[ulyses]

Thanks for quick reply. Looks like this price range deserves dsp version. I have to sell something from my desk. 

 

[realmassy]

A note on the DSP version: I have the Ref.5 DSP, and I choose that because I knew I had a bad transport, optical output out my PC.
So I wasn't expecting much of an improvement swapping the transport...but today I got the Halide Bridge USB/SPDIF converter, and difference is HUGE. I can honestly say that the improvement is bigger than moving from the little dot dac_I to the Ref.5. It's like listening to a new DAC 
I guess when people say they can't hear differences in DAC it mostly depends of the quality of the transport.

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

A note on the DSP version: I have the Ref.5 DSP, and I choose that because I knew I had a bad transport, optical output out my PC.
So I wasn't expecting much of an improvement swapping the transport...but today I got the Halide Bridge USB/SPDIF converter, and difference is HUGE. I can honestly say that the improvement is bigger than moving from the little dot dac_I to the Ref.5. It's like listening to a new DAC 
I guess when people say they can't hear differences in DAC it mostly depends of the quality of the transport.

I agree that a good transport can improve a lot the performance of the DSP-1. Here (http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/483900/review-jkeny-s-modified-hiface) you can see that I got excellent results with a battery powered Hiface and the dac19dsp. But the good thing about the dac19dsp is that it sounds good even with a mediocre/jittery transport. When I had the dac19 with the DF1704, the sound and tonal balance was too dependant on the transport and digital cable being used.
The reason I encourage people getting the DSP version instead of the DF is that it is a lot easier to upgrade the transport later on than upgrading the digital filter (which requires soldering and a lot of skills to do the mod).
By the way, I sent my stock hiface for modification after I reviewed the dac19dsp. If the change was minimal between the two, I wouldn't have bottered staying without my unit for quite a while.
That is to say that I totally agree with what you are saying, in order to hear the real quality of a DAC, one has to use a high quality/low jitter transport.

 

[BigMango]

Quote:

A note on the DSP version: I have the Ref.5 DSP, and I choose that because I knew I had a bad transport, optical output out my PC.
So I wasn't expecting much of an improvement swapping the transport...but today I got the Halide Bridge USB/SPDIF converter, and difference is HUGE. I can honestly say that the improvement is bigger than moving from the little dot dac_I to the Ref.5. It's like listening to a new DAC 
I guess when people say they can't hear differences in DAC it mostly depends of the quality of the transport.

Holly crap and I thought I wouldn't need to upgrade anything anymore

 
I see the Halide is 450$. Is there any reason why you didn't go with the Hiface? Has anyone compared the two?
 
I am is the same situation as you (Roc/Ref5/PC coax); could you tell me a little more about the improvements the Halide brought to your system? After your post I am trying to figure out if it really is necessary to hurt my wallet again.
 
Thanks.

 

[realmassy]

There are two main reasons I went for the bridge: no proprietary drivers, 60 days trial. So you've got nothing to loose. I'm in the UK so I had to pay £60 for customs. I don't like the build quality of the hiface, with a male usb and a female spdif, then you'll still have to buy a good quality coax cable... You'll end trying a few of them keeping the one you like the most and selling the others... You'll be close to $450 anyway. Also I don't like the fact m2tech has no linux drivers at the moment and they are going to release a new product... Not very professional. My idea is to build a small audio linux server with mpd using a mini pc like a sheeva plug. The bridge should work in this configuration. The sound, now is sweet!! I was reading of happy ref5 owners, saying the sound was so sweet, no harshness... Mine was good, especially the lower mid and bass, with more slam even with my k702, but the treble was too hot with some recordings, especially hi-res. One more thing, I had to use the 16 bit mode on foobar, and not use the 24 bit resolution: in this configuration the sound was very bright. So today i've plugged the bridge, no drivers needed on windows 7, and listen to some of the recordings I had problems with... And they're now magic! No signs of harshness, the upper end is now very controlled, the instruments separation is increased, and so the transparency. Now, this is high end sound. If you don't these issues with your setup it means you probably don't need a converter

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

There are two main reasons I went for the bridge: no proprietary drivers, 60 days trial. So you've got nothing to loose. I'm in the UK so I had to pay £60 for customs. I don't like the build quality of the hiface, with a male usb and a female spdif, then you'll still have to buy a good quality coax cable... You'll end trying a few of them keeping the one you like the most and selling the others... You'll be close to $450 anyway. Also I don't like the fact m2tech has no linux drivers at the moment and they are going to release a new product... Not very professional. My idea is to build a small audio linux server with mpd using a mini pc like a sheeva plug. The bridge should work in this configuration. The sound, now is sweet!! I was reading of happy ref5 owners, saying the sound was so sweet, no harshness... Mine was good, especially the lower mid and bass, with more slam even with my k702, but the treble was too hot with some recordings, especially hi-res. One more thing, I had to use the 16 bit mode on foobar, and not use the 24 bit resolution: in this configuration the sound was very bright. So today i've plugged the bridge, no drivers needed on windows 7, and listen to some of the recordings I had problems with... And they're now magic! No signs of harshness, the upper end is now very controlled, the instruments separation is increased, and so the transparency. Now, this is high end sound. If you don't these issues with your setup it means you probably don't need a converter

By the way, the updated/current dac19/ref5 use a Tenor USB chip which is a step above the older TI chips previously used (according to Kingwa). The tenor chips are the one used in the Teralink X2, Stello U2... and have 24/96 capability.
 
If the Bridge USB to spdif was available at the time I purchased the stock hiface, I would have preferred it to the Hiface as I would have avoided buying 3 digital cables over $200 (I kept 2 of them). The overall cost: Hiface + digital cables was indeed higher than buying the bridge.
 
Anyway, I am glad you finally enjoying your ref-5

 

[kunalraiker]

Quote:

By the way, the updated/current dac19/ref5 use a Tenor USB chip which is a step above the older TI chips previously used (according to Kingwa). The tenor chips are the one used in the Teralink X2, Stello U2... and have 24/96 capability.
 
If the Bridge USB to spdif was available at the time I purchased the stock hiface, I would have preferred it to the Hiface as I would have avoided buying 3 digital cables over $200 (I kept 2 of them). The overall cost: Hiface + digital cables was indeed higher than buying the bridge.
 
Anyway, I am glad you finally enjoying your ref-5

There are so many nice transport options now, would there be any reason they cost a hand and a leg, at the end of the day they are a freakin transpot.
I mean paying 2/3rd the price of the DAC itself.

 

[Zai]

I'm thinking on pulling the trigger for one DAC-19 DSP and I have a few questions:
 
-How much heat it gets? I will have to stack the amp over the dac until i find a proper place for the rig, and it won't be until september when i'll be moving from where i live.
 
-I've been looking for a 2nd hand 220v PSU PS Audio DLIII with no luck at all and this DAC got my attention because it seems to share the same traits i was looking on the DLIII.
Component and feature-wise the DAC19 seems to trample the stock DLIII, but anyone was able to compare both?

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

There are so many nice transport options now, would there be any reason they cost a hand and a leg, at the end of the day they are a freakin transpot.
I mean paying 2/3rd the price of the DAC itself.

Well, in comparison to the state of the art CD transports, those usb converters cost a fraction of the price. In any case, the quality of the transport should not be neglected as realmassy experience (among many others) has shown us.
 
Quote:

I'm thinking on pulling the trigger for one DAC-19 DSP and I have a few questions:
 
-How much heat it gets? I will have to stack the amp over the dac until i find a proper place for the rig, and it won't be until september when i'll be moving from where i live.
 
-I've been looking for a 2nd hand 220v PSU PS Audio DLIII with no luck at all and this DAC got my attention because it seems to share the same traits i was looking on the DLIII.
Component and feature-wise the DAC19 seems to trample the stock DLIII, but anyone was able to compare both?

- The dac19 dsp doesn't get very hot. (The older dac19mk3 used to get hotter). I think it would be ok to stack component (temperature wise).
 
- I don't recall seing a direct comparison in this thread, but I remember that there was a comparison between the dac19mk3 and the DLIII (on an old thread) and the dac19mk3 was said to be better. Personally, I have yet to find any DAC or CD player from commercial brands, under €3000, that is better. The only DAC under €3000 I have found to be on the same level as the dac19 is a discontinued Audiomat Tempo 2.5 based on the PCM1704 dac chips.
I have looked at the pictures of the insides of many CD players and DACs and there a lot of overpriced stuff out there. Personally, I wouldn't spend more than $300 for the DLIII given the components and the technology being used inside. But that is just my personal opinion.

 

[Zai]

Thanks for the input slim.a
I e-mailed audio-gd about the stacking issue and if they think it will be safe i'll be placing my order.

 

[kunalraiker]

DAC19 DSP just arrived in the mail.

 

[vlach]

Personally, I have yet to find any DAC or CD player from commercial brands, under €3000, that is better.
 
Big statement, and i hope that's the case as a DAC19Mklll owner However i can't stop wondering how it measures up to recently released DACs from let's say...Simaudio, Weiss, Ayre, Naim, Acoustic Research, etc?

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Personally, I have yet to find any DAC or CD player from commercial brands, under €3000, that is better.
 
Big statement, and i hope that's the case as a DAC19Mklll owner However i can't stop wondering how it measures up to recently released DACs from let's say...Simaudio, Weiss, Ayre, Naim, Acoustic Research, etc?

That statement only reflects my personal experience. Obviously, I haven't listen to everything out there.
 
To my ears, the most important factor is the naturalness of the timber/tone of instruments. If a DAC or CD Player messes up with that, I personally discard it even if it is good at other things. I see many comparisons between DACs (or other piece of equipment for that matter) where people spend their time saying that this has more quantity than this, and that has more bass quality like that.
When I listen to music, I don't listen to bass, mids and highs but I rather listen to violins, cellos, pianos, human voices, drums, saxophones, guitars... To me, it is more important to get those instruments (or male and female voices) sound right than the tonal balance or the size of the soundstage.
So far, from the dozens of sigma delta dac and cd players I have listen to, I haven't found one that does it in a convincing matter. It obviously doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but I just said that I didn't came across one at a reasonable price. Among the commercial brands I listened to recently are Audiomat, 3DLab, Marantz, Atoll, Cambridge... and none of them gave me a reason to replace my current DAC with one of those. But that is just a personal opinion. There a few DACs that I would like to audition such as the Ayre QB-9. The Ayre uses an elaborate minimum phase filter which is said to be an improvement over more conventional, linear phase filters.

Among the DACs you cited, there is the Naim DAC which happens to use the same PCM1704uk as the dac19. Pacha listened to both the Naim (with $1000+ Stealth power cord if my memory is correct) and to the dac19dsp at my place. He probaly can give you an answer if you are curious to know how they compare. 

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

DAC19 DSP just arrived in the mail.

Any preliminary impressions?

 

[regal]

Quote:

 Personally, I wouldn't spend more than $300 for the DLIII given the components and the technology being used inside. But that is just my personal opinion.

I agree 100%,  the tone/timber of the DLII was just way off,  luckily I was able to send mine back for a refund.  The AudioGD is leagues ahead of the DLIII,  hell my 20 year old AudioAlchemy was better than the DLIII.
 
Slim and I have had a few disagreements but one thing I got to say is he has great ears and doesn't BS.