TEAC UD-H01 USB DAC

[derbigpr]

Anyway, good news. I was called a few moments ago to come and pick up my Asus Xonar Essence One.  Wooo....today I'll test it on its own, and tomorrow I'll go and do a thorough head to head against Teac UD-H01 to see which is better. To be honest, I hope Teac is better, because Asus costs almost twice as much (800 vs 500$), but if Asus sounds better, I know my wallet wont stop me from spending that extra 300.

 

[audionewbi]

Quote:

Anyway, good news. I was called a few moments ago to come and pick up my Asus Xonar Essence One.  Wooo....today I'll test it on its own, and tomorrow I'll go and do a thorough head to head against Teac UD-H01 to see which is better. To be honest, I hope Teac is better, because Asus costs almost twice as much (800 vs 500$), but if Asus sounds better, I know my wallet wont stop me from spending that extra 300.

wow 800 USD? essence one is not 800, I have found it in my area for 400 AUD! I really hope that is not 800 USD, if it is just ask for a refund! 

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

wow 800 USD? essence one is not 800, I have found it in my area for 400 AUD! I really hope that is not 800 USD, if it is just ask for a refund! 

 
 
Yep, its between 700 and 800$ in Croatia. And what sucks is that its sold by a huge company that has like 50 stores all over the country, and you can't discuss any discounts with them.  While Teac UD-H01 usually goes for 550$, but I can get it for 400$ with a discount.
 
Anyway,  Xonar has arrived. Holy freaking crap this thing is heavy. It feels like a brick. Very very very very well made. I wish the volume knobs were metal, but they feel good, nice and weighty, not cheap at all.  They're also stepped, but very small steps.
 
Initial impressions are the same as everyone elses who's used it.  Its a bass heavy, in a good way, but everything else is unimpressive. I'm gonna just say that right now, without more than 30 minutes of working time.

 

[dnm]

Quote:

 
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)

 
 Yes, this problem only related to wasapi output. 
  I actually prefer wasapi (or asio) output because it changes the output rate depending on the rate of the playing track. Direct sound re-samples everything to one output sample rate and it is not always good and I don't want to switch it manually for some 96 or 192kHz recordings in my collection . It is possible to upsample everything to the 192kHz and the send it to the dac, but then it consumes CPU cycles and most of the time will not gain anything. 

 

[derbigpr]

Pfff....been listening to Essence One for about 3 hours now,  very unimpressive with DT880's. Not enough juice at all, not loud enough for comfortable listening even on full volume on most music, apart from new stuff thats recorded with lots of loudness.  From what I remember, Teac sounded better, and had more power. Tomorrow I'll compare them and let you guys know if Teac is better, but from what I remember it is.

 

[dnm]

Quote:

 
 
Yep, its between 700 and 800$ in Croatia. And what sucks is that its sold by a huge company that has like 50 stores all over the country, and you can't discuss any discounts with them.  While Teac UD-H01 usually goes for 550$, but I can get it for 400$ with a discount.
 
Anyway,  Xonar has arrived. Holy freaking crap this thing is heavy. It feels like a brick. Very very very very well made. I wish the volume knobs were metal, but they feel good, nice and weighty, not cheap at all.  They're also stepped, but very small steps.
 
Initial impressions are the same as everyone elses who's used it.  Its a bass heavy, in a good way, but everything else is unimpressive. I'm gonna just say that right now, without more than 30 minutes of working time.

In the UK you can buy Essence one from about  £350 (about $560 ),  price for UD-H01 was about £300 (about $480) until very recent, but currently it is on sale for £150 (about $240), dacmagic plus is £350($560).  Teac was considered to be a bargain for £300. 
 
 Yesterday late in the evening I've spent an hour listening to various [size=small]Focal-JMLab [/size][size=small] [/size]test recordings and it was a total joy!
Many tracks I have never really liked before now shined in a different light. I had to use all my will power to force myself to go to bed ! 
 
 All in all, Teac looks like a little gem to keep! 

 

[dnm]

 So how was Xonar compared to Teac at the end? 

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

 So how was Xonar compared to Teac at the end? 

 
I don't know, they're about the same to me in terms of headphone amp, in other words, none could power the DT880's very well, but at least Teac was pretty loud, while with Asus I couldn't even get a decent listening volume. Overall I liked the Teac more. Essence One is too dark sounding...kinda veiled.  But both were bested by Onkyo A-5VL integrated speaker amp / DAC.  Loads of power from headphone out, excellent sound, dual 24/192 burr brown pcm1796 DAC's,  looks amazing, its built extremely well, has a remote,  plenty of power for speakers, etc.  It costs less than Teac or Asus, and at the same time makes them look like toys, and sounds better. That's why I chose to buy it.

 

[dnm]

Quote:

 So how was Xonar compared to Teac at the end? 

 
I don't know, they're about the same to me in terms of headphone amp, in other words, none could power the DT880's very well, but at least Teac was pretty loud, while with Asus I couldn't even get a decent listening volume. Overall I liked the Teac more. Essence One is too dark sounding...kinda veiled.  But both were bested by Onkyo A-5VL integrated speaker amp / DAC.  Loads of power from headphone out, excellent sound, dual 24/192 burr brown pcm1796 DAC's,  looks amazing, its built extremely well, has a remote,  plenty of power for speakers, etc.  It costs less than Teac or Asus, and at the same time makes them look like toys, and sounds better. That's why I chose to buy it.

Oh, onkyo is a totally different animal! It does not have a USB input and it is an integrated amp AFAIK. But maybe it has a special synergy with dt880.

Sent from my GT-P6800 using Tapatalk 2

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

Oh, onkyo is a totally different animal! It does not have a USB input and it is an integrated amp AFAIK. But maybe it has a special synergy with dt880.
Sent from my GT-P6800 using Tapatalk 2

Yea it only has coax and optical inputs. But it works excellent with all headphones I've tried. And it has more power than any headphone amp I've ever tried, by far. It's also a completely silent amp, no noise or hissing even at max volume when nothing is playing, even though I could never go past 50% with dt880's.

 

[kouk]

I use UD-H01 from my Win 7 64-bit desktop via USB, but I experience that while playing, the device disappears from the Windows device manager without obvious reason. I need to switch it off and on again, then it will be recognised again.  I have noticed that this happens in most cases (e.g. while in internet e.g. utube or internet radio, or when using Foobar2000) BUT it does not happen when I play games (3-4hours per week) or in very rare cases, i.e. there is no standard pattern.
 
I use TEAC USB driver and I have configured Windows not to turn off any USB hub device to save power, to no avail. When reproducing from Foobar I have tried all possible options (DS, WASAPI and ASIO4all) with the same problems. I have been unable to use KS as this does not work.
 
Could it be that the DAC is deficient? What is the mode that you use when using PC-USB?

 

[dnm]

Quote:

I use UD-H01 from my Win 7 64-bit desktop via USB, but I experience that while playing, the device disappears from the Windows device manager without obvious reason. I need to switch it off and on again, then it will be recognised again.  I have noticed that this happens in most cases (e.g. while in internet e.g. utube or internet radio, or when using Foobar2000) BUT it does not happen when I play games (3-4hours per week) or in very rare cases, i.e. there is no standard pattern.
 
I use TEAC USB driver and I have configured Windows not to turn off any USB hub device to save power, to no avail. When reproducing from Foobar I have tried all possible options (DS, WASAPI and ASIO4all) with the same problems. I have been unable to use KS as this does not work.
 
Could it be that the DAC is deficient? What is the mode that you use when using PC-USB?

 
 Oh... I also use Win7 x64 and do not have this problem. 
 
Try the following:
- Uninstall the driver completely by righclicking on the device in the device manager. 
- Disconnect the USB cable.
- Reboot.
- Then download the package from here: http://www.teac.eu/hifi-audio/reference-series/h-01/ud-h01/
- Unpack and Install the package.
- Reboot. 
- connect the cable. 
- check that the driver is installed properly 
 
There is another thing.
My Teac is not the default sound device in windows, because it is used only for foobar and xbmc. Both use wasapi exclusive, so there is no sharing of the device whatsoever. Maybe sharing/mixing is not working well with this driver. 
 
 Also try another USB cable.

 

[Hooster]

Hi, can this Teac dac be used as a pre amp? By that I mean, is the line level output, XLR and phono, on the rear of the unit fixed, or is it controlled by the volume control on the front of the unit?  Therefore it could be connected directly to a power amplifier that itself has no volume control? Thanks.

 

[mmeysarosh]

The rear outputs are fixed and the volume knob in the from controls the headphone amplifier.

 

[kouk]

Quote:

 
 Oh... I also use Win7 x64 and do not have this problem. 
 
Try the following:
- Uninstall the driver completely by righclicking on the device in the device manager. 
- Disconnect the USB cable.
- Reboot.
- Then download the package from here: http://www.teac.eu/hifi-audio/reference-series/h-01/ud-h01/
- Unpack and Install the package.
- Reboot. 
- connect the cable. 
- check that the driver is installed properly 
 
There is another thing.
My Teac is not the default sound device in windows, because it is used only for foobar and xbmc. Both use wasapi exclusive, so there is no sharing of the device whatsoever. Maybe sharing/mixing is not working well with this driver. 
 
 Also try another USB cable.

 
 
I have tried another USB cable, another USB port, have reinstalled-even removed my sound card drivers, have reinstalled the DAC drivers, to no avail.
 
I still have the disconnection issue with all player applications in any mode (Foobar and JRiver with ASIO, WASAPI), but also with browsers (probably DirectSound?). The solution is to power down and then power up again (so the USB device is found again by Windows) the DAC. Sometimes the disconnections are very frequent (every minute) some others are more rare (every 20-30 minutes or so) 
 
What has made me not call the Support so far is that I never had disconnection issues with PC games. I am still puzzled by this, but then again, I rarely ever play any games at all.. I hava decided to return the device for inspection asap.