[derbigpr]

So, today I had a chance to audition the UD-H01 with my DT880's 600 Ohm. Man oh man does this thing sound good. Excellent DAC nad headphone output, and sounds amazing with DT880's, perfect match I'd say. I compared it directly to Cambridge Audio DACMagic Plus in the store.  IMHO, DacMagic is not even in the same league. At least on DT880's, Teac sounds so much better. So much fuller, faster, soundstage is bigger, etc.
I first tested both out of their own headphone outputs. Both were able to run the DT880's, but Teac is vastly superior.  It's got more power, more authority, the sound is cleaner,  more detailed, smoother, more controlled, etc. Its just a more "hi-fi" experience.  CA was able to run the DT880's to comfortably loud level, I usually would not listen to music that loud, but it could have more headroom for some slightly lower in volume recordings. But DT880's clearly were not getting all the "juice" they needed out of the CA. There was loudness, but the bass was weak, extension bad, highs harsh, soundstage small, and overall sound was muddy and uncontrolled compared to Teac. Also volume control on CA freaking sucks, whoever came up with that idea in CA should be fired. It takes 5 seconds to turn it up or down, my hand was hurting from all the twisting. Why not just use a normal volume knob, why this digital crap with such slow response?
 
Teac's headphone output is clearly superior, there is more power and more volume, actually more than enough. Again, it needs to be turned pretty high up, to about 2-3 oclock to get it loud, but even when its at full 5 o'clock, its completely silent, no hissing, no distortion. It also feels like there's exponential gain in the knob, up to 12 o'clock nothing happens, then it starts to get louder and louder for same knob turning increments. Sound is perfectly controlled and clear all the time, great match for DT880's. But again, I would have wished for slightly more gain out of the amp. I don't know why, its probably just psychological, because I would almost never listen to music as loud as it is when Teac is turned all the way up, but I have more confidence when I have some more headroom in terms of volume.
 
I also used by Little Dot Mk5 as amp and both devices as DAC's.  Again, Teac was superior to CA in all the ways mentioned before. It just sound nicer, CA was actually pretty disappointing, considering it costs almost twice as much as the Teac.
 
Also, Teac's headphone output sounds nicer than Little Dot Mk5, but Mk5 has got more power.  For example, Teac at max. volume produces same loudness as Mk5 would at about 80%. But sound is better, and there's no hissing, which there is on the Mk5 when turning it above 70%.
 
So to conclude, Teac is extraordinary value for money, and contrary to my expectation, it's not just a DAC with a silly headphone output, it's actually got a very good headphone amp. If it can run DT880's 600Ohm well, then it can do that with any dynamic headphone.
 
 
However, I still need to try out the Asus Xonar Essene One. Has anyone had a chance to compare the two units, or heard both maybe?

 

[dnm]

  I had a chance to play more with the DAC yesterday. 
 
PC side of things.
Installed the USB drivers on my Win7 x64 and used the latest stable foobar2000 to play some lossless staff from my library. Noticed a little problem: if a song is paused in foobar and then resumed I can only hear white noise (might be a foobar problem). If you stop a song and then play it again it is fine. Played some 24bit 96kHz files over USB and they sound very good. Used the DSP  plugin in foobar to re-sample to 192kHz 24bit  to prove that the USB input will be working and it is also fine. Used XBMC to play some films and it is very good. 
 
Headphone output.
Tried the headphone output with grado sr80 and it sounds bright to me. Very strange. I must say they are 10 years old, but still. 
My new shiny HD650 are not bright at all. Highs are very good, not harsh, but very precise. Mids are balanced, but not into-your-face. Mid bass is not good. Low bass is also there, but somehow too far away. The overall presentation is a bit muddy and distant at times. I attribute all this to the fact that HD650 (or maybe my brains if you prefer) need burn in. 
 
Line out
 I used NAD 320BEE and KEF Q5 speakers to test the line out and the sound is very good. 
The main difference to other sources is highs. They are very high res, gentle and nice. 

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

  I had a chance to play more with the DAC yesterday. 
 
PC side of things.
Installed the USB drivers on my Win7 x64 and used the latest stable foobar2000 to play some lossless staff from my library. Noticed a little problem: if a song is paused in foobar and then resumed I can only hear white noise (might be a foobar problem). If you stop a song and then play it again it is fine. Played some 24bit 96kHz files over USB and they sound very good. Used the DSP  plugin in foobar to re-sample to 192kHz 24bit  to prove that the USB input will be working and it is also fine. Used XBMC to play some films and it is very good. 
 
Headphone output.
Tried the headphone output with grado sr80 and it sounds bright to me. Very strange. I must say they are 10 years old, but still. 
My new shiny HD650 are not bright at all. Highs are very good, not harsh, but very precise. Mids are balanced, but not into-your-face. Mid bass is not good. Low bass is also there, but somehow too far away. The overall presentation is a bit muddy and distant at times. I attribute all this to the fact that HD650 (or maybe my brains if you prefer) need burn in. 
 
Line out
 I used NAD 320BEE and KEF Q5 speakers to test the line out and the sound is very good. 
The main difference to other sources is highs. They are very high res, gentle and nice. 

 
 
 
Did you try plugging your HD650's into the NAD and using it as headphone amp while Teac only acts as a DAC?

 

[dnm]

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Did you try plugging your HD650's into the NAD and using it as headphone amp while Teac only acts as a DAC?

 
Good point!
I will try it tonight. 

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

 
Good point!
I will try it tonight. 

I'd really like to know how NAD headphone output compares to UD-H01 output in terms of power and sound quality.

 

[dnm]

Quote:

I'd really like to know how NAD headphone output compares to UD-H01 output in terms of power and sound quality.

 OK. So I switched to the NAD headphone output. 
 
For my ears the difference is clear and present. Bass is a tighter in general and more pronounced. Mid bass is present and sounds better. Soundstage is more open. But! I like NAD signature and own NAD products for almost 20 years. So it may be my ears. But I could not stop listening, it was very good! 
 
 In terms of power NAD's volume nob only needs to be at about 9 o'clock to make HD650 loud enough for me. At 12 o'clock it is still no signs of distortion, but it is alreadyt way too loud for me.
 
So my conclusion is: as a DAC it is superb, as a headphone amp it is average (no bad by any means).

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

 OK. So I switched to the NAD headphone output. 
 
For my ears the difference is clear and present. Bass is a tighter in general and more pronounced. Mid bass is present and sounds better. Soundstage is more open. But! I like NAD signature and own NAD products for almost 20 years. So it may be my ears. But I could not stop listening, it was very good! 
 
 In terms of power NAD's volume nob only needs to be at about 9 o'clock to make HD650 loud enough for me. At 12 o'clock it is still no signs of distortion, but it is alreadyt way too loud for me.
 
So my conclusion is: as a DAC it is superb, as a headphone amp it is average (no bad by any means).

 
 
So you actually like the NAD's headphone output more than the Teac's? How about that, another proof that integrated amp have good headphone outputs for high impedance cans.

 

[dnm]

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So you actually like the NAD's headphone output more than the Teac's? How about that, another proof that integrated amp have good headphone outputs for high impedance cans.

  I did more comparisons between TEAC and NAD headphone out with TEAC working as a DAC. I also replaced the cables going from TEAC to NAD with hifi quality cables I used with my CD player. 
 
    Used mostly jazz music and some new age-ish stuff. 
   The most striking difference is the reproduction of drums: NAD does that a lot better! NAD sounds supple, quick and natural. TEAC sounds indecisive, if not to say weak. (this is very perceivable on instrumental jazz tracks, guitar+drums type) Mid low sounds are better pronounced and separated from other sounds on NAD as well (on acoustic guitar + electric bass  + drums tracks ).  Mids also a tiny bit warmer with the NAD.  As I said before that might be very subjective, because  my brains have been burnt in by NADs! 
 
    BTW my new HD650 gradually showing their strengths. I am almost sold on burn-in being real! 

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

  I did more comparisons between TEAC and NAD headphone out with TEAC working as a DAC. I also replaced the cables going from TEAC to NAD with hifi quality cables I used with my CD player. 
 
    Used mostly jazz music and some new age-ish stuff. 
   The most striking difference is the reproduction of drums: NAD does that a lot better! NAD sounds supple, quick and natural. TEAC sounds indecisive, if not to say weak. (this is very perceivable on instrumental jazz tracks, guitar+drums type) Mid low sounds are better pronounced and separated from other sounds on NAD as well (on acoustic guitar + electric bass  + drums tracks ).  Mids also a tiny bit warmer with the NAD.  As I said before that might be very subjective, because  my brains have been burnt in by NADs! 
 
    BTW my new HD650 gradually showing their strengths. I am almost sold on burn-in being real! 

 
As I assumed, NAD output is better. I'm glad you find it being better than the dedicated head amp in the Teac, because I found the C355 better than Teac's output as well on my DT880 600 Ohm.  The most obvious difference being the soundstage size, which is much bigger on the NAD.

 

[niranhopper]

I tried my Teac with the HD800 and i am impressed with what i hear. The teac holds back the treble and this goes well with the HD800. I have owned the Dacmagic Plus before and find the Teac a much better match with the HD800. The Dacmagic Plus sounds like a volume control fitted on the line out and is extremely neutral (which is their drawback when powering bright headphones). There is a perceived lack of sounstage with the Teac but this is because of tighter highs.

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

I tried my Teac with the HD800 and i am impressed with what i hear. The teac holds back the treble and this goes well with the HD800. I have owned the Dacmagic Plus before and find the Teac a much better match with the HD800. The Dacmagic Plus sounds like a volume control fitted on the line out and is extremely neutral (which is their drawback when powering bright headphones). There is a perceived lack of sounstage with the Teac but this is because of tighter highs.

 
 
I agree about Teac going well with bright headphones, I find it perfect with DT880's.  But I didn't experiance smaller soundstage compared with Dac magic, it was the oposite for me, soundstage really opened up with the Teac compared to DacMagic. How far do you have to turn the volume knob on the Teac with HD800's to get it very loud, and can you turn it to full and still listen to it, without distortion?

 

[niranhopper]

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I agree about Teac going well with bright headphones, I find it perfect with DT880's.  But I didn't experiance smaller soundstage compared with Dac magic, it was the oposite for me, soundstage really opened up with the Teac compared to DacMagic. How far do you have to turn the volume knob on the Teac with HD800's to get it very loud, and can you turn it to full and still listen to it, without distortion?

 
Hi. The HD800 inherently has a massive soundstage and the differece in soundstage is minimal between the two DACs. Actually i prefer the Teac over the DacMagic Plus. Regarding volume, i have not gone past the half mark yet. Mostly stick between 9 to 12 o clock position.The volume knob feels a bit cheap but fuctionally it work fine. My biggest complaint is that the DAC doesnt work on Ubuntu. So have to use a USB/Coaxial converter (FIIO E10) in the chain.  Have some HD600s on the way and will leave some impressions soon.  

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

 
Hi. The HD800 inherently has a massive soundstage and the differece in soundstage is minimal between the two DACs. Actually i prefer the Teac over the DacMagic Plus. Regarding volume, i have not gone past the half mark yet. Mostly stick between 9 to 12 o clock position.The volume knob feels a bit cheap but fuctionally it work fine. My biggest complaint is that the DAC doesnt work on Ubuntu. So have to use a USB/Coaxial converter (FIIO E10) in the chain.  Have some HD600s on the way and will leave some impressions soon.  

 
That is interesting, it seems then that DT880's are quite a bit harder to drive loud. I found the volume on DT880's to be pretty silent up to 10-11 o'clock position, I mean, very little volume change up to that point. After that it started to wake up and go up exponentially in loudness. For comfortably loud, I'd have to go to 3 o'clock, and at max 5 o'clock its extremely loud on majority of recordings, but not quite loud enough on some more silent ones. However, I still don't think its the maximum output that DT880s can give out in terms of volume, because there's still not a single hint of distortion even on bass heavy electronic music on max. volume, sound seemed "rock solid" so to speak. Maybe it was about 105 db.
Anyway, more than enough volume in 99% of situations and sound quality is excellent for the price of the DAC and amp.
 
One great thing though, today, or tomorrow I should get my Asus Xonar Essence One for a 8 day trail, so I'll take it to the other store where I tried the Teac to compare the two. I especially wonder the amps compare. Pretty sure the DAC in Teac is far superior, since the one in the E1 is beaten even by Asus's own cheaper cards ST/STX and HDAV.

 

[dnm]

 I have used UD-H01 paired with HD650 for about a week now. Last few days I left them running for many hours with an endless mixed playlist to burn them both in.  In my late evening listening session yesterday I have noticed that at the (subjectively) same volume level the drums on TEAC have improved and now close to the NAD reproduction. The TEAC was very warm at the time of listening. 
  I also solved the clicking problem. I checked the properties of the TEAC sound device in windows and found that the format of the shared output was set to 44.1kHz / 24bit  (although the "exclusive" checkbox was checked) and in foobar (wasapi) the output was set to 44.1kHz / 16 bit. Making them match solved the problem of clicking. I assume what happened was that when the current track was stopped or paused foobar was releasing the resources to the system and change the sampling parameters. In case they match this only happens when I watch films with  48kHz soundtrack through wasapi output of xbmc, no problems with direct sound because it re-samples to the output. 
  Still I have this white noise (or silence) problem when foobar resumes after pause, which is annoying, but I think it is a foobar problem and I might report it later.

 

[derbigpr]

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Have you tried using it without wasapi in foobar?  Maybe that will solve it. I had a lot of problems with ASIO and Wasapi when using my Musical Fidelity M1DAC, but without both, it was all fine. And I never actually noticed any difference in sound quality either (and apparently there should be no difference, at least in Win 7)