larsjuhljensen
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2014
- Posts
- 34
- Likes
- 17
Out of curiosity, I recently bought a Chromecast Audio, which seems like a very useful gadget if the audio quality is up to par. To test this out, and as research before possibly buying new gear, I tried the following audio chains:
I did all tests with music streamed from Spotify at the highest possible bitrate (obviously listening to the same set of songs for all chains). I know some may frown on this, but I find myself completely unable to distinguish between high-bitrate lossy compression and lossless compression. In blind ABX tests, my performance is no better than flipping a coin.
The first thing to notice is that neither the Chromecast Audio nor the Xperia Z3 Compact has the power to satisfactorily drive the beyerdynamic DT-990s or the AKG K7XXs. Whereas both sources are able to reach my typical listing volume (which is not very loud), the headphones sound clearly under-amped. Plugging the headphones directly into the FiiO D03K is an even worse idea; it is a DAC, not an amp, and if you abuse it as the latter, it sounds just as terrible as you should expect.
To make a sensible comparison of the quality of the source components, I thus have to introduce some amps into the mix that are able to properly drive the headphone in question. Since I most often listen to the beyerdynamic DT-990s via a FiiO E12 and the AKG K7XXs via a Schiit Magni 2, these were the combinations I went with.
I found myself unable to tell the difference between Chromecast Audio -> FiiO D03K and the Xperia Z3 Compact when they are used via the same amp. Listening on AKG K7XXs via Schiit Modi-2, I found both sources to fall short in the low-frequency range. Listening on beyerdynamic DT-990s via FiiO E12, both sounded more to my liking but still identical to each other. This suggests to me that the cheap FiiO D03K is of comparable quality to one of the better DACs found in cell phones. Also, both sources appear to have a slightly bright sound signature. To my ears this goes poorly well with the Schiit Magni 2 and AKG K7XXs, whereas it is somewhat compensated by the bass boost of the DT-990s.
Connecting the Chromecast Audio directly to either amp sounded clearly worse to me, although by no means bad. Everything just sounded a bit less well-defined and the noise floor became noticeable to me in quiet parts of the music. The FiiO D03K and Xperia Z3 Compact thus both appear to be considerably better than the DAC in the Chromecast Audio; alternatively, the analog signal from the Chromecast Audio DAC is deteriorated by the built-in amp.
The best sounding chain at my disposal is still the PC -> Modi 2 -> Schiit Magni 2 -> AKG K7XX, which brings back the bass that earlier had gone missing. I attribute this improvement to the Schiit Modi 2, since I used the same amp and headphones in other chains, and since it should make no difference if the digital decoding of compressed audio to PCM is done by a PC, an Android phone, or a Chromecast device. I would of course have liked to verify this by connecting either the Chromecast Audio or the Xperia Z3 Compact to the Schiit Modi 2. However, this was not possible since the DAC does not have optical input and the USB port on the phone cannot provide the required power.
My conclusions:
- Chromecast Audio -> beyerdynamic DT-990
- Chromecast Audio -> FiiO D03K -> beyerdynamic DT-990
- Xperia Z3 Compact -> beyerdynamic DT-990
- Chromecast Audio -> AKG K7XX
- Chromecast Audio -> FiiO D03K -> AKG K7XX
- Xperia Z3 Compact -> AKG K7XX
- Chromecast Audio -> FiiO E12 -> beyerdynamic DT-990
- Chromecast Audio -> FiiO D03K -> FiiO E12 -> beyerdynamic DT-990
- Xperia Z3 Compact -> FiiO E12 -> beyerdynamic DT-990
- Chromecast Audio -> Schiit Magni 2 -> AKG K7XX
- Chromecast Audio -> FiiO D03K -> Schiit Magni 2 -> AKG K7XX
- Xperia Z3 Compact -> Schiit Magni 2 -> AKG K7XX
- PC -> Schiit Modi 2 -> Schiit Magni 2 -> AKG K7XX
I did all tests with music streamed from Spotify at the highest possible bitrate (obviously listening to the same set of songs for all chains). I know some may frown on this, but I find myself completely unable to distinguish between high-bitrate lossy compression and lossless compression. In blind ABX tests, my performance is no better than flipping a coin.
The first thing to notice is that neither the Chromecast Audio nor the Xperia Z3 Compact has the power to satisfactorily drive the beyerdynamic DT-990s or the AKG K7XXs. Whereas both sources are able to reach my typical listing volume (which is not very loud), the headphones sound clearly under-amped. Plugging the headphones directly into the FiiO D03K is an even worse idea; it is a DAC, not an amp, and if you abuse it as the latter, it sounds just as terrible as you should expect.
To make a sensible comparison of the quality of the source components, I thus have to introduce some amps into the mix that are able to properly drive the headphone in question. Since I most often listen to the beyerdynamic DT-990s via a FiiO E12 and the AKG K7XXs via a Schiit Magni 2, these were the combinations I went with.
I found myself unable to tell the difference between Chromecast Audio -> FiiO D03K and the Xperia Z3 Compact when they are used via the same amp. Listening on AKG K7XXs via Schiit Modi-2, I found both sources to fall short in the low-frequency range. Listening on beyerdynamic DT-990s via FiiO E12, both sounded more to my liking but still identical to each other. This suggests to me that the cheap FiiO D03K is of comparable quality to one of the better DACs found in cell phones. Also, both sources appear to have a slightly bright sound signature. To my ears this goes poorly well with the Schiit Magni 2 and AKG K7XXs, whereas it is somewhat compensated by the bass boost of the DT-990s.
Connecting the Chromecast Audio directly to either amp sounded clearly worse to me, although by no means bad. Everything just sounded a bit less well-defined and the noise floor became noticeable to me in quiet parts of the music. The FiiO D03K and Xperia Z3 Compact thus both appear to be considerably better than the DAC in the Chromecast Audio; alternatively, the analog signal from the Chromecast Audio DAC is deteriorated by the built-in amp.
The best sounding chain at my disposal is still the PC -> Modi 2 -> Schiit Magni 2 -> AKG K7XX, which brings back the bass that earlier had gone missing. I attribute this improvement to the Schiit Modi 2, since I used the same amp and headphones in other chains, and since it should make no difference if the digital decoding of compressed audio to PCM is done by a PC, an Android phone, or a Chromecast device. I would of course have liked to verify this by connecting either the Chromecast Audio or the Xperia Z3 Compact to the Schiit Modi 2. However, this was not possible since the DAC does not have optical input and the USB port on the phone cannot provide the required power.
My conclusions:
- Chromecast Audio is clearly the worst analog source in this comparison, but it is fine as a digital source (i.e. use the optical out)
- To my ears, the FiiO D03K and Xperia Z3 Compact are equally good analog sources
- The Schiit Modi-2 sounds noticeably better than the rest; I mainly hear the difference in the low-frequency range
