552388
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2014
- Posts
- 41
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This is a little DAC with Headphone Amps. It draw my attention because it is an entry-level DSD DAC and the price is really good, $299, very impressive. But getting the unit costs me some time. It has a really long out of stock on Amazon, and what’s more, I find its big brother which named Serenade Pro which aims at Pro Audio market by its mother company. After I figure out all the things clearly, I dare to get one. Below is my review for this unit, I believe it worth mentioning here.
Below is 2 similiar links, but actual one product, quite confusing when I did research on this item
http://www.supremepiano.com/product/serenade.html
http://www.hdta.info/product/serenade.html
Build: Looks like another size of iMac mini which I do not like, also the worksmanship is not quite good compared with my other DACs. Not an amazing looking, this may stop some potential customers
Testing: Connect it to PC is really simple, and driver installed very quickly. I use Sennheiser HD800 Beyerdynamic DT990(32ohm) and AKG 240DF to test it while I have a dynaudio monitor as the speaker system. And compared it to iFi Micro iDSD, PS Audio Nuwave
Native DSD playback is the main selling point for this little beast. That’s true, it can native playback all my DSD files. And to my surprise, it can also play my DSD256 and DSD512 files without any issue. And then test it with DXD and 384 KHz, still no problem.
Sounds: When I first hear its sound, it surprises me. Because as my experience, entry-level DAC should focus on the flavor of the sound, But Serenade always keeps a clear, clean and balanced sound. But the drawback is that it does not have too much flavor. The dynamic of serenade impress me again. It can stand when the level is loud while remaining detail when the soft passage coming. In some vintage classic recording, sometimes we can hear a lot details, this detail can precisely represent on serenade without a doubt, while other entry-level DACs, like iFi, are often ignored. After I compared it with PS Nuwave. I conclude it has the bone of a hi-end sound, only lack some "blood and meat" to make it sounds fuller.
The 300mv Headphone Amps is another big selling point. It does not have too much power as other gears on the market, the only thing can let it stands out is the sound quality. The most impressive point is it has a very clear sound field feeling with clean sound, the channel separation is so good on this small unit. You can clear hear the reverb tail of the sound and the frequency balance is really good as RCA outputs. The only weak point is when you use some600ohm headphones; the bass is not concentrate enough, lacks of power when the volume is loud.
Features:
Serenade has not many features as we often see on DAC, no balanced outputs, only RCA outputs… Although this can be explained by it is designed for portable usage, I have to point out this point. And also it lacks digital inputs; USB input is the only input way. The feature that interested me most is the software it bundled; they claimed “The Native Combination of Hardware and Software”. Their software is provided as VST which were often seen on professional audio market. I am not too much interested in effect such as EQ, dynamics and so. But I have to say serenade did a very good job here, for I can not hear out it has EQ, but the sound got better in some ways. Their software is really useful for headphone users like me. With their headphone mix, I can hear some depth for the sound field on my headphones, very interesting. And their preamp software will let you hear much more details. I can not say more, but will strongly recommend you to try their software.
Conclusion
At $299, if you want DSD and sound quality, serenade is there. And the included DSP make it more playful so you can have many sounds.
