[slackman]

Ok I just ordered mine

Should have it within a week.
 
I'm expecting a neutral / natural / transparent DAC actually.
I mean the measurements (which I roughly trust in this case) are this:

1. Digital Signal : 32 - 192 KHz, 16/24/32 Bit auto detection.
2. SNR > -130dB.
3. Dynamic Range : 130dB.
4. THD+N : <0.0003%
5. Frequency response : 20-30KHz -0.1dB.
6. Balance : 20-20KHz -1dB

 
These measurements likely come from the balanced outs, and probably with a very good digital source.
I actually find it encouraging that the D18 is described as warm, musical and smooth.
A DAC is never perfect of course, but I'd rather have a DAC that approaches "perfection" from the slightly warm / musical side, than one which does so from the slightly cold / harsh side.
A slightly warm smooth DAC isn't bad in an otherwise very neutral system (though it can be bad in an otherwise warm system of course, but my system isn't so), while a slightly cold / harsh DAC can continuously annoy me (though I remember from before treating my old room that an otherwise "warm" system can make this totally unnoticeable)
I also believe the D18 has a good clock for the Sabre DAC.
All that's left for me once it gets here is to find a good reasonably priced async USB to spdif converter.
Or perhaps mod the D18 with a USB to i2s converter inside, this one looks interesting and will give 32bit 384Khz: http://www.exadevices.com/exaU2I/Overview.aspx (though somewhat expensive)
 
Btw, in some places I find the D18 specs as being 32bit 384Khz capable, however the spdif specs don't go that far.
Does anybody know more about this?

 

[slackman]

Quote:

 
I have only been using balanced out to a Violectric V200 so far. But I should spend some time with RCA outs and see if I notice the same thing. I'll add to my list of things to ask the designer - what is the difference caused by?
 
 
EDIT - what don't you like about the monoprice Cables? I thought they were very well built for the $10 or so that they cost. Not fancy but solid. 

 
I belief the entire output stage is balanced in the D18.
So any distortions that are equal in both the normal and inverted phase parts get completely canceled out once the 2 sides of the balanced signal are put together again. (and noise gets reduced by half I think)
So it's not just about no interference in the wires here.
 

 

[JahJahBinks]

ahh, after new year we get to see all those reviews, can't wait. 

 

[Philharmoniker]

Quote:

 
I have only been using balanced out to a Violectric V200 so far. But I should spend some time with RCA outs and see if I notice the same thing. I'll add to my list of things to ask the designer - what is the difference caused by?
 
 
EDIT - what don't you like about the monoprice Cables? I thought they were very well built for the $10 or so that they cost. Not fancy but solid. 

I guess I should have rephrased what I said. I meant to say that they don't look like the $100+ XLR cables you get from HIFI dealers. I don't mean that they are "not that great" in terms of sound. In fact I can't compare because I have never used an expensive one.
As for the difference, I think it's caused by the fact that the RCA out is not simply using the same hot end signal only from the balanced out, but rather having one additional processing of combining the hot and cold end signals.
 

 

[slackman]

Quote:

I guess I should have rephrased what I said. I meant to say that they don't look like the $100+ XLR cables you get from HIFI dealers. I don't mean that they are "not that great" in terms of sound. In fact I can't compare because I have never used an expensive one.
As for the difference, I think it's caused by the fact that the RCA out is not simply using the same signal for the balanced out, but rather having one additional processing of combining the hot and cold end signals.
 

 
Oh it does that?
I thought maybe it was just using the hot end for the RCA out.
 

 

[Sonic77]

Tam Audio
http://tamaudio.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=106
 
Specifications
Digital Input
Optical: TOSLINK
Sampling Rate: 32 - 500 KHz
Coaxial: RCA style 75Ω
Sampling Rate: 32 - 500 KHz
Balance: AES/EBU
Sampling Rate: 32 - 500 KHz
 
My Musiland Monitor 03 US: A True 32bit/384KHz USB DAC/AMP It has a spdif connection for this.
 
http://hifiduino.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/musiland-monitor-03-us/
 
 
The D18 is smoothed out and on the warm side, it is very conducive to long listening sessions, not sharp or harsh, took me awhile to get used to it, because my prior dac was very detailed, but on the harsh side.
 
Quote:

Ok I just ordered mine

Should have it within a week.
 
I'm expecting a neutral / natural / transparent DAC actually.
I mean the measurements (which I roughly trust in this case) are this:

1. Digital Signal : 32 - 192 KHz, 16/24/32 Bit auto detection.
2. SNR > -130dB.
3. Dynamic Range : 130dB.
4. THD+N : <0.0003%
5. Frequency response : 20-30KHz -0.1dB.
6. Balance : 20-20KHz -1dB

 
These measurements likely come from the balanced outs, and probably with a very good digital source.
I actually find it encouraging that the D18 is described as warm, musical and smooth.
A DAC is never perfect of course, but I'd rather have a DAC that approaches "perfection" from the slightly warm / musical side, than one which does so from the slightly cold / harsh side.
A slightly warm smooth DAC isn't bad in an otherwise very neutral system (though it can be bad in an otherwise warm system of course, but my system isn't so), while a slightly cold / harsh DAC can continuously annoy me (though I remember from before treating my old room that an otherwise "warm" system can make this totally unnoticeable)
I also believe the D18 has a good clock for the Sabre DAC.
All that's left for me once it gets here is to find a good reasonably priced async USB to spdif converter.
Or perhaps mod the D18 with a USB to i2s converter inside, this one looks interesting and will give 32bit 384Khz: http://www.exadevices.com/exaU2I/Overview.aspx (though somewhat expensive)
 
Btw, in some places I find the D18 specs as being 32bit 384Khz capable, however the spdif specs don't go that far.
Does anybody know more about this?

 

 

[slackman]

Quote:

Tam Audio
http://tamaudio.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=106
 
Specifications
Digital Input
Optical: TOSLINK
Sampling Rate: 32 - 500 KHz
Coaxial: RCA style 75Ω
Sampling Rate: 32 - 500 KHz
Balance: AES/EBU
Sampling Rate: 32 - 500 KHz
 
My Musiland Monitor 03 US: A True 32bit/384KHz USB DAC/AMP It has a spdif connection for this.
 
http://hifiduino.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/musiland-monitor-03-us/
 
 
The D18 is smoothed out and on the warm side, it is very conducive to long listening sessions, not sharp or harsh, took me awhile to get used to it, because my prior dac was very detailed, but on the harsh side.
 


 

Hi Sonic77,
 
Yes those specs I meant. 32bit-500Khz.
But the general specs for spdif only go to 24bit-192Khz I thought. And there is no spdif (or AES/EBU, or toslink) device that supports 32bit-500Khz? (except now apparently for the D18 that is)
The Musiland Monitor 03 US uses 32bit-500Khz for its internal DAC, but not for the spdif out I thought (which is limited to 24-192 I think).
 
As for the smooth warm D18.. Ah well.. I'll find out soon enough weather I can live with it too
If it's really warm I certainly won't.. It'll depend on how much is too much of a good thing I guess.
But I've heard the Lavry DA10 described as warm as well, while to me it has a harshness and forwardness in the lower treble that's really bothering on a neutral system (but cuts through nicely on a warm system, there I can understand why people call the DA10 somewhat natural or warm sounding. But on a neutral system, no.)

 

[Sonic77]

Oh OK, you would know more then I about that stuff.
 
On the subject of the D18 sound, Of course the D18 will be affected by the equipment you own, like you said earlier. My amps are bright, so paired with the D18, I get a nice sound, the D18 tames my bright amps, also my MG 1.6 qr speakers are very revealing at the top end, so the D18 does a great job of taming the sound for me there too. I could see how people with different equipment would have an opposite/different. opinion of the D18, but for me in my particular set up, it works great. 
 
Quote:

Hi Sonic77,
 
Yes those specs I meant. 32bit-500Khz.
But the general specs for spdif only go to 24bit-192Khz I thought. And there is no spdif (or AES/EBU, or toslink) device that supports 32bit-500Khz? (except now apparently for the D18 that is)
The Musiland Monitor 03 US uses 32bit-500Khz for its internal DAC, but not for the spdif out I thought (which is limited to 24-192 I think).
 
As for the smooth warm D18.. Ah well.. I'll find out soon enough weather I can live with it too
If it's really warm I certainly won't.. It'll depend on how much is too much of a good thing I guess.
But I've heard the Lavry DA10 described as warm as well, while to me it has a harshness and forwardness in the lower treble that's really bothering on a neutral system (but cuts through nicely on a warm system, there I can understand why people call the DA10 somewhat natural or warm sounding. But on a neutral system, no.)

 

 

[BoogieWoogie]

Quote:

Hi Sonic77,
 
Yes those specs I meant. 32bit-500Khz.
But the general specs for spdif only go to 24bit-192Khz I thought. And there is no spdif (or AES/EBU, or toslink) device that supports 32bit-500Khz? (except now apparently for the D18 that is)
The Musiland Monitor 03 US uses 32bit-500Khz for its internal DAC, but not for the spdif out I thought (which is limited to 24-192 I think).
 
As for the smooth warm D18.. Ah well.. I'll find out soon enough weather I can live with it too
If it's really warm I certainly won't.. It'll depend on how much is too much of a good thing I guess.
But I've heard the Lavry DA10 described as warm as well, while to me it has a harshness and forwardness in the lower treble that's really bothering on a neutral system (but cuts through nicely on a warm system, there I can understand why people call the DA10 somewhat natural or warm sounding. But on a neutral system, no.)

WoW you are ditching one the best industry dacs for a unknown chinese dac ? Thats bold of you, specially with that "attention whore" 32bit-500Khz spec which isn't good on my book, I would at least keep it to compare.
 

 

[project86]

Regarding the 32 bit/500khz statement - all that refers to is the capabilities of the ES9018 chip to receive the digital signal. It has an integrated DIR, unlike most other DAC chips which need a separate unit to handle that (DIR9001, CS8416, WM8805, etc). With disabled over sampling, the ES9018 could handle something like 1.5 megahertz if I recall correctly. But all of those numbers are sort of irrelevant since the SPDIF standard tops out at 192khz. I wish Yulong didn't even advertise it this way, because all DACs using the same Sabre chip have the same function, and it really doesn't mean much. 

 

[grokit]

Quote:

I also believe the D18 has a good clock for the Sabre DAC.

Do you know if it utilizes separate clocks for 44.1/88.2 kHz vs. 48/96 kHz?
 
 
Quote:

Regarding the 32 bit/500khz statement - all that refers to is the capabilities of the ES9018 chip to receive the digital signal. It has an integrated DIR, unlike most other DAC chips which need a separate unit to handle that (DIR9001, CS8416, WM8805, etc). With disabled over sampling, the ES9018 could handle something like 1.5 megahertz if I recall correctly. But all of those numbers are sort of irrelevant since the SPDIF standard tops out at 192khz. I wish Yulong didn't even advertise it this way, because all DACs using the same Sabre chip have the same function, and it really doesn't mean much. 

Having a brain fart, what does DIR stand for again?

 

[slackman]

Quote:

WoW you are ditching one the best industry dacs for a unknown chinese dac ? Thats bold of you, specially with that "attention whore" 32bit-500Khz spec which isn't good on my book, I would at least keep it to compare.
 

I'm "ditching" the DA10 in any case.
I don't like it anymore
I've been upgrading lately with new speakers (K+H O300) and a big new room. And now the DA10 has become a serious limiting factor.
I have not yet heard a better overall DAC as the DA10 in my new setup , but after I've had the hunch that some of the sonics that were somewhat bothering me with my new setup may come from the DA10 I've switched in several (much) cheaper DACs for comparison and they confirmed my suspicion and do certain things right which the DA10 does pretty wrong (yet mess up badly in other areas of course). So the DA10 has gotta go (is in fact already sold, not through head-fi btw, just waiting for the money to get into my bank account)
 
Trying to get a new DAC cheap as I'm too broke after the other upgrades, and the rent on the new big room is high so I can't save money well, but I think the D18 has a good chance to take things to a new level for me.
If not then I'll get the new Anedio D1 when it comes out and eat dry bread for a while
 
Btw if I'm correct then also Project86 does already rate the D18 as higher quality than the Lavry D10.
The specs also suggest it's a better DAC.


Quote:

Regarding the 32 bit/500khz statement - all that refers to is the capabilities of the ES9018 chip to receive the digital signal. It has an integrated DIR, unlike most other DAC chips which need a separate unit to handle that (DIR9001, CS8416, WM8805, etc). With disabled over sampling, the ES9018 could handle something like 1.5 megahertz if I recall correctly. But all of those numbers are sort of irrelevant since the SPDIF standard tops out at 192khz. I wish Yulong didn't even advertise it this way, because all DACs using the same Sabre chip have the same function, and it really doesn't mean much. 

Aah ok.
Thanks for the info.
I was suspecting this much, but thought why would they put it in the specs if it is only possible to use it by modding the D18.
But apparently it is so.


Quote:

Quote:

Do you know if it utilizes separate clocks for 44.1/88.2 kHz vs. 48/96 kHz?
 
 

 
I may be wrong as I don't know much about how it treats the digital inputs.
But I think it has only a single very fast clock for the Sabre DAC (which does asynchronous resampling of all incoming sample rates up to 500Khz, it is how the Sabre DAC is supposed to work, with one clock not multiple)

 

[sorue]

Quote:

Quote:

Do you know if it utilizes separate clocks for 44.1/88.2 kHz vs. 48/96 kHz?
 
 

Having a brain fart, what does DIR stand for again?

Digital Input Receiver. It processes the digital input signal (spdif/usb/whatever). project86 raises an extremely important point about the sabre dac's built-in DIR. It is a big deal because all DIRs have intrinsic jitter. All the commonly used DIRs like the CS8416/DIR17XX/TE7022 have different levels of intrinsic jitter. Let's say 20 ps. No matter how low jitter your transport is, it is still subject to that 20 ps of DIR jitter.
 
BUT, that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for transports with as low jitter as possible, because the impact of jitter is cumulative. Not so much that it adds up, numerically, but if you think about how the DIR works, it constantly tries to latch onto the incoming signal. If the signal has high jitter (irregular timing), the DIR has to work harder to latch onto it, giving you more jitter.
 

 

[BoogieWoogie]

Quote:

I'm "ditching" the DA10 in any case.
I don't like it anymore
I've been upgrading lately with new speakers (K+H O300) and a big new room. And now the DA10 has become a serious limiting factor.
I have not yet heard a better overall DAC as the DA10 in my new setup , but after I've had the hunch that some of the sonics that were somewhat bothering me with my new setup may come from the DA10 I've switched in several (much) cheaper DACs for comparison and they confirmed my suspicion and do certain things right which the DA10 does pretty wrong (yet mess up badly in other areas of course). So the DA10 has gotta go (is in fact already sold, not through head-fi btw, just waiting for the money to get into my bank account)
 
Trying to get a new DAC cheap as I'm too broke after the other upgrades, and the rent on the new big room is high so I can't save money well, but I think the D18 has a good chance to take things to a new level for me.
If not then I'll get the new Anedio D1 when it comes out and eat dry bread for a while
 
Btw if I'm correct then also Project86 does already rate the D18 as higher quality than the Lavry D10.
The specs also suggest it's a better DAC.


Aah ok.
Thanks for the info.
I was suspecting this much, but thought why would they put it in the specs if it is only possible to use it by modding the D18.
But apparently it is so.
 
I may be wrong as I don't know much about how it treats the digital inputs.
But I think it has only a single very fast clock for the Sabre DAC (which does asynchronous resampling of all incoming sample rates up to 500Khz, it is how the Sabre DAC is supposed to work, with one clock not multiple)

I just hope you won't regret but can you tell me what you didn't like from the DA10 ?
 

 

[slackman]

Quote:

I just hope you won't regret but can you tell me what you didn't like from the DA10 ?
 

Ok very short bashing of the DA10.
I'll probably use too strong words, but this is because I have used the DA10 for too long and am too focussed on it's faults.
 
Biggest fault of the DA10 is in my opinion the forwardness and somewhat harshness of the lower treble. It does so in a way that almost always draws attention to itself.
Second is limited soundstaging. This is related at least partly to the lower treble forwardness / harshness as in this part of the spectrum depth is somewhat destroyed, and as this part is most forward it masks soundstaging in the more important mids.
Third is bass. The DA10 has very impressive bass at first, deep and powerfull and seems controlled. However after a while it becomes clear that it too draws a little bit too much attention to itself and isn't actually that well controlled. A lot of bass sounds big in the same way, hinting at boomy, and in specific frequencies only. Almost feels like there is a bump somewhere, though it may have a different cause I don't know what.
The result is that I can instantly tell the Lavry DA10 sound, forward lower treble harshness, and a specific big bass.
As a reults the rest is somewhat empty.
 
The above things I could tell somewhat with any speakers I've used with the Lavry DA10, K+H O300, K+H O96, Tannoy dual concentric model I forgot the name of, small apple powered speakers (couldn't tell the bass thing on these of course), except the Geithain RL906 (which were pretty mid forward and extremely smooth in treble therefore hiding the flaws)
I could also tell with the AKG K1000. Didn't notice it with the HD800 (I had a warm sounding later model btw)
 
With all of the setups I'd tried, while the DA10 flaws were somewhat audible, I mostly didn't pinpoint them as there were plenty of other things to worry about.
But now with the O300, I've never heard a speaker like this before, it's a chameleon, they take on the sound of the source / music. It completely takes on the sound of the DA10 with all it's flaws.
These flaws are now so apparent to me I can't live with them anymore.
Also noticing much subtler things. Like the lower treble and bass thing, I hear there's actually some kind of ripple going all the way through the frequency spectrum, and the lower treble is the worst excess followed by certain bass frequencies.
There is some modification of all dynamics too. And it gives a sort of same hmmmm how do I describe it.. "noise" to all the attacks. Quite impressive at first, untill you hear it's always kind of the same and somewhat detached from the music.
The music isn't relaxed. It's somewhat buzzing. All tones are somewhat buzzing. It can't do a pure saw wave, it sounds modified in a "digital" way, like there's another tone that rapidly modulates the pitch or something. Subtle but always there.
Somehow this buzzing is stopped and comes to a peak at the lower treble, that's why perhaps it isn't overly harsh overall.. if it went on into the high treble it would have been more apparent and I don't think it would have gotten as many good reviews.
I've never measured the DA10, but I wouldn't be surprised if it actually didn't measure flat. The specs state 20hz-20Khz -3dB.
-3dB is a lot, that isn't -0.3dB but a full -3dB. I figured this would only be for the 20Khz and that it would be flat below 17Khz or something.. but I'm starting to wonder if that's true, perhaps the "ripple" I'm hearing is actually measurable and extends throughout the frequency spectrum.
 
All in all, I now find the DA10 to have an empty (which sometimes even gives smallishness), forward, fake / modified buzzing sound with a lousy soundstage, unrelaxed sound.
And hearing how even cheap DACs don't have many of these errors (Echo Audiofire 2 for instance does many things right the DA10 messes up, though it has even bigger faults than the DA10 in completely different ways), now makes me not enjoy the DA10 anymore. In fact I can't wait to get rid of it!
So that's my honest review with way too strong a words of one man who's fed up with the DA10. I probably shouldn't have written this, especially not in a thread dedicated to another DAC, but I had to let it out somehow.