[project86]

That's good advise from Brunk. Essentially you are trying to overcome a fairly severe level of jitter. Hope it works for you. 

 

[boatheelmusic]

Check AE settings (join network vs extend), etc.

 

[Sid-Fi]

I just got a brand new pair of Hifiman HE400 in from HeadRoom. Holy cow do they sing with the Yulong DA8 through the integrated amp! And that is right out of the box with zero of the suggested 150 hours for burn in. I know many of you have already commented on the synergy, but wow am I impressed. They sound so alive and organic. The bass extends fantastic and has such great texture and body. I am also very surprised how good they do with micro detail and all of the small ambient sounds. They sound so clear. They really show the blackness of background that the DA8s amazing USB and DAC offer up. I remember hearing the HE 5LE and LCD Rev 1 on many different amps but can't remember them sounding this good.

I was so surprised at how well they seem to be driven that I double checked the power impedance of the cans and power output of the Da8 integrated amp. It looks like the headphones are 32 ohm so I take it they are seeing about a full watt from the amp based on the power output numbers published on Grant Fidelity. Would I be stretching much to say that the He 400 wouldn't be benefitting all that much from a dedicated amp like the A18 or A28 single or Nuforce UDH 100 price range? Since the HE 400 are so sensitive it's hard to picture them needing much more power. One other thing that was a pleasant surprise was the stock cable. It seemed to be much nicer than I was expecting, in fact, I wonder if it is the same version that came included back when Project86 reviewed them. It is pretty flexible at least as much as my Moon Audio cable and seems much better quality than other stock cables like the HD 650 ones for that matter.

Prior to getting these in I have been using my tried and true HD 650 with Moon Audio Silver Dragon V3. I have really heard these sing with the right tube amp like the WA22 i used to have and have always loved them, but using the DA8 amp there is no comparison at all. I don't have a dedicated amp anymore but am already tempted to sell of the HD 650 and keep the DA8 HE 800 combo and forget another amp for the time being. Especially since I'm looking for the most cost effective setup possibility these days due to a recent move and job changes.

Edit: my lovely wife reminded me to point out that the HE 400 were an unsolicited Valentines gift hehe. For those of you with a significant other, don't forget it's a not a bad thing to leave all your head-Fi windows up on your iPad from time to time...

 

[Angelbelow]

congrats ^^
 
I was pleased with the DA8 integrated amp as well, even with the HE500s. Lovely pairing.

 

[r1000]

thank's guys...
 
did all that. Big buffers where already activated. I rebooted everything and it seems to have settled a bit. Next up, I will get a better Toslink cable with higher bandwidth maybe that will help. I had the older AP (first gen.) which has better jitter specs but it didn't perform noticably better than the newer one. Also, with my second DAC (the excellent Beresford 7350) I also got some "artifacts", i.e. squeaky sounds here and there which probably indicate some high jitter going on.
 
Sorry for hijacking this thread !
 
Best.
 
PS. I still love the DA8 

 especially when feed through USB

 

[pila405]

Did any third party conduct tests to validate the given\declared specifications of the D/A converter?

 

[xored]

Hi guys, I am considering to buy this dac for a secondary system
 
Is the Yulong DA8 able to upsample PCM to DSD256 or DSD512 in foobar2000?

 

[brunk]

  Did any third party conduct tests to validate the given\declared specifications of the D/A converter?

The measurement graphs with an $8k oscilloscope isn't enough?

 

[DarKen23]

 
Did any third party conduct tests to validate the given\declared specifications of the D/A converter?

The measurement graphs with an $8k oscilloscope isn't enough?

LOL

 

[pila405]

  The measurement graphs with an $8k oscilloscope isn't enough?

Fair enough....
My mistake.

 

[Elder]

  Hi guys, I am considering to buy this dac for a secondary system
 
Is the Yulong DA8 able to upsample PCM to DSD256 or DSD512 in foobar2000?

The foo_dsd_asio proxy is able to upsample PCM to DSD256 and DSD512 but you will need a reasonably powerful computer. My computer has a Core I7 processor and is able to upsample to these rates without hitting 100% CPU use, however I got bad results with DSD256 and DSD512.
My DA8 has a faulty DSD switch (I am shipping it back for replacement). May be the bad results were caused by this faulty switch.
This switch is a circuit inside the DAC. A noise like a white noise appears wandering from left to right channel when the DAC is very hot. A similar noise appeared when playing DSD512 even when the DAC was cold.

 

[xored]

Thanks for your reply. Maybe you could report back after you get a new set?

 

[Esprit]

Is the Yulong DA8 able to upsample PCM to DSD256 or DSD512 in foobar2000?

The chip isn't able to reproduce DSD512

 

[xored]

But it is stated in the the specifications that it could support

 

[Elder]

  The chip isn't able to reproduce DSD512

Where did you get this info from?
 
I only found this information from the ESS site: http://www.esstech.com/PDF/ES9018%20ES9012%20Product%20Brief.pdf
May be a more detailed datasheet could confirm your statement.
 
The digital interface is able to receive streams of up to 1.536MHz / 32 bits. This is enough bandwidth for DSD512 and more.
 
DSD512 = 22.5792 MHz/1 bit = 0.7056 MHz/32 bits (705.6 kHz/32 bits).
 
Just doing a simple math, it could even be able to play DSD1024 = 1.4112 MHz/32 bits.
 
All the above sampling rates based on 44.1 kHz.
 
For 48 kHz we would have:
 
DSD512 = 24.576 MHz/1bit = 0.768 Mhz/32 bits (768 kHz/32 bits)
DSD1024 = 1.536 MHz/32 bits - the chip limit.
 
I was able to play PCM upsampled to DSD512. It was not good, but it played. If it was not able to play DSD512 it would no play it at all.