Anyone else amazed at el cheapo dacs

[kenny.R400]

I'm a million miles away from being a hifi buff although I like to hear decent sound if I feel like a listen.

I've been using Naim equipment now for the past 15 years always chopping and changing, the problem is I became fed up with my CD collection and found I listened to more tunes via my tablet/earbuds than switching on the system.

Just by chance I heard of these USB Dacs and dipped my toe in the water and bought a 60 quid jobbie to "learn" with.

Feck me, it's changed how I listen to music, CD player is redundant and a laptop/DAC now sit on top

I first of all sampled the delights of the subscription Spotify at 320kbps, fabulous sound with the bonus of hunting down and finding tracks I'd looked for for years........immense for a newcomer to this.

Next I was persuaded to get stuck in to ripping my CDs to FLAC, I couldn't see the point of this and refrained........with using a supposedly good quality Naim player what was the point?

However to prove I could do it I joined JRiver and did my first rips to lossless, I could not believe the results.

Simply incredible, and well worthy of the old hifi cliché of "I'm hearing things in that track I'd never heard before"
It brought the best out of my equipment for sure.
Being a numpty I put this down to playing back uncompressed files, but I then learned the files would be no more "uncompressed" than on the CD........however play a lossless rip back off the lappy/DAC with the same track on the CD player and the difference is amazing and obvious to spot.

So it must be the quality of the DAC itself that makes the difference? If so how come a decent priced CD players DAC is not as good as a 60 quid effort made in China?

I posted my findings on a hifi forum to relay my good news and got boll0cked backwards by some traditionalists

Maybe my ears are not working properly hence my post.

I'll now certainly be upgrading DACs after what I've discovered.

[_Deano]

kenny.R400 said:

I'm a million miles away from being a hifi buff although I like to hear decent sound if I feel like a listen.

I've been using Naim equipment now for the past 15 years always chopping and changing, the problem is I became fed up with my CD collection and found I listened to more tunes via my tablet/earbuds than switching on the system.

Just by chance I heard of these USB Dacs and dipped my toe in the water and bought a 60 quid jobbie to "learn" with.

Feck me, it's changed how I listen to music, CD player is redundant and a laptop/DAC now sit on top

I first of all sampled the delights of the subscription Spotify at 320kbps, fabulous sound with the bonus of hunting down and finding tracks I'd looked for for years........immense for a newcomer to this.

Next I was persuaded to get stuck in to ripping my CDs to FLAC, I couldn't see the point of this and refrained........with using a supposedly good quality Naim player what was the point?

However to prove I could do it I joined JRiver and did my first rips to lossless, I could not believe the results.

Simply incredible, and well worthy of the old hifi cliché of "I'm hearing things in that track I'd never heard before"
It brought the best out of my equipment for sure.
Being a numpty I put this down to playing back uncompressed files, but I then learned the files would be no more "uncompressed" than on the CD........however play a lossless rip back off the lappy/DAC with the same track on the CD player and the difference is amazing and obvious to spot.

So it must be the quality of the DAC itself that makes the difference? If so how come a decent priced CD players DAC is not as good as a 60 quid effort made in China?

I posted my findings on a hifi forum to relay my good news and got boll0cked backwards by some traditionalists

Maybe my ears are not working properly hence my post.

I'll now certainly be upgrading DACs after what I've discovered.

Do you have a link as to what you bought?

[kenny.R400]

Hi. it was a cheapy called a Musiland 01, tiny little alloy box but jeez it punches above its weight.

[matt3001]

I have a Rega DAC which comfortably out performs my old (and now sold) Naim CD player.

[FarmyardPants]

The reason USB DACs can sound so good is mostly down to the fact that the dac gets it's data asynchronously from the source/pc, which means it is able to use its own clock as the basis for the conversion, which eliminates the time domain jitter you get with spdif where the clock of the source is different from the clock of the dac.

[SuperDude]

This is exactly what I've been looking for, for ages now!

How's the connections? With it being so small, I assume prone to moved around - does the optical cable remain secure?

[kenny.R400]

FarmyardPants said:

The reason USB DACs can sound so good is mostly down to the fact that the dac gets it's data asynchronously from the source/pc, which means it is able to use its own clock as the basis for the conversion, which eliminates the time domain jitter you get with spdif where the clock of the source is different from the clock of the dac.

Many thanks for that, it makes sense.

Superdude, I've only used it with the USB, no optical or spdif or anything else.

I double sided taped it down on top of an amp and it just does the business.

[megaphone]

I'm assuming it's one of these?

http://www.musiland.cn/index.php/Product/show/id/1...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Musiland-01US-External-USB...

[PAULJ5555]

Hi

How do you connect these up? what inputs/outputs do you use?

[gizlaroc]

FarmyardPants said:

The reason USB DACs can sound so good is mostly down to the fact that the dac gets it's data asynchronously from the source/pc, which means it is able to use its own clock as the basis for the conversion, which eliminates the time domain jitter you get with spdif where the clock of the source is different from the clock of the dac.

Don't be stupid, all transports are the same!!!!!



Sorry, couldn't resist, it was in relation to the audiophile bullst thread where the majority reckoned every transport sounds the same.
I argued every digital file was the same, what you do with it changes the sound.

[kenny.R400]

PAULJ5555 said:

Hi

How do you connect these up? what inputs/outputs do you use?

Hi Paul..........USB "printer type" lead to laptop, phono out to amp.

[probedb]

Not shocked at all. At work I use a FiiO E7 and at home my PC runs into a FiiO D3. I've not heard anything to give me a reason to spend more.

[aizvara]

I bought a fiio e10 for £60ish to use in a car tablet project, and delayed putting it for ages as I had it attached to my PC for music instead. Great device. I've recently replaced it with a Epiphany EDAC (version of ODAC) and their O2 amp, which is very... precise, perhaps overly so for my headphones.

[Dr G]

Fiio E10 here also; lovely little piece of kit and has convinced a couple of colleagues they did not need new headphones, simply a better way to listen to the ones they had.