DAC Bake-Off - Durham - March 31st

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

[savvypaul]

Can only post a quick update at this time as my laptop charger has broken and battery is dead - writing this on my phone.

Thoroughly enjoyed the day. 7 dacs compared. Ran out of time to do interconnects but the chaps are keen to wait and include bigmans spotfire, anyway.

Full write up when laptop can be charged...

[Andy-831]

Very enjoyable day again Paul, I thoroughly enjoyed it mate cheers.
(just got back)

[savvypaul]

Another hugely enjoyable day. Big thank you to Toontrev, Andy-831 and herbie07 for attending. Thanks to Quarknosis for sending equipment.

DACS

Chord 2Qute
Fiio Taishan
Doc Dac
Doc Dac with linear power supply
Raspberry Pi with Allo Dac
Beresford Caiman Mk2
Teac UD-H01

All hooked up to Sonore MicroRendu streamer with LPS, except for the Pi / Allo which is a combined streamer & dac. All plugged into sockets fed by NVA BMU.

These tracks were played on each dac:

Gillian Welch - Orphan Girl
The Clash - Jimmy Jazz
Lou Reed - Dirty Boulevard
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Down On The Corner
Maurizio Pollini - Chopin 12 Etudes. Op.10 No.3 in E

We played other stuff, as and when we fancied, but the above were consistent across all the dacs.

Started off with the Chord as it was already plugged in. Listened to this for about 45 minutes to 'set a marker'. Came back to it after hearing all the other Dacs in this order...

Fiio Taishan £15 s/h. Remarkable for the money but struggled with more complex tracks. Made the Clash play slow! Could be all you need, though, for hooking up a TV or office PC.

Doc Dac without LPS. Similar to the Taishan. Even cheaper! £4 ish!!

Doc Dac with LPS. Around £40 if you don't need a usb to spdif convertor. A BIG step up. Extra clarity and body to Gillian Welch's voice. The Clash playing together again. Very natural piano strike and decay on the Chopin piece - previous hash removed. Kept this combo on for a good while longer than the Fiio / Doc Dac 'Solo'.

Raspberry Pi w/ Allo Dac (forgot to get price - ToonTrev will advise). IN YER FACE. Big, bright, fizzy, bubbly. Too much so for me, but lots of smiles on faces here. The Pi and the Allo were running off one supply but Trev said it is recommended to run them off separate supplies. If doing so brings a level of improvement similar to adding the LPS to the Doc Dac then this would be a very interesting proposition.

Beresford Caiman MK2 £100 s/h - sadly, couldn't get this one working properly on the day. Very low output and some buzzing. Will try again over the weekend.

Teac UD-H01 £300 - a bit dense, didn't hear quite as much of the mix, but very nicely judged balance and I thought that percussion and vocals were very natural. Others thought it boring...I was a little more sympathetic to this one.

Chord 2Qute £700 s/h - more music in very respect, to my ears. More natural, more boogey, more real. Excellent clarity.

My pecking order:

1. Chord 2Qute
2. Doc Dac w/ LPS - I put this on a par with a £500 ifi dac that I owned for a couple of years and a £450 Rega dac that I borrowed for a few weeks from a dealer. LPS essential.
3. Raspberry Pi / Allo Dac - definite potential. Would like to hear with improved PS. Looks wonderful - a mini version of Orac from Blakes 7!
4. Teac
5. Fiio / Solo Doc Dac

We also did an a/b listen to the Creedence track - comparing Qobuz CD quality streaming vs 24 bit download. I much preferred the latter.

Hope this is helpful. Thanks again to Toontrev, Andy-831 and herbie07 for a top day. Cables next, after the Summer hols.

A few photos to follow, in the morning.

[Quarknosis]

Thanks for the write up Paul.

It's a shame that you didn't have any success with the Beresford. Just a thought due to your mention of the low output, and it might be a daft question as I'm sure that you will have tried it anyway but was the switch set for fixed or variable output?

[CN211276]

The findings confirm my thoughts. A good quality source has never been chneaper, but with NVA kit money spent on a higher end DAC is well spent if it is the primary source.

[savvypaul]

[quote=Quarknosis post_id=172184 time=1525564230 user_id=28522]
Thanks for the write up Paul.

It's a shame that you didn't have any success with the Beresford. Just a thought due to your mention of the low output, and it might be a daft question as I'm sure that you will have tried it anyway but was the switch set for fixed or variable output?[quote]

Fixed output. Usb input. Will try the coax and drop you a line by PM.

[herbie07]

Many thanks to savvypaul for hosting and feeding the ensemble. Good to meet with Andy-831 for the first time and reacquaint with Toontrev.

Not much to add to savvypaul's write-up, except that I was astounded at the sound quality/vfm on offer. The Chord set the v high benchmark/standard for comparison purposes. The Filo/Taishan was clearly not as good (timing out on one notable track and limited bass), but for £15 you would be happy as larry. Doc dac was similar but better in my opinion (£5 );- the addition of the linear PSU improved its performance considerably. That this stayed on for sometime (directly after the Chord) illustrated the disbelief something so cheap could sound this good. Next up was the Raspberry Pi dac and I really enjoyed this one; it could really boogie . It would be great to listen again with a linear PSU, given the improvement heard with the Doc dac. The Beresford was too quiet for a meaningful comparison and the Teac was OK, but not as good as the Doc dac + PSU or the Raspberry Pi. Finishing off with the Chord reaffirmed this as the best.

So what did I learn from spending a warm summer day indoors? The Chord was best, Doc dac was outstanding vfm and I'm intrigued by the Raspberry Pi dac

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Two more

[Toontrev]

I'd like to begin by thanking Paul again for another top day. Great to meet up with the other guys again, cheers Pete and Andy, They really know their stuff these blokes, even my cloth ears came to the same conclusion about today's bake off. Cant argue about the pecking order, I only got the Allo boss running on friday so for me its too early to give a definite but I preferred it to the doc dac as I thought it was more fun so I'd make a small adjustment but Pauls go it spot on in his reviews.
You have to bear in mind that Paul has a very revealing set up. Each drive unit has its own top of the range power amp, top spec cables and interconnects etc I left wondering if it would be possible to hear the differences we heard in each dac on a lesser system.
The chord was without doubt the best, most musical and engaging. A refined and enjoyable listen, you immersed yourself in the tracks - loved it.
The Pi3+Allo Boss is full of potential in my mind, we played it with only one power supply but it has provision to power the Pi and Dac with a separate PS, I brought one along but didn't have time to remove the jumper as I'd only got it running the day before. If it makes the difference its supposed to I'll report it on the forum because this baby was born to party. If you're up for a bit of air guitar or shakin it down this is the one for you. Great fun.

BTW these days are costing me a fortune, since Ive met Paul Ive bought a Phono 1, LS6 and A50,and a P50, this time I got away with only a fiver buying Lou Reed's New York album on Amazon.

The bake off's are great. In the right environment I do think its possible to make a definitive and collective judgment on what is an improvement or otherwise. There's no pressure and its amazing that we all make very similar observations.

Cheers
Trevor