[terrymx]

Disclaimer: This sort of a small review for fun. The measurements do not tell the whole story about actual performance and how the devices will actually sound.

So I went to test all of the sources that I currently use. Every source is connected to the Emu-1212M input for the test, exception of one. Among them are:
Chaintech AV-710
E-MU 1212M
Archos 604 Wifi (DAP)
Sony D-NE1 (PCDP)


Chaintech AV-710 Wolfson Dac's Line Out
I think this lineout is converting everything it output to 24/96 only (?) and I'm using 44.1 for the test. In any case the results look very good. I’m not sure why, but when I tried the trick “to have it output in the black jack and still using 2channels mode” versus the “hi-sampling mode”, the former method gets a very slight improvement, and consistently by a few retests. Perhaps the former method omits one process of software resampling by the driver?




E-MU 1212M
Nothing much more to say about this card that hasn’t been said lately.




Archos 604 WIFI
Pretty hideous frequencies line, I can only conclude they did it on purpose to compliment the mass market, to help improve responses for the cheaper headphones and exaggerating the music, you could definitely see the boosted upper bass. The dock’s rca line out are even worse, only making 80db in dynamic range. I did have to leave the volume at 93/99 since anymore would add a large increase in distortion. Although to my ears this device sound pretty acceptable.




Sony D-NE1
The results are a testimony to just how good this pcdp is and I remain treasuring it even with the popularity of digital devices today. It looked like I accidently set the recording on 32bit mode on this one, not sure if that messed things up, but its higher than 16bits output so shouldn't be a problem.

 

[adanac061]

I always test all my equipment with rmaa , cables amps soundcards .

I look for THD and dynamic range .

How did you test the pcdp??

 

[terrymx]

i had to burn two seperate cds, one for the calibration tone, which have to set the pcdp to play on repeats ofcourse. and one for the test signals itself.

 

[Joshatdot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by terrymx /img/forum/go_quote.gif i had to burn two seperate cds, one for the calibration tone, which have to set the pcdp to play on repeats ofcourse. and one for the test signals itself.

don't you mean 2 seperate tracks?

 

[terrymx]

Two seperate audio cds. My D-ne1 can't read files labeled as wav. If I burn the calibration file in the same audio cd as the test file, then I cannot set the cd player to play the calibration file repeatly because the cd player has limited function and can only play the entire cd repeatly and not the specific track. Since I need to play the calibration file repeatly to set the right volume for the test to start.

With a dap its much easier since it can play wav files and I can put the two files in a different folder.