Airpot Express - Upgrade amp or DAC?

Your problem is the AE, and no DAC will fix this. I know because I have modded the AE in the past for customers and developed several types of reclockers to make it sound good, including the Pace-Car and the Synchro-Mesh.

The Synchro-Mesh is the best way to make the AE sound good IME. What it does is reduce the clock jitter of the signal from the AE by establishing a new master clock. Jitter makes the audio diffuse and unfocused. The SM inserts between the AE and the DAC or SS receiver.

The digital source and the master clock inside that is the most important thing in any digital audio system.

BTW, the Sonos is another option to the AE. Most people use Sonos. It will not play hi-res but neither will the AE.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Kijanki - have you ever actually listened to an AE through a DAC??

I have made measurements and critically listened to many digital sources, including AE, Transit, Tascam devices, Apple TV, Squeezebox 2, 3, Duet and Touch, Sonos, Lynx cards, RME cards and others.

The standout worst of these is the AE and Sonos. No DAC will reclock these enough to make it musical except maybe the PWD in NativeX mode. Silly to drive such a DAC with an AE...

The jitter reduction capablilities of 99% of DACs is dissappointing IME. You are better off to reclock the source if you intend to use a high-jitter source. This is cheaper than buying a really expensive DAC and works actually better.

If you read the last 10 reviews of DACs in TAS and Stereophile, you will find that they often use an Off-Ramp to drive them to determine the performance with a low-jitter source. TAS concluded that even $1K DACs can sound as good as $8K DACs if a low-jitter source is used.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"You might not like sound of the Benchmark DAC1 or any upsampling/oversampling DACs but cannot deny its jitter suppressing ability."

It is an okay DAC at this price-point. I modded the DAC1 for almost 10 years, but I dont mod anymore. I have a lot more experience with DAC-1 than you do. I completely redesigned it in my mod including replacing the clock with a Superclock, op-amp swaps, eliminating several op-amp stages and lots of power supply changes. I even put I2S interfaces on many of them. There are probably 100 of my modded DAC-1s out there still in use.

I can give some anecdotal evidence for the stock unit:

Both my testing and reviews I have read demonstrate that each of the digital inputs sound different and changing cables or sources makes a difference. I am not saying that jitter is not reduced, because it is, but because it is a resampling DAC, you hear the jitter of the clock in there. The PLL is also affected by jitter, so jitter on the incoming signal does matter, the lower the better. This is the common thread with most DACs and this one is no different. There are only a couple of DACs that are truly jitter-immune and they sound like the internal clocks, which is not always a good thing.

IF you buy stuff based only on measurements, I am sorry for you.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"Steve, I'm aware of changes you made to DAC1. These changes, as I remember eliminated jitter reduction ability of DAC1."

Only on the I2S interface, not on the S/PDIF input. I am a firm believer in not doing resampling in the DAC, so this interface provides that. Driven with a low-jitter source, this I2S is stellar.

"Effects of jitter are not even detectable buried deep in -130dB noise floor according to many different reviews."

Then why can I easily hear these differences? Why do other reviewers hear them?

For around $1K you could have a Metrum Octave.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"Steve, Isn't Metrum Octave a NOS DAC? I would need reclocker for best results with AE."

Yes, but you need a reclocker with upsampling DACs as well for best results with AE. They all benefit significantly from low-jitter sources.

"Many people go for NOS claiming ill effects of digital filtering (pulse response) but reclocker most likely involves digital filtering defeating purpose of NOS."

Depends on the reclocker. Older reclocking chips did have SQ impact, but the newer TI chip is really outstanding. I'll bet the DAC2 uses this one. Have not heard it yet.

Not being able to detect differences, even reviewers is quite common. All it takes is a typical active preamp and all of this will be masked in noise, compression and distortion. You will not hear the difference betwen AIFF and .wav for instance.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Kij - if you are waiting for another beter reclocker chip, you will wait a long time, maybe forever. I seriously doubt if TI has another on the drawing board and nobody else seems to be playing anymore...

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Kij - I do.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=106328.0

I dont know whats inside of newer Big Ben or other reclockers like Monarchy. I used to mod the Big Ben and the Monarchy DIP years ago.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio