Teac UD-701N Discrete DAC / Network / HP Amp / Preamp

[bulbousblues1]

In a nutshell, the Pontus is much better than the 701. I find the 701 thin sounding compared to the weight of notes coming from the Pontus.

In direct comparison when running my Audioengine HD6 active speakers off the 701 vs. the Pontus, the Pontus wins hands down in music excitement, midrange, and treble. Notes are simply weightier, and fuller. Soundstage in immense. Vocals more forward; there's also better detail retrieval. Where on "might" debate, it bass. On the Pontus, the bass is more rolled, whereas on the 701 they're sharper, but the Pontus hits harder.

Now I'm not claiming the HD6s are premium speakers, they're not, but I'm 99.999 sure no matter the speakers, the Pontus is still going to sound better. That said, it may also depend on what you want in sound as the 701 is more neutral and sterile sounding than the smoother warm sounding Pontus.

This is not to say the 701's DAC section is bad; I thought it was a great pairing with my speakers.... until I heard them on the Pontus.

Anyway, I never got the 701 for the DAC, I'd already had the Pontus and my headphone amp. I got it for the VRDS CD player since VRDS intrigued me, and I'm extremely happy in that regards. So why didn't I just get the cheaper 701T (Transport only) - because I was given an opportunity to get 701 (new) for the price of the 701T.

Don't get me wrong the 701 is a great all-in-one unit and sounds really good - but it's not the Pontus where DAC v DAC is concerned. One other thing to note… the head amp does NOT pair well with the likes of the 300 Ohm Sennheiser HD800 S phones. Not enough power – sure the volume will get plenty loud as you crank, you just get no weight.

My two cents.

Thanks... That's what I expected. You helped me make up my mind. Ill probably just get the transport version.

 

[sygnus21]

Thanks... That's what I expected. You helped me make up my mind. Ill probably just get the transport version.

Yeah, that was my intention had I not fell into the deal I got.

Again, the 701 with DAC/Pre-amp isn't bad it's just not on an R2R DAC's (Pontus) sound level if that's what you're after.

Good luck.

 

[Belialspawn]

Received my UD-507 last night (early self Christmas Present), I went to download the AISO drivers and Manual and spotted this little beauty snuck into the product page. I saw a prototype in a (Japanese) interview being talked about at the start of the year, but great to see it actually made it to production! seems to be 1500~2k

https://teac.jp/int/product/ha-507/feature

 

[mb3]

Received this last week. Straight out of the box it sounds great. Slapping bass. Well defined stereo image. Nice sense of air. Source is Roon hosted on a nuc over Ethernet. Driving Atc speakers. Amazing how easy it is to use and how good it sounds. Listening to pink Martin joy to the work. China Forbes and co are in good excellent form.

What’s interesting is that this doesn’t measure too well but it sounds great. To my ears it’s preferable to the a26, d90 or even qutest. D90 has excellent resolution but sounds flat and fatiguing. Chord sounds good and has a holographic effect, but the teac has a better stereo image and deeper, more defined bass. For headphones it’s good with sensitive headphones. Sounds decent with lcd4, no good for susvara.

It’s like a baby Bartok in a way, in terms of ease of use, sound quality and features. Build quality is outstanding. Definitely worth a listen. It’s one of those dacs I liked right away.

 

[Ben86]

Has anyone tried Teac UD-507 new dac/amp with any headphones? There are almost 0 reviews

 

[SolarCetacean]

Has anyone tried Teac UD-507 new dac/amp with any headphones? There are almost 0 reviews

See the previous page in this thread: I wrote a comparison there.

 

[Belialspawn]

Has anyone tried Teac UD-507 new dac/amp with any headphones? There are almost 0 reviews

I've had mine for about 2 weeks, been using it with Fostex 909 and its the best ive heard them. I found Medium Gain is the sweet spot for running it, 15/100 at low listening levels they have impressive bass and clarity. Turn it up to 30 for listening sessions and its a party in your head. I tried various upscaling and DSD/MQA through it, they work fine.
I have no complaints other then i should have bought it in silver, i will probably sell it and buy the new HA-507 amplifier (in sliver) as i think that's where the magic happens and then pair it with something standalone (i dont need all the extra features it offers, streaming, pre-amps etc). Wandla/Wavelight/Cyan2.

I tried it with CA-1a ~75/100 powers it well with head-room, tried it with more standard headphones Eris, SR2 and they all sound full.

 

[sygnus21]

Has anyone tried Teac UD-507 new dac/amp with any headphones? There are almost 0 reviews

What headphones cause that makes a difference in my book.

Anyway, I don't have the UD-507, but I do have the both the UD-503, and Teac VRDS 701, and in "my" opinion, open backs like the Sennheiser HD800 S don't sound all that great there, and you will find yourself wanting more. I did post on this in the next post just below @SolarCetacean, UD-507 post.

 

[sygnus21]

Received my UD-507 last night (early self Christmas Present), I went to download the AISO drivers and Manual and spotted this little beauty snuck into the product page. I saw a prototype in a (Japanese) interview being talked about at the start of the year, but great to see it actually made it to production! seems to be 1500~2k

https://teac.jp/int/product/ha-507/feature

First time I'm seeing this. Would love to see some reviews on it.

 

[Ben86]

I don't see any thread for the UD-507 but it's been mentioned a few times here, so I'll post my impressions in this thread. I received the 507 this past weekend and I've been listening to it as well as doing comparisons vs the other DACs in my collection: the Ferrum Erco Gen 2 and the FiiO K9 Pro AKM.


On the physical and useability aspects of the 507, I like its design, even the handles (which the manual states are decorative and should not be used to lift the unit). The volume knob is very nice to use. It's smooth, not stepped, even though the volume control is digitized to operate in 0.5 dB steps. The feel is smooth but there's some amount of pleasant resistance so that there's more precision to the turn and it doesn't rubberband when you stop turning it. Think of cutting butter that's been refrigerated but has been out of the fridge for like 10 minutes. Not hard to cut, but it still offers some amount of smooth resistance. The display can show volume both in a 0-100 scale or in dBFS, both of which are nice for remembering what level you usually listen at vs an analog potentiometer. Channel balance adjustment is available too, though I have not used it.

I like the front-mounted USB-C port and I've been using it for connecting my Walkman. Connecting the Erco to the Walkman was always awkward because I had to pass the USB cable under or around the side of the unit. Funnily, the Walkman sees the 507 as "MODEL_NAME", so maybe something isn't set right in the USB firmware. However, on Windows it's detected as a TEAC USB Device, so maybe it's something odd with how the Walkman handles things. The remote is also handy and simple to use.

The 507 also comes with a proper paper manual! No dinky cardboard quick-start guide or QR Code. It's a full manual (for English, French, and Spanish) in a paper booklet in something like A4 paper size.


Sound comparisons are done with default settings on all devices: No Upconversion, DSD conversion, or Active Ground headphone connections on the TEAC and all sound settings at their defaults. On the K9 Pro, the Fast Linear-phase filter was used. The Erco vs UD-507 comparison was done with the X9000 driven by a CCS-modded Stax SRM-006tS. The K9 Pro vs 507 comparison was done with the Sony MDR-Z1R through the 4.4mm connections on both devices.

UD-507 vs Erco Gen 2:
In general, the 507 has more note body, less note impact, slightly "looser" treble, smoother sibilants, and larger spatial images for each instrument which can result in a sense of reduced frontal depth to the soundstage. The Erco Gen 2 has smaller images for each sound which results in more spaciousness, more impact to notes with less sustain/body, and a more "focused" treble. A whole bunch of things are tied to the treble differences. The Erco "focuses" treble like the treble energy of each note is more concentrated in time vs on the 507 which spreads that energy out over a slightly longer period of time. This gives the Erco sharper and punchier transients and contributes to a sense of greater clarity and "cleaner" treble, but it also contributes to more sharpness on sibilants and a drier or raspier sound to vocals where the throat/breath sounds are more prominent. The 507's treble is a bit hazier in comparison, but it also has a nice airy character. It reminds me of the difference in treble between the SR-X9000 and the Shangri-La Jr, actually, and I love both headphones.

One example of the treble difference would be during the drop of "Love Is A Highway" by Nurko and Neriah. It's an EDM track with vocals and some acoustic instruments, and during the drop starting at 1:39, there's an electronic drum that comes in after each kick drum note that goes "Tok!" on the Erco. On the 507, that drum sounds more like "Tchok!" The leading edge is slightly smoothed out and doesn't have as sharp of an impact but also has more sustain. Another example in the same song is at 0:39 when she sings "guess my love is a highway" and the H in highway sounds harder (like in the linguistics sense) on the Erco vs the 507 where the sounds of the air moving through the throat are more pronounced for a moment.

The combination of more precise imaging, sharper/focused treble, and more impact makes the Erco sound more spacious, cleaner, and more dynamic. Sort of "technical" sound focused on detail and holography. But the sibilance and sharpness are also noticeable and can sometimes distract from the music. The 507 is smoother, has more body and "thump" for bass notes, and presents a more integrated sense of soundstage where notes are larger and more diffuse. For the X9000 in particular, I like the 507's more cohesive soundstage as I find that the X9000 can offer a bit too much spatial separation between notes. The Erco leans into that separation aspect while the 507 dials it down.

UD-507 vs K9 Pro AKM:
The TEAC and the FiiO are actually closer to each other than either of the two are to the Erco. Both have the slightly smoother approach to transients vs the clean, focused, punchy sound of the Erco. However, this is also where the 507 represents a clear upgrade vs the K9 Pro. I'd say that the midranges and imaging/staging of the two are nearly identical. However, the K9 is noticeably sharper and more sibilant compared to the 507 and there is noticeably less bass in general. Less bass impact and less bass body, so switching from the 507 to the K9 makes it seem like the sound became thinner and harsher. I don't want to overstate the differences; everything that you can hear on the TEAC can also be heard on the FiiO, but not with the same balance. Sibilant notes stand out a bit more on the K9 and can be more distracting, while I have to focus harder to fully hear all of the bass notes while on the 507 they stand out more in the sound and are easier to follow. Thus for bass, the TEAC sounds a bit more textured than the K9 Pro.

Of course, keep in mind that the UD-507 is literally 3x the price of the K9 Pro AKM. While the 507 is noticeably smoother and richer than the K9, it's not a huge difference in the grand scheme of things. The 507 is more feature-complete and flexible, easier to use, and better-built though in addition to sounding better, so I think it's still worth it even outside of pure sound quality.

I'll also note that for several generations TEAC used AKM chipsets for their devices. The 507's direct predecessor (505-X) used ESS chips, but that was due to the AKM chip shortage from the factory fire. It would seem that TEAC's own DAC would be designed to have the sort of sound that they aimed for when using AKM chips.

Features:
There are so many features on the 507 that it's time-consuming to compare them all. The upconversion settings for PCM seem to slightly smoothen the sound which is nice for tracks that are kind of spicy in the upper treble. DSD seems to be the biggest DAC-level change. It makes each sound image slightly larger, softens the upper treble (in addition to what upconversion does), and adds a bit more body to each note vs the default multi-bit mode. Once in DSD mode, there are 4 different filter options. No filter and FIR 1 seem to image things closer while FIR 2 (the default) and FIR 3 give me a bit more forward depth. I haven't determined more nuanced differences yet. There are also 3 settings for the rate at which the DAC runs, with the default at 512x Fs (the base rate of 44.1KHz or 48KHz) and lower options of 256x and 128x. I got the sense that the lower options make the upper treble a bit grainier, so I kept it at 512x, but the changes were so small that I'm not confident if they were even there.

For headphone listening, I really like the Active Ground option. It's available on the balanced connectors and it sacrifices the increased voltage swing of differential drive for an alternate circuit that turns the negative pins of the balanced connector into separate ground pins for each channel that are actively driven to ground. It supposed to counteract both power supply noise and any momentary voltage drift of the ground during transients. I find that it makes the sound more dynamic and punchier vs the default Balanced option. It helps make up the difference in impact between the 507 and the Erco. Nicely, the volume level doesn't change when switching between them as long as you're not at volume levels above what Active Ground support.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the UD-507. It's the perfect fit for my living room setup with its smoother and richer sound, convenient connectivity, good looks, pleasant user experience, and plentiful tweaking options.

Thank You that is the only ud-507 review on head-fi. Couldn't find any reviews on Youtube or Google, so this review is extremelemy hellpful

 

[SolarCetacean]

Thank You that is the only ud-507 review on head-fi. Couldn't find any reviews on Youtube or Google, so this review is extremelemy hellpful

Thanks! There's one thing to add to that review and it's about the Active Ground option that I mentioned in the last paragraph. The changes that I mentioned apply to the Z1R, which is a relatively easy to drive headphone. For something like the Hifiman Sundara, I prefer Balanced output instead because I found that the Sundara sounded a bit lighter but snappier when using Active Ground vs thumpier and punchier on Balanced. The added power of balanced output seems better for harder-to-drive headphones.

 

[Ben86]

Thanks! There's one thing to add to that review and it's about the Active Ground option that I mentioned in the last paragraph. The changes that I mentioned apply to the Z1R, which is a relatively easy to drive headphone. For something like the Hifiman Sundara, I prefer Balanced output instead because I found that the Sundara sounded a bit lighter but snappier when using Active Ground vs thumpier and punchier on Balanced. The added power of balanced output seems better for harder-to-drive headphones.

I'm considering buying this teac ud-507 for my LCD-X, Focal and HD650 headphones. I'm still deciding between this model and the Audio GD R-28 mk3. The worst thing is that there are no sound comparisons beetween these two. it's also extremely difficult to find any detailed reviews of at least one of them, as I understand they are not very popular. Have you ever listened to Audio GD desktop gear? As far as I understand, the Teac UD-507 is a 1-bit dac, and the R-28 is an R2R dac. It's very interesting for me how their sound signatures differ, since I don't have the opportunity to listen to any of them before buying.

 

[SolarCetacean]

I'm considering buying this teac ud-507 for my LCD-X, Focal and HD650 headphones. I'm still deciding between this model and the Audio GD R-28 mk3. The worst thing is that there are no sound comparisons beetween these two. it's also extremely difficult to find any detailed reviews of at least one of them, as I understand they are not very popular. Have you ever listened to Audio GD desktop gear? As far as I understand, the Teac UD-507 is a 1-bit dac, and the R-28 is an R2R dac. It's very interesting for me how their sound signatures differ, since I don't have the opportunity to listen to any of them before buying.

Unfortunately, I have not listened to anything from Audio-GD.

 

[mb3]

So

I'm considering buying this teac ud-507 for my LCD-X, Focal and HD650 headphones. I'm still deciding between this model and the Audio GD R-28 mk3. The worst thing is that there are no sound comparisons beetween these two. it's also extremely difficult to find any detailed reviews of at least one of them, as I understand they are not very popular. Have you ever listened to Audio GD desktop gear? As far as I understand, the Teac UD-507 is a 1-bit dac, and the R-28 is an R2R dac. It's very interesting for me how their sound signatures differ, since I don't have the opportunity to listen to any of them before buying.

So to me the Teac 701N sounds sounds great with Senn 650s and Focal Stellia. Great synergy. With the 701N its helpful to have the ethernet input. The dac is really good. The amp is good to a point. Nice full sound, precise and wide stereo image. Works well with dynamic headphones. Unfortunately I can't comment directly about the 507 or Audio GD.

 

[itsnein]

Teac 701N sounds sounds great

yes, it's great device. If it drive your headphone could solve all tasks. The only drawback for me - full-size body.
I would buy 701 in a body of 50x series 507 - not an option, as it does not have Ethernet input.