequency extension basically, how far it can go up and down- simply put, this was the best i've ever heard. the zhaolu was a cube, the wavelength brick was a pancake and the Dac 60 is an ocean- it just goes that far into the bass and treble. speed- this dac is surprizingly fast and powerful- every hit of the drums was like nothing i've ever heard before. i actually think this is faster than the zhaolu and certainly far faster than the wavelength brick. treble- it's got a very soft, extended and sweet treble. while i normally like this, there is one problem- the clarity and ring of triangles i clearly heard on the benchmark Dac-1 simply isn't there... in fact, triangles melt into the background to the point where they need to be listend for to be heard. soundstage- YES! the best i've ever heard. it was wide, deep, up, and down.. it just was exactly what i'm looking for. resolution and detail- lacking. this thing has less resolution than the brick, and certainly less detail than the benchmark and ori modded zhaolu. yet... somehow listening to this thing, i dont' mind, it just sounds that good. Piano- well, it's not the dry piano of the zhaolu, or the muddiness of the brick, but it does have problems-it seemed a little too sweet sounding compared to all the pianos i usually hear. vocals- not as good as the brick, but certainly better than all the other dac's i've ever heard. Dyanmics-yes, very very very good... i can't understate how amazing the dyanmics were with this thing. Also- the blackness and the abiltiy to differentiate between different insturments was spectacular. Violins- here we have a problem. it sounds like a sennheiser- by that i mean, the string section sounds like one thick organ pipe, much of the naturalness and that beautiful wooden sound just wasn't there.... overall, this is what bothered me the most; that it didnt' sound the way it was suppose to.

Detail and clarity are the main deficiencies. Unfortunately it takes a lot more than just parts swapping to fix this, however it is fixable

Steve N.

 

[003]

Sounds perfect for my K1000. I hope that check comes within the next few days!!

 

[granodemostasa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by akwok /img/forum/go_quote.gif Please don't hurt me.. but.. could it sound like a Sennheiser because of your Sennheisers? :runs: In all seriousness though, system matching is imperative. Running an inherently warm and smooth DAC, a tube amp, and an inherently warm headphone will most likely disappoint! A DAC-1 would be more to my liking as well in a system similar to yours. Of course all of this is null and void if you didn't use the HD650.

just because i'm not raving like mad, doesn't mean this isn't the best dac i've ever heard.... it is.

what i mean about the sennheiser is that the GS1000 does an amazing job at portraying the sound of violins, where they sound a bit sweet and rounded off at the edges on the HD650. what this dac did was make the situation worse...

btw: i also used the K701, so it isn't just a Sennheiser issue.

 

[akwok]

Quote:

Originally Posted by granodemostasa /img/forum/go_quote.gif just because i'm not raving like mad, doesn't mean this isn't the best dac i've ever heard.... it is. what i mean about the sennheiser is that the GS1000 does an amazing job at portraying the sound of violins, where they sound a bit sweet and rounded off at the edges on the HD650. what this dac did was make the situation worse... btw: i also used the K701, so it isn't just a Sennheiser issue.

Ah, okay!

Are you still going to go for it?

 

[granodemostasa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by akwok /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ah, okay! Are you still going to go for it?

No
reason 1: I'd have to buy some silver cables to make this work.. and i'm not sure i want to dive into that mess.

reason 2: i just spent a whole lot of $ on rose bowl tickets and will need some time to recover.

 

[003]

Quote:

Originally Posted by granodemostasa /img/forum/go_quote.gif No reason 1: I'd have to buy some silver cables to make this work.. and i'm not sure i want to dive into that mess. reason 2: i just spent a whole lot of $ on rose bowl tickets and will need some time to recover.

And lets not forget reason 3, I called dibs with the seller on it first

 

[bizkid]

I agree with granodemostasa's impressions however tube rolling _can_ give you more treble if you go for a siemens 7308 for example, it's said to be a little more forward in treble. This is no problem with my W5000 being detailed and very clear in treble by itself already, it's a dream combo.

Im not really sure if its possible to make it more detailed, that's just a limitation of its tube output section. It uses the miller effect in its SRPP circuit to roll off the treble to easily filter distortion above a certain amount of kHz, however im not sure if extending that would give more detail. I never find missing details to be a problem in my system so this is not an issue for me. Oh and it is VERY clear especially in vocals on my W5000, but maybe thats because i use different output caps than the soniccraft mod.

 

[akwok]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 003 /img/forum/go_quote.gif And lets not forget reason 3, I called dibs with the seller on it first

You're in for a treat. The DAC-60M worked really really well with the K1000.

 

[Jon L]

Quote:

Originally Posted by granodemostasa /img/forum/go_quote.gif resolution and detail- lacking. ...it seemed a little too sweet sounding compared to all the pianos i usually hear. Violins- here we have a problem. it sounds like a sennheiser- by that i mean, the string section sounds like one thick organ pipe, much of the naturalness and that beautiful wooden sound just wasn't there.... overall, this is what bothered me the most; that it didnt' sound the way it was suppose to.

I really, really love certain things about good tubed DAC's and CDP's. Harmonics and textures tend to just sound "right," and it's much easier to get lost in the music instead of analyzing.

Unfortunately, EVERY tubed DAC and CDP's I've listened to so far, even $10K+ ones, have the same weaknesses that you mention. Tube rolling does help, but never all the way, and one tube to "fix" something has penalties elsewhere in the sound.

BTW, if you want to try some nice silver interconnects to give a bit more treble extension/clarity, I can recommend the new PS Audio Transcendent. It will also turn that bass into a tight anvil, even tubed DAC bass..

 

[audioengr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon L /img/forum/go_quote.gif I really, really love certain things about good tubed DAC's and CDP's. Harmonics and textures tend to just sound "right," and it's much easier to get lost in the music instead of analyzing. Unfortunately, EVERY tubed DAC and CDP's I've listened to so far, even $10K+ ones, have the same weaknesses that you mention. Tube rolling does help, but never all the way, and one tube to "fix" something has penalties elsewhere in the sound. BTW, if you want to try some nice silver interconnects to give a bit more treble extension/clarity, I can recommend the new PS Audio Transcendent. It will also turn that bass into a tight anvil, even tubed DAC bass..

Jon L. - If you happen to be at CES in January, stop by room 1203 of the ST. Tropez to hear the "Spoiler". This is a fully tricked-out DAC-60 with low-jitter USB interface. I think it will give you a new perspective on what's possible with tubes.

Steve N.

 

[bizkid]

Steve, do you think the LITE60 will gain a little by using a high quality upsampling (like SSRC in foobar) when fed through a PC? I experienced that some DACs give a slightly clearer signal when fed by an 44khz upsampled to 88/96khz/24bit signal. I've read that digital filters have an easier job with a higher khz signal. I only have a small USB - SPDIF converter box here which supports only 48khz, so i cant test it myself right now.

 

[Capo]

Bizkid,

It is probably worth a try.

However, be aware that the digital filter in the Lite Dac60 performs 8x oversampling already, so it might not make a difference.

So I wouldn't buy any extra gear just to see if it would help.

 

[audioengr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bizkid /img/forum/go_quote.gif Steve, do you think the LITE60 will gain a little by using a high quality upsampling (like SSRC in foobar) when fed through a PC? I experienced that some DACs give a slightly clearer signal when fed by an 44khz upsampled to 88/96khz/24bit signal. I've read that digital filters have an easier job with a higher khz signal. I only have a small USB - SPDIF converter box here which supports only 48khz, so i cant test it myself right now.

Depends on the upsampler. I dont like SSRC myself. I use 24/96 SRC because I licensed it. IMO SRC gives the sound more dynamics and as well as smoothing-out the vocals. Best of both worlds.

Steve N.

 

[audioengr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Bizkid, It is probably worth a try. However, be aware that the digital filter in the Lite Dac60 performs 8x oversampling already, so it might not make a difference. So I wouldn't buy any extra gear just to see if it would help.

I makes a difference. What goes in has to come out.

Steve N.

 

[bizkid]

Today i did an RMAA measurement just out of curiousity to see how different tubes measure. I wont make them avaible because i only used my sb live and so they are pretty useless on their own and dont show what the lite dac is capable off, the sb live is the limiting factor in measuring.
And anyway the difference is easily summed up in. To my surprise the Sovtek 6922 measured better in THD and IMD compared to the Jan philips which was alot worse at 0,17x something vs 0,0xx for the sovtek, also the philips arent matched and so they show a L/R difference of 0,3dB, the sovteks dont show it. That were the only big differences between them. Still the Philips sound MUCH better than the sovteks, funny..
Ill get my amperex back in a few days, really looking forward to measure them.

Its also interesting that my modded LITE 60 measures a noise level of -100dB and that seems to be SB Lives limit

I didnt expect a tube design to measure that well in this regard.