Teac Reference Line UD-501 USB DAC "DSD"

[buson160man]

Quote:

buson160man, You may want to rethink this decision. I have had the HA-501 for a month and find it to be revelatory compared to my modest Musical Fidelity XCan V3s and Fiio E09K amps? I'm no reviewer but the differences are not subtle with the HA-501 exuding velvet tonality and more palpable transients. The selectable damping factor feature is great for us who have several sets of cans and want a simple approach for matching the output impedance of each can. I own the HE500, HD650, K701, Shure SRH940 & SE535. I live in the NYC area and would be willing to lend you the amp (provided that you live in the area) to see what you think of it.

 I unfortunately do not have the scratch for both units at present. But after pairing the dac with my ray samuels raptor using my new cable pro power cable and using my preferred akg 701 phones I am just amazed at the spacial reproduction from the 701s. it is just amazing how the akg 701 just keeps getting better and better sounding in a way that none of my other phones respond to changes in  my system  including the audeze lcd2v2. The longer I own this amazing headphone the more I respect its combination of attributes.

 

[buson160man]

  Well I finally tried this dac balanced . I have hooked it up to my desk top rig emotive airmotiv 5 powered monitors. I had some reservations about how it would work with the monitors without a preamp. Using it with the attenuators on the airmotiv 5s it is surprising me. It actually is working pretty good although adjusting the volume is a bit of a pain having to judge the volume  setting for both speakers to match them. It is easier with a preamp. But it does work. I sense a more dynamic presentation with bigger sound sans the preamp section. My airmotiv5s seem to play a lot louder for a given position on the airmotiv 5s attenuators.  Boy can the airmotiv 5s play loud now. The dac is more powerful sounding from its balanced outputs compared to the single ended outputs.
  Well back to watching Netflix I imagine the balanced outputs will flesh in some as I use them so further comments will be forthcoming about its balanced presentation.

 

[lmf22]

Just got TEAC UD-501. Sounds pretty good so far (less than 50 hour burn in). I like non-upsampling and filters off. It is non-fatiguing and has a good bass and treble extension. A great value at $850. The construction is much better than I expected.
 
Is it ok to leave the unit on at all times? My main concern is the life of the OLED display (I heard that OLED have a much shorter lifespan compared to LCD displays). I suppose I could always turn the display off, but then it looks weird with a black square on the face plate.
 
Anyone tried DSD64 upsampling with the new JRiver 19?  It sounds smoother and fuller than non-upsampling, but not sure if it actually "better." 

 

[buson160man]

 Well about two days ago I hooked up the teac  directly to my emotive airmotiv 5 active monitors with balanced cables. I had been curious of how the dac sounds via its balanced outputs after reading that it sounded better that way. Due to the emotivas volume control you have a way to adjust the volume. It is a bit of a pain having to adjust each speaker individually but it does work.
  Well I fired it up and stated to watch some movies on Netflix. The difference was anything but subtle. Wow was my initial reaction. The emotivas play a lot louder now of course that is the result of the higher output voltage you usually get from balanced drive. The dynamics are just amazing now. The difference between the single ended outputs and the balanced output from the teac is huge.
  You simply have not heard what this unit can do till you hear it via its balanced outputs. I have compared it to my decco 2 and it just smokes the decco 2. I even tried the decco 2 via its single ended outputs directly from the line out jacks on the decco 2 using the airmotiv 5s volume controls. it was no contest.
  Frankly I am finding balanced drive from the teac a game changer in my set up. The teac sounds so much better than my decco2 that it is going to be hard going back to the peachtree. I am actually thinking about trading my decco 2 in on the bryston balnced headphone amp. Which I never had considered or even thought of doing before I heard the teac via its balanced outputs.
  If anyone is looking for a good usb dac to use with their emotive airmotiv monitors this is a good one. But you must go balanced on the outputs and use the emotivas volume controls to adjust  the volume.
  If I do get the bryston it is going to be interesting to see how the teac dac will sound in all balanced set up via headphones or via my emotive stealth 8 powered monitors in my living room set up.

 

[flaco]

What is the output impedance of the headphone out ? 
 
Thanks in advance!

 

[storrgie]

I wanted to report in on the TEAC UD-501.

I just got this unit to test it out with Linux and MPD. I have been using MPD for years and really love the audio listening paradigm it supports.

In short, this DAC seems to have some problems with USB and Linux. You can get it to play out of the box, but (on pcm) when you change sampling frequencies it borks up and has to be stopped/started again. As for DSD there is a loud pop at the beginning of each track, you can also avoid this by stopping/starting (Stop the last track before it ends then start the next track... quite manual).

I'm posting to hear from anyone who might have experienced this and found a fix for their issues. Here is a gist with some of by information for debugging purposes:

https://gist.github.com/storrgie/6389526

 

[CybDev]

I wanted to report in on the TEAC UD-501.


I just got this unit to test it out with Linux and MPD. I have been using MPD for years and really love the audio listening paradigm it supports.


In short, this DAC seems to have some problems with USB and Linux. You can get it to play out of the box, but (on pcm) when you change sampling frequencies it borks up and has to be stopped/started again. As for DSD there is a loud pop at the beginning of each track, you can also avoid this by stopping/starting (Stop the last track before it ends then start the next track... quite manual).


I'm posting to hear from anyone who might have experienced this and found a fix for their issues. Here is a gist with some of by information for debugging purposes:

https://gist.github.com/storrgie/6389526

Nice! I tried quite a few DAC's for linux/mpd as well, and several exhibited the same symptoms as you refer to.
I did not have a chance to demo the UD-501 tho

 

[storrgie]

Overall I'm not very happy though. I would like a consistent playback between songs. Frequently I'll be listening to 44khz content and want to hear a song that I only have in 88.2Khz. It sounds like everything is coming through a 100 foot pvc tube with an orchestra of farts playing at the same time.
 
I'll probably return this if I can't find someone who is aware of a solution within a couple days.
 

 

[CybDev]

Yeah I returned the Lynx Hilo for that exact reason... Benchmark DAC2 works perfectly tho, except about a second or so silence while switching sample rate.

 

[storrgie]

Trying it now on a Fedora 19 box (my laptop)... everything seems to work without issues. I'll listen for another 3 or 4 hours and hopefully not hear an issue.
 
I really would love to jump to the Benchmark or the Mytek but the TEAC is literally half their cost.

 

[CybDev]

Yeah I couldn't get my hands on a Teac... MyTek Stereo192(preamp version) suffers from same issues btw.

 

[koiloco]

Hey guys,
 
I just got a new taboo MKIII amp and havin some problem with it when playin DSD through the TEAC usin TEAC DSD player.  Some people over in the taboo thread suggested that it's a DAC / software issue so I thought I would post here and see if any TEAC owners happen to have a taboo MKIII that can confirm/verify this with me.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/655788/the-decware-taboo-mk-111-appreciation-thread/1320#post_9783781
 
Rememer, this is playing DSD files through USB, directly to the TEAC's DSD processor, not through PCM.  (display on TEAC should say DSD on bottom left).
 
Thx.

 

[Stealer]

Think is more like a media player setup issue.
 
Don't have a taboo amp..
but my Teac UD501 Is playing beautifully with LD mk 6+ via JRMC...
 
rgds

 

[DoctorHeadz]

  Hey guys,
 
I just got a new taboo MKIII amp and havin some problem with it when playin DSD through the TEAC usin TEAC DSD player.  Some people over in the taboo thread suggested that it's a DAC / software issue so I thought I would post here and see if any TEAC owners happen to have a taboo MKIII that can confirm/verify this with me.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/655788/the-decware-taboo-mk-111-appreciation-thread/1320#post_9783781
 
Rememer, this is playing DSD files through USB, directly to the TEAC's DSD processor, not through PCM.  (display on TEAC should say DSD on bottom left).
 
Thx.

Hi. some problems with older version of player. Use last 1.0.5

 

[koiloco]

  Hi. some problems with older version of player. Use last 1.0.5

I tried this last nite but it didn't help.  I also try different players like Jriver, foobar to play the same DSD files in native DSD mode but they all had exactly same issue.