This post is responding to Holypal regarding the 1541 in Munich. My focus this last year has been speakers, especially horn speakers, instead of headphones, but like every year I go to the Munich High End to see the developments and meet old acquaintances (used to work in high end audio installs in the UK and US).
Disclaimer: I spent about an hour on the soerkis 1541, twice, and the third day maybe 20 min. The conditions were far from ideal, many other vendors have sound proof rooms to listen to headphones, Soerkis just had a table on the ground floor in the back and on the weekend it was hard to find any time to evaluate. Not ideal but it gave you an idea, especially regarding general sound, but microdetails and noise floor, etc. are very difficult to evaluate. Vendor Day was OK though. Also Soerkis did not really have a great or big selection of music to evaluate (ca. 20-30 albums), mainly rock and classics, but enough. Evaluated mostly on HD800S from the built in HP amp. Would have loved to hear some organ, chorus, big band, reggae, hip hop, Electonica, New Age, soundtracks, etc. Also some higher res would have been great.
I agree with gr8soundz that this DAC is very, very neutral, accurate, but not bright or sounding like a 90X8 chip. You can see these are engineers
and definitely in the high end category of DACs. My reason for checking out the 1541 was having a DAC that sounds analog, basically a convenient high-end turntable substitute. What I was comparing it to closest were the Total Dacs, which there were many examples in Munich and which I consider the Reference in terms of DACs. (Know 4 people that operate them in Germany).
Disclaimer going back and forth from Total Dac rooms to the soerkis does in no way constitute an ABAB comparison, plus all the other variables. But did compare on HD 800S. Also this all aplies to the R2R and not the DSD obviously not made for that.
Anyway, quite impressed, beautiful very neutral analog sounding,superb resolution, approaching the Total Dacs in terms of DAC! The preamp and hpamp are good but Total Dacs’ is definitely a bit better, well it costs multiples…. Is it an inexpensive way to approach the Totaldac whith a good tube preamp/analog chain, I don't know couldn't test, but my experience says possibly and that is the reason I am writing this post.
I know few of the Schiit DACs they are rare in Germany and usually in low cost systems, heard Yggdrasil in US probably, nice but hard to compare with an N=1, 1541 in that or higher categories, but not so familiar with the Schiit stuff, sorry, it’s too much head-phone oriented for most people I know. Above an Auralic Vega in general terms as far as I could tell in that environment if that helps you. Although for me the Vega is a bit bright and very digital.
What the 1541 needs for my preference is a tube output stage, to warm it a tiny bit, give it a bit more musicality and glow (these are my preferences by the way) and let it sound like a tt setup. With this or having a separate tupe hp/pre amp I believe you would get very close to what I want. Convenience paired with analog sound. Please keep in mind I am looking mostly for a speaker setup, but run an upgraded Feliks Elise with Hd 650, 800, T1 and Elear. In terms of a source and starting point of your audio chain don’t think you could go wrong, resolution, neutrality, just what is on the recording, transparency, channel separation, unspectacular in the good sense. But this is in no way a full evaluation.
Price is extremely reasonable, but be aware the unit is very small and rather plain looking, functional. I would likely rehouse the unit if I bought it. This is probably the major downside in integrating it into my EAR Yoshino system and that I want a remote control for convenience
Didn’t seem like they had a remote or were afraid someone would walk off with it.
Comparison to Mojo: I am biased, I hate the Mojo design, but the sound is very different in type. Mojo is fun, digital, with good mass appeal, not super resolving/transparant but kind of exciting, good all around but has a distinct sound, cheap, portable, and my design nightmare
“Portable”is relative, I would not be seen outside with that, sorry. I am a bit old fashioned I guess.
Instead the 1541 sounds more like a high mass turntable or getting close to an SME 10/20a with non tube phono preamp. I personally prefer old classic Garrard, Schick or other idler wheel turntables as far as my turntables go , for the turntable PRAT and musicality, but the 1541 goes very close in sound to what most high end turntables are achieving as a source.
I asked myself the question what is the point of these high end turntables a bit at thr High End with the availability of reel 2 reel and master tapes or the new generation of R2R dacs, the direct or idler drive tt or the Chronos Tts. The dacs are not there yet, but the gap is getting very small to your sub 5-10K turntable platforms. Turntables are fascinating and just the amount of work and involvement make experiencing the music much better, and there is that je ne sais quoi they will always have. But without super critical listening the differences are really becoming small. Plus I don’t have the apartment for 8K LPs like some of my friends…And if you have lots of money and love critical listening nothing compares to the master tapes, nothing.
So will try to evaluate a 1541 at some point in my system, towards the end of summer when my speakers will be finished. Man this got long and why I can't come to boards often
Hope this help, basically if you want analog sound in a dac, implemented and priced by TOTL engineers instead of high fier vendors, it would be on my short list to evaluate. As a stand alone HP system, quite impressive.
W
