[canuckaudioguy]

Hello everyone,
 
I picked up this DAC today because there was a killer boxing day special on it. It was on sale for $160 CDN! I could not resist and after reading the many thoughts here in this thread and reviews elsewhere I figured it would be worth getting, especially at the price.
 
First of all I have had no issues with the drivers. It sounds like there were some kinks when it was first released, but for me zero issues thus far. I did have an issue getting the PC to recognize the DAC at first, but that was my fault in that I plugged the DAC into the PC first before installing the drivers. If you happen to do this, all you need to do is unplug the DAC from the PC and plug it into another USB port after installing the drivers. Once I did that, Windows recognized the DAC and it worked.
 
I have put about 2 hours on it so far as of writing. My set-up consists of my PC, The Teac UD-H01, a Sansui AU-555a, Audeze LCD-2s for headphones and Celestion Ditton 66s for loudspeakers. Before purchasing this DAC I have been using the DAC on the motherboard of my PC, using a 3.5mm headphone cable to RCA. It sounded pretty damn good, good enough I was a little hesitant in wanting to buy a DAC. Not that I haven't had a nice DAC before, but it has been a while and the nice sound of the PC on its own threw me off. Anyway, the Teac is a major improvement over the PC. A lot clearer sounding with much more detail. It surprised me how much more open sounding the DAC is over the PC. The treble was a big improvement as well, and it really made the LCD-2s wake up.
 
So far I have tried the LCD-2s through the headphone output on the DAC itself and through the Sansui. The output of the DAC is a bit on the lower side, but I can turn the volume up enough to get it a reasonable listening volume. I find the Teac headphone output is a little brash sounding, with a touch of sibilance. But, it is enjoyable and smooth and is fairly detailed. The LCD-2s are forgiving but are demanding of their source and amplification and for a DAC at its price to have a more than decent headphone output is a bonus in my opinion.
 
Overall my first impressions are really positive. The only thing I am not liking so far is the slightly relaxed nature of the DAC, but I wonder if that is my mood or something in the combination. I do find as I am listening to it, the DAC is getting more and more lively. Perhaps it needs some more break-in time, so I am going to leave it at that and I'll report back once I have had more time on it. For $160, I am very impressed. Excellent sound.

 

[willyvlyminck]

Hello everyone,

I picked up this DAC today because there was a killer boxing day special on it. It was on sale for $160 CDN! I could not resist and after reading the many thoughts here in this thread and reviews elsewhere I figured it would be worth getting, especially at the price.

First of all I have had no issues with the drivers. It sounds like there were some kinks when it was first released, but for me zero issues thus far. I did have an issue getting the PC to recognize the DAC at first, but that was my fault in that I plugged the DAC into the PC first before installing the drivers. If you happen to do this, all you need to do is unplug the DAC from the PC and plug it into another USB port after installing the drivers. Once I did that, Windows recognized the DAC and it worked.

I have put about 2 hours on it so far as of writing. My set-up consists of my PC, The Teac UD-H01, a Sansui AU-555a, Audeze LCD-2s for headphones and Celestion Ditton 66s for loudspeakers. Before purchasing this DAC I have been using the DAC on the motherboard of my PC, using a 3.5mm headphone cable to RCA. It sounded pretty damn good, good enough I was a little hesitant in wanting to buy a DAC. Not that I haven't had a nice DAC before, but it has been a while and the nice sound of the PC on its own threw me off. Anyway, the Teac is a major improvement over the PC. A lot clearer sounding with much more detail. It surprised me how much more open sounding the DAC is over the PC. The treble was a big improvement as well, and it really made the LCD-2s wake up.

So far I have tried the LCD-2s through the headphone output on the DAC itself and through the Sansui. The output of the DAC is a bit on the lower side, but I can turn the volume up enough to get it a reasonable listening volume. I find the Teac headphone output is a little brash sounding, with a touch of sibilance. But, it is enjoyable and smooth and is fairly detailed. The LCD-2s are forgiving but are demanding of their source and amplification and for a DAC at its price to have a more than decent headphone output is a bonus in my opinion.

Overall my first impressions are really positive. The only thing I am not liking so far is the slightly relaxed nature of the DAC, but I wonder if that is my mood or something in the combination. I do find as I am listening to it, the DAC is getting more and more lively. Perhaps it needs some more break-in time, so I am going to leave it at that and I'll report back once I have had more time on it. For $160, I am very impressed. Excellent sound.

It is really good even at it's original price considering that there are pocket dacs of the same price but not as good.

 

[i luvmusic 2]

  Hello everyone,
 
I picked up this DAC today because there was a killer boxing day special on it. It was on sale for $160 CDN! I could not resist and after reading the many thoughts here in this thread and reviews elsewhere I figured it would be worth getting, especially at the price.
 
First of all I have had no issues with the drivers. It sounds like there were some kinks when it was first released, but for me zero issues thus far. I did have an issue getting the PC to recognize the DAC at first, but that was my fault in that I plugged the DAC into the PC first before installing the drivers. If you happen to do this, all you need to do is unplug the DAC from the PC and plug it into another USB port after installing the drivers. Once I did that, Windows recognized the DAC and it worked.
 
I have put about 2 hours on it so far as of writing. My set-up consists of my PC, The Teac UD-H01, a Sansui AU-555a, Audeze LCD-2s for headphones and Celestion Ditton 66s for loudspeakers. Before purchasing this DAC I have been using the DAC on the motherboard of my PC, using a 3.5mm headphone cable to RCA. It sounded pretty damn good, good enough I was a little hesitant in wanting to buy a DAC. Not that I haven't had a nice DAC before, but it has been a while and the nice sound of the PC on its own threw me off. Anyway, the Teac is a major improvement over the PC. A lot clearer sounding with much more detail. It surprised me how much more open sounding the DAC is over the PC. The treble was a big improvement as well, and it really made the LCD-2s wake up.
 
So far I have tried the LCD-2s through the headphone output on the DAC itself and through the Sansui. The output of the DAC is a bit on the lower side, but I can turn the volume up enough to get it a reasonable listening volume. I find the Teac headphone output is a little brash sounding, with a touch of sibilance. But, it is enjoyable and smooth and is fairly detailed. The LCD-2s are forgiving but are demanding of their source and amplification and for a DAC at its price to have a more than decent headphone output is a bonus in my opinion.
 
Overall my first impressions are really positive. The only thing I am not liking so far is the slightly relaxed nature of the DAC, but I wonder if that is my mood or something in the combination. I do find as I am listening to it, the DAC is getting more and more lively. Perhaps it needs some more break-in time, so I am going to leave it at that and I'll report back once I have had more time on it. For $160, I am very impressed. Excellent sound.

Still cheaper than how much i paid for $199 CAD,Congrats!

 

[Joong]

  Hi how is the NP-H750's headphone jack amplifier? Did you use it directly with He-6? I bought a HE-400 and HD750, looking for a dac/amp AIO. TBH, I have no idea how is the headphone amp part... lol....

Headphone Jack is not very good, and the He-6s were off of speaker taps.
hE-6s wit this amp is good for some music like small band, but not good match with large band music IMO.

 

[BoombasticSloth]

I also picked up this DAC at $160cdn on Boxing Day door crasher as well. I was very excited to try this DAC out because the specs seemed pretty good and for only $160cdn. Things started out great with the well boxed unit and a thick power cord, and aluminum face plate and then things went downhill from there. Noticed the cheap plastic sides and top. The tiny volume knob had a smooth finish which I didn't like because my fingers would slip on it. Wished it was bigger and/or textured for more grip. I thought to myself, it's ok if it had good sound. Installed the USB driver and everything went smoothly with foobar. Plugged my HD700 into the DAC and my initial impression was that it was just a mediocre dac. Nowhere near the build nor sound quality of my other DACs I have (D100Mk2, DA8, DC-1) and hooked my Questyle CMA800R amp to it via Wireworld Eclipse xlr connectors and again my initial impressions did not change. Figured it might need some burn in time. Plugged  my HD700 back into the DC-1 CMA800R combo and was happy again. Brought the UD-H01 to my active desktop speakers, tried the toslink and played then for a couple of days. Came back to them and noticed mediocre sound as something was missing. Very laid back, not much impact and control from the bass, and lack extension and control on the highs, and the vocals were not pin point accurate like I was used to even when using the D100mk2. The vocals sounded really .... bland for lack of a better word. Plugged my D100mk2 back in via toslink and sound improved tremendously.
 
Will have to try it again with my other cans, ATH M50, HD598, Momentum's and try the desktop speakers with usb connections.
 
ps. I forgot to mention the annoying clicking noise when changing sources.

 

[Joong]

Could you compare DC-1 to DA8 for SQ?

 

[BoombasticSloth]

Joong, I will pm you directly later as that would be off topic and I am just running out now.
 
all the best,

 

[Joong]

Thanks

 

[yangmanning]

Hi Everybody!
 
First post for me.
 
Can anybody comment on how the headphone amp sounds with IEMs like Shure se210, etymotic mc5, etc?
 
Thanks!

 

[canuckaudioguy]

  Joong, I will pm you directly later as that would be off topic and I am just running out now.
 
all the best,

 
Are you using the headphone jack on the DAC itself? If so I'm not overly surprised by your findings. The headphone amp is OK, not great, but it'll do the job. It sounded alright with my LCD-2s.
 
However run the DAC into an amp and you can hear the DAC much easier. That's how I have mine and it sounds great.

 

[yangmanning]

Hi Everyone!

I want to get one of these because of the low price in the US, but I live in a place with 220v power. Last year, someone mentioned I can just change a cable to get it to work. Can both someone with a U.S. version and someone with a uk/220v version take an up close picture of the pcb part where the wire needs to be moved so I can confirm this will work? I'm looking to pick up one on my next business trip.

Thanks!

 

[jeremy205100]

Hi Everyone!

I want to get one of these because of the low price in the US, but I live in a place with 220v power. Last year, someone mentioned I can just change a cable to get it to work. Can both someone with a U.S. version and someone with a uk/220v version take an up close picture of the pcb part where the wire needs to be moved so I can confirm this will work? I'm looking to pick up one on my next business trip.

Thanks!

I'm not entirely sure you can just change the cable. Yes, the cable will work, but it might fry the internals. This unit has the power supply internally. On other products that you just switch out the cable to use internationally (small Schiit stuff) you change the entire wallwart which is the power supply. Some units have a switch for the two voltages on the back but this doesn't.

 

[BoombasticSloth]

   
Are you using the headphone jack on the DAC itself? If so I'm not overly surprised by your findings. The headphone amp is OK, not great, but it'll do the job. It sounded alright with my LCD-2s.
 
However run the DAC into an amp and you can hear the DAC much easier. That's how I have mine and it sounds great.

 
Thanks for your post canuckaudioguy. I tried using both the hp jack on the DAC itself and with an external hp amp as well. Did it both ways.
 
all the best.

 

[adypaul]

found a fix for the driver, turn off the sound card in the bios and just use the teac driver for sound, all working fine.

 

[i luvmusic 2]

Really i just download the driver then plug the DAC in one of the USB port voila never had a problem ever since