Storm Digital D02 - has its quality come into question?

[Superpredator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal A slight hum in a $500 DAC? You can do better for $100, DO2A's were'nt the only scam. Of course you won't hear about till all the DO2's are dumped on unsuspecting purchasers.

I've noticed your opinions are usually pretty informed, but I don't see how this one could be. Since the purpose of this thread was to gather information, I would ask that you keep it free of non-empirical opinion. If there happens to be some weight behind that theory of yours, glad to hear it. If not, please don't post it in this thread.

 

[Patu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chesebert strange how these sentiments change in such a short time period

What has changed? I still think it was a very good DAC.

 

[Superpredator]

Well, I've had the opportunity to audition a D02, and the results are less than good.

I ran into two main problems:

1) There are periodic background pops that vary between faint and quite audible. Sometimes they either go away or are too faint to hear over the music, though I have done some testing with DVD movie audio as well as medical transcription audio and the pops are quite easy to hear.

Pops were heard running Foobar (DirectSound, DirectSound 2.0, waveout, Kernal Streaming, all at 41k, at both 16bit & 32bit) to coax (both a Blue Jeans & a SignalCable) out of my Revolution into the DAC and via two sets of RCA cables (Blue Jeans & SignalCable) onto two amps (Darkvoice 336i & Corda Aria) and one receiver (Onkyo R1).

There is also the occassional faint crackle that will come and go, but I don't want to pin this on the D02 since I did not listen for it extensively.


2) I put the D02 through about ten cycles of drain battery / recharge in AC+charge mode / then drain again. After the first three I came home, powered up my amp and found that the D02 was spitting out a high level of distortion in both channels. It sounded bloody awful. I changed amps and got the same result. Powering down, unplugging the power cable, then plugging it back in made the distortion go away, though on the fourth cycle when I tried this the distortion remained, albiet less intensely.

I noticed that the case was getting extremely hot for solid state (in my limited experience, at least). There is ventilation on the bottom of the unit, but none on the top over the heatsinks. So I removed the lid of the case and ran six more cycles this way, and aside from the very rare bit of crackly snow (could have been tube-related) the D02 hasn't gone into distortion mode again.


I am not sure what to make of all this. When I had the lid off I listened to the inside of the case and noted that there are faint ticks that seem to come from the back PCB. If I had to guess I would say they are coming from the heatsinks, but it's difficult to pinpoint. I can't be sure, of course, but the ticks seem to come in roughly the same frequency as the pops I mentioned in problem one. I am not sure if there is some kind of implemenation issue wt work here. I have exactly zero expertise with the inner workings of electronics.

To be thorough, tonight I will run a CDP into the D02 and see if I can reproduce the pops.

Going back to the DAC-AH (Pacific Valve mod M1, with circuit error) is really hard to do. It sounds like a toy in comparison to the D02. A toy that clips actually. It took me a while to determine how much I liked the synergy between the D02, 336i and K340, but it had an amazing mid-to-low-end weight that I just don't think is there with the AH. The AH had an easier-to-listen-to, slightly more natural sound (minus the clipping, of course, which I now find completely unbearable) and was better rounded for different types of music, but the D02 really gave the K340 liftoff. Highs had a slight sibilant edge to them at times and with certain music I think the D02 was a tad cold for the warmth-loving K340, but other than that I was in heaven.


Well, back to work...

 

[LeChuck]

Quote:

1) There are periodic background pops that vary between faint and quite audible. Sometimes they either go away or are too faint to hear over the music, though I have done some testing with DVD movie audio as well as medical transcription audio and the pops are quite easy to hear. Pops were heard running Foobar (DirectSound, DirectSound 2.0, waveout, Kernal Streaming, all at 41k, at both 16bit & 32bit) to coax (both a Blue Jeans & a SignalCable) out of my Revolution into the DAC and via two sets of RCA cables (Blue Jeans & SignalCable) onto two amps (Darkvoice 336i & Corda Aria) and one receiver (Onkyo R1).

I am experiencing this exact same issue. As in your case, I have found that in some recordings the D02 exhibits almost no audible pops at all, while in others the pops are so audible it makes the music unlistenable. I have found that solo piano music brings out the worst of these pops, particularly Richard Goode's recordings of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas.

Maybe we can work together to figure out what's behind this?

 

[fran]

I remember reading here somewhere about turning down the input into a DAC cos the too-high-input was causing the distortion. Input sensitivity perhaps?

try turning down the input and see do the clicks go away maybe?

Fran

 

[Superpredator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fran I remember reading here somewhere about turning down the input into a DAC cos the too-high-input was causing the distortion. Input sensitivity perhaps? try turning down the input and see do the clicks go away maybe? Fran

I will try this tonight as well.

 

[LeChuck]

How do you attenuate a coaxial signal? Isn't it going to be 75ohms no matter what?

 

[rincewind]

superpredator has misquoted me. He asked me if it was a safe purchase a second hand D02 which the seller said had some issues, to which I said flat-out "No", simply because the seller said it had some issues. Even if the unit was reported to be working perfectly, I would recommend listening to any unit that isn't from a BIG name brand and wasn't from a reputable seller or a friend I knew.

He then said he was interested in the DAC more as a piece of history that may increase in value, or a 'collector's item,' to which I responded in that case it's completely up to him.

 

[akwok]

The D02 that LeChuck has is mine. Of course, I'm giving him back a full refund, but I just want to see why it's broken -- the only transport I have used with it is a Squeezebox, but I'm not sure why Foobar + Audiophile USB / PC Link would be any different than the coax out of the Squeezebox. Too bad I sold the Squeezebox otherwise I would send it over to LeChuck to test out; the last time I used the D02 was with the ES-1/OII and it was flawless.

I guess it crapped out during shipping? Who knows.. I packed it very, very well though (because I was afraid of something like this happening). I even filled the inside of the DAC with foam to make sure it would arrive okay.

 

[Meyvn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal A slight hum in a $500 DAC? You can do better for $100, DO2A's were'nt the only scam. Of course you won't hear about till all the DO2's are dumped on unsuspecting purchasers.

The hum is not in the audio signal at ALL. It's a physical hum that the unit gives off. Big difference.

 

[Superpredator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rincewind superpredator has misquoted me. He asked me if it was a safe purchase a second hand D02 which the seller said had some issues, to which I said flat-out "No", simply because the seller said it had some issues. Even if the unit was reported to be working perfectly, I would recommend listening to any unit that isn't from a BIG name brand and wasn't from a reputable seller or a friend I knew. He then said he was interested in the DAC more as a piece of history that may increase in value, or a 'collector's item,' to which I responded in that case it's completely up to him.

I actually didn't quote you at all. I said this: "I also got a lot of helpful information from rincewind and, in the end, felt pretty confident that the D02 (on the used market) is a fairly safe buy." If I implied that you said the D02 was a safe buy, I apologize. The information you initially gave me was that you believed that your D02 arrived damaged somehow, and was prone to damage when shipped over long distances. You said that you believed that the issues you had with the D02 were a direct result of this shipping damage. Since I was having one shipped from Jersey to Philadelphia, I felt pretty safe in that regard.

The issue that the seller disclosed was a hum he noticed coming from the transformer when the unit was charging. In what little "research" I was able to do, this hum and other issues did not seem connected, and more people than not had positive things to say about the D02. So I deemed it a safe buy. I was probably wrong.

I did say that I was interested in the Storm as a collector's item, or as a rare piece of audio equipment, but I never said I was looking for it to "increase in value." You should be more careful when you quote people. The one I bought sat on the FS board for several weeks without getting much interest; I had no illusions that it was or would ever be in high demand. If I were interested in it maintaining a high value I would not have posted a thread questioning its quality.

Lastly, I did say that I was willing to take some risk in order to get a combination rare/bargain DAC that performed higher than its price point. But I never said that I would knowingly buy one with issues that affected the sound.

 

[Towert7]

Thanks for your impressions Superpredator, as it's so hard to find impressions on the D02 from other owners.

Sorry to hear things didn't work out for you with the poping noises. That would drive me up the wall!

 

[Towert7]

Yea, looking at those pictures again hosted by Patu, I now see why I said the soldering was god awful on the D02.
Check this out:
http://www.saunalahti.fi/tuolaaks/Ku...02/Inside2.jpg

There's parts were the solder is really sparse, sometimes looking like it's not even touching the wire. I see burn marks on the PCB right along traces. Some of the soldering itself looks like he left the iron on WAY to long. I'm not surprised if half the components on the thing were damaged to begin with.

This was the main warning for me, when I saw the internal pictures.

 

[Patu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Towert7 Yea, looking at those pictures again hosted by Patu, I now see why I said the soldering was god awful on the D02.

I still think that it looks very clean and well done inside but I'm just a newbie when it comes to soldering. So I won't start arguing with you.

 

[rincewind]

OK. Well whatever was implied or outright stated by me or you, I made the idea of buyer-beware VERY clear, as we can only assume Storm is defunct/Ken is dead/insert-whatever-reason-makes-us-feel-better-here. I would never buy any product with no support from the maker (unless it was a generic product that any other technician could fix too) and that was the sole reason I recommended against it. And as we can see now, you're having to futz around with a non-properly functioning box, something I was hoping to avert.