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Audiobyte HUB Arrived to Complete the Vox/Zap/Hub Stack

So after a long wait, a lot of angry e-mails and several customer cancellations the Audiobyte Hub has finally arrived.  I have lots going on getting ready for AXPONA with a new preamp and monos in the system along with the Playback DAC, etc... so formal review will come in a couple weeks.  

The good news was that all current customer orders were fulfilled and there was a spare so I get to actually listen to it.  First note is that it is Roon Ready at this time.  Appeared in my "Audio" menu.    

Initial reaction is that it sounds very good.  I am comparing it to the player portion of the Antipodes K50 (zone switch in roon) and in less than critical listening I am not hearing obvious differences.  I am noticing that the HUB is consistently at a higher resolution than the K50.  In general, the K50 makes every DAC sound about one price tier better than it is.  Very superficial listening is that the HUB might do the same for the Audiobyte. 

We shall see and I will report back more thoroughly in the next few weeks.  

128x128verdantaudio
dagda
17 posts
 

As a VOX owner, I'd be very interested in your findings :)

in_shore's avatar
in_shore
596 posts
 

That’s great ! look forward to your evaluation. I had bought the AudioByte Hydra Vox a couple years ago , I found it to be a very good dac and I really wanted the Hub to complete that digital stack however with delay after delay i eventually moved on .

verdantaudio's avatar
verdantaudio OP
1,463 posts
 

I have been doing some extensive listening to the HUB.  My feeling is that it makes the HydraVox a better sounding DAC.  On what was already a very detailed and resolving DAC, I am not sure how much more resolution the HUB delivers.  Where it is really standing out to me is in the soundstage and imaging.  

One of the critiques I originally had of this unit was that the central image in particular was shallow and not terribly stable.  This perception is gone almost completely.   The depth of the soundstage is improved.  Based on my notes, I think it is shallower than the Chord TT2 but borders on rock solid.  

It feels like this unit is taking some of the burden off of the Vox and everything sounds like it is flowing more freely and easily.  This is much closer to the Weiss 501 in terms of performance than just the Vox/Zap on its own. It definitely is a Rockna DAC and has the Rockna sound presentation that I have become accustomed too.  

That one caveat is that I do think it is at its very best in a system with a separate preamp and in a system that is a bit more musical. 

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