This Audial DAC isn't much talked about, is it? I just saw this audiogon
review, this looks indeed very promising:
1. Midnight black background
2. Deep, deep, deep depth of soundstage
3. Elegantly detailed
4. Harmonious
5. Tight bass notes
6. Distortion at record low levels
7. Inherently listenable
8. Seductive, sexy. Hurt me...
9. The best digital has to offer
Indeed, I had a hard time finding info on it, especially reviews, so it was a rather risky purchase on my end. But to comment on the points above and add my own thoughts:
- Much more resolving than the Metrum Hex or NOS1704. Actually keeps up the pace fairly well with the Theta Gen Va I have, though with the slightly more rolled, slightly softer sound you'd expect from a non-oversampling DAC. But the Model S really opens up with high-res content and starts to bridge this "softness gap."
- No hint of digital glare, hash, or other harshness. Smooth in that regard, but NOT gloss-over-details smooth like a Metrum. The Theta, of course, sounds sharper and a bit more in focus, but still has that slight hint of over-sharpness that I hear from about every oversampled DAC (i.e. finger picking a nylon guitar on oversampled DACs makes it sound more like someone is using a pick, not their fingers, on strings that sound more metallic than nylon strings do to me IRL...just one example...though the opposite could be said about cymbals, which sometimes are a bit too polite on NOS DACs).
- Soundstage one of the best I've heard from NOS so far. Fairly 3D. Does a nice job bringing out subtle positional cues and such or weird mastering quirks across both channels. But more intimate/smaller than the Theta Gen Va, though not by a whole lot. IME, NOS struggles when it comes to producing a very large soundstage, so it's impressive for me to hear how well this does with soundstage and placements.
- Excellent dynamics, good bass slam. Slightly warmer tone than Theta Gen Va, but, again, not by much. Theta is a tad bit tighter and very slightly more resolving down low but about on par with dynamics and slam. When things get really crazy down low, Theta does a bit better bringing things out cleanly. To me, it's more like splitting hairs, and having a nice SPDIF converter bridges this gap to an extent.
- Distortion is indeed very low, both on the listed specs and based on some measurements I took (unpublished). Right channel performs a bit better than left at 2nd order distortion (about 0.007% on left vs 0.002% on right, 0dB 1KHz tone), but they perform the same beyond 2nd order. The rest of the measurements look solid, and not just for a NOS DAC.
- Excellent tone.
- One of the first things I noticed was how well it did portraying various recording and mastering techniques across various albums. Generally gets out of the way without imparting too many of its own characteristics.
Essentially, it's like it borrows all the good aspects I've heard from various NOS DACs so far, but has more of that magic that I've heard from the legendary DACs produced in the mid-90s. To me, it's head and shoulders above the NOS DACs I'd heard and does indeed please me as much as DACs like the Theta Gen Va or Classe DAC-1 (the Classe being a bit too much for my tastes...too detailed, a bit rough at times, but had huge slam and the best, most holographic soundstage I've heard to date).
It was definitely a hunt for me to find this DAC. I knew I wanted a non-oversampling DAC. The Metrums were the most emotionally involving and least fatiguing of what I'd tried at the time. The NOS1704 had more detail than the Metrums but was mushier, too closed-in sounding, and had a sort of artificial glare to the sound despite it being rolled and smooth sounding at the same time.
All this talk about DAC accuracy and linearity pointed me to a handful of old-school, legendary, multi-bit DACs. After a lot of research, sampling some DACs (including a TDA1543 DAC and some DACs I'd just rather not talk about), I decided that the TDA1541A chip seemed like it would offer what I wanted in terms of overall tone and other sonic characteristics as well as strong performance, even with reported linearity and accuracy, on the datasheets (though I know purrin said he doubted the INL/DNL specs on the 1541A datasheet). The hard part was finding a NOS, TDA1541A-based DAC that looked good on paper OR wasn't some cheap design, so I really didn't have any other options beyond the Audial Model S. Audial was about as transparent as I could find in terms of listing their DAC's technical performance. I had already been bitten in the ass too many times by products that didn't have many specifications listed. Usually that's a sign they don't want you to know how it performs on paper, though not always. Plus, Pedja of Audial was super friendly and happy to answer any questions I had about his products.
It took a couple hundred hours to sound its best (and I'm usually not too keen on believing in equipment burn-in like this), but boy did it open up after that! Though, both a blessing and a curse, the TDA1541A uses an older build type or architecture of sorts that means it gets rather hot, so it's best to only turn on when you need it to avoid damage from long-term heat exposure (usually leaving it off over night is sufficient, if you listen on a daily basis). On the upside, the thing sounds its best after maybe an hour of warmup, vs. a week for the Yggy.
Again, I haven't heard the TotalDAC or all other non-oversampling DACs, but I'm still in love with the Model S so far after a couple months. Keeps growing on me too.
