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DAC Shootout Starts This Weekend

Okay...in another thread I promised to do a side-by-side evaluation of the Audiobyte HydraVox/Zap vs the Rockna Wavelight. Due to the astonishing incompetence of DHL this has been delayed. At the moment, I have a plethora of DACs here and am going to do a broader comparison.

I am going to do a compare of the Rockna Wavelight, Rockna Wavedream Signature, Audiobyte HydraVox/Zap, Chord Hugo 2, Chord Hugo TT2, Bricasti M3, Bricasti M1 Special Edition, Weiss 501 and the internal DAC card for an AVM A 5.2 Integrated amp as a baseline.

For sake of consistency, I am going to use that same AVM integrated amp driving Vivid Kaya 45s. I may branch out and do some listening on other speakers (Verdant Nightshade of Blackthorn and/or Wilson Benesch Vertexes) but want to use the Vivids for every compare as they are the fullest range speakers I have here. For sake of consistency I will use a Chord 2Go/2Yu connected via an Audioquest Diamond USB as a renderer. The only exception is the Hugo 2 which has a 2Go directly attached to it. I will use a Roon Nucleus+ as a server in all cases.

My plan is to use the same five songs on every DAC; In a Sentimental Mood from Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, Be Still My Beating Heart from Sting, Liberty from Anette Askvik, Duende from Bozzio Levin Stevens and Part 1 of Mozart String Quartet No 14 in G Major from the Alban Berg Quartet. The intent is to touch on different music types without going crazy.

I will take extensive notes on each listening session and write up a POV on the strengths of each unit. I am going to start this this Friday/Saturday and will be writing things up over the next month or so. If you have thoughts, comments or requests, I will be happy to try and accommodate. The one thing I am not going to do is make the list of songs longer as that has an exponential impact on this and make everything much harder. If and when other DACs come in on trade I may add to the list through time.
128x128verdantaudio
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,222 posts
 

@verdantaudio A belief that off the shelf chips are inferior is literal madness to me.  You have a team of engineers working to produce a chip.  R2R is driven by QC and what you spend on the resistor ladder (why MSB and Rockna are so good) vs FPGA where you probably have one guy designing the chip.  Just fine when that person is Andreas Koch, Nicloae Jitaru or Rob Watts, but I would not have faith that any FPGA delta sigma will perform as well as any chip based delta sigma without knowing who the designer is.  

The real issue with off the shelf chips is the perception that "newer is always better" so when a new chip comes out, a DAC is perceived as inferior if it doesn't have that latest, greatest chip.  R2R DACs and FPGA DACs are immune to this due to the lack of simple comparability.  

So much truth written there. You and @chayro are spot on. too much obsession with chips vs R2R or what chipset is utilized. I do believe that the execution of the 

1 Analog output stage layout and  quality

2 I/V conversion

3  Power supply quality and robustness.

In my opinion these 3 areas very likely influence the sound quality of a DAC more profoundly than chipset selection.

Charles

sutts
697 posts
 

+1 @verdantaudio- spot on and one of the best thought provoking posts on digital I have read on this forum… An Accuphase dealer I know said the new $25k Dac 1000 is incredible, and low and behold I believe the architecture is based around an ESS Sabre 9038 chipset- this adds further credence to your assertion.  @Charles- thoughtful comments as always from a fellow Coincident speaker guy :-)

chayro
2,922 posts
 

OTOH- I can totally understand how companies have to play to the market. Even Esoteric went to an FPGA. The customers appear to like the newer releases, but I wouldn’t be surprised the sonic differences were due to something other than the change from chips to fpga.

sutts
697 posts
 

@verdantaudio- you should try and get some Aries Cerat product at some point.  Build quality is insane.  Even the Helene Dac had a fluidity that my previous Rockna and Tambaqui dacs couldn’t match.  The Kassandra is a completely different level after that.  I have local audio friends that have full AC systems and it is really amazing gear…

kren0006
1,859 posts
 

@verdantaudio 

Do you know whether Playback Designs will soon be coming out with a Merlot replacement dac for the Sonoma series, now that the Merlot is discontinued but the other pieces in the series apparently are not?

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