In the last sentence You are absolutely right. I have that album on first press vinyl, sacd, flac and on reeltape. I have the D90’s MQA version. The sound issues You are describing is for certain that You have poor, low quality parts in Your system. The D90 DAC sounds almost as good as my Esoteric X-05 playing flac visavi sacd. Do not forget the rest of the soundchain. My speakers are Infinity IRS Epsilon driven by three Krell poweramps and Krell preamp. Cables are high quality and I have DC blockers and iFi purifiers. I have DACs that are way more expensive, Bladelius, Hegel, Schiit, Pioneer that can not compare with the D90. Only the Esoteric can.
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Topping D90 Balanced USB DAC Review
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In the last sentence You are absolutely right. I have that album on first press vinyl, sacd, flac and on reeltape. I have the D90’s MQA version. The sound issues You are describing is for certain that You have poor, low quality parts in Your system. The D90 DAC sounds almost as good as my Esoteric X-05 playing flac visavi sacd. Do not forget the rest of the soundchain. My speakers are Infinity IRS Epsilon driven by three Krell poweramps and Krell preamp. Cables are high quality and I have DC blockers and iFi purifiers. I have DACs that are way more expensive, Bladelius, Hegel, Schiit, Pioneer that can not compare with the D90. Only the Esoteric can.
RME ADI-2 DAC, all-in-one. And save your money.
Then MQA really is total shite!! From what I know of the licensing arrangements between MQA Ltd. and the OEM, the code is supplied in ‘object’ form i.e. a software ‘black box’ about which the OEM is told little, other than its input and output specifications and over which the OEM has no control.
What strikes me as entirely bizarre (and is the fundamental reason I would never embrace MQA) is that the license requires that all incoming data pass through this ‘black box’, even those that have no MQA pretext whatsoever. Now call me an old cynic if you must, but that says to me that the ‘black box’ could be inflicting all manner of debilitating changes to the incoming signal that might just help to ensure that MQA processed material really does sound ‘better’.
What is the actual failure mode? Is it one of those "cannot play this format" type errors? Do give JRiver Media Center a try; it has a very precise output format control in WASAPI mode
and these output options are correctly dithered, so you just might be able to get things working to your satisfaction.
peanutslab
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What a ridiculous, elitist post. Your system is better than mine, you have no idea what system/s I have. Laughable.
Veri
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gerald
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if that were so then the X-Sabre Pro MQA version wouldn't measure so perfectly, would it?: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...bre-pro-mqa-best-audio-dac-in-the-world.8729/
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The fact is, we do not know what is happening within the ‘black box’; neither what it does nor when.
Remember the Diesel emission control system that was smart enough to know when it was under test…
Remember the Diesel emission control system that was smart enough to know when it was under test…
You dont need to know what's going on inside the mqa blackbox other than it isnt lossless, and wont match redbook bit for bit. One only has to prefer mqa, or not and accept it's going to be a different version, potentially, to the original redbook version.
Personally I see it as a vain attempt at ip landgrab and potentially drm by the back door.
Re an earlier post about burn in. It's an entirely real phenomenon in some circuits, not all. I build a zero feedback teansimpedance phonostage that clearly shows a measured Improvement in dc offset at the output during the first 70 hours of being powered up. Offsets swings from +/- 100mv when fresh and drops to sub 1mv after the local supply decoupling caps ate fully formed. All clearly measurable as leakage on the caps and at the output of the buffer. Its audible as well, stereo image width and soundstage precision all clearly improve during this period.
I accept that this particular circuit is an extreme example and that in most cases it's just us becoming accustomed to a new sound.
Personally I see it as a vain attempt at ip landgrab and potentially drm by the back door.
Re an earlier post about burn in. It's an entirely real phenomenon in some circuits, not all. I build a zero feedback teansimpedance phonostage that clearly shows a measured Improvement in dc offset at the output during the first 70 hours of being powered up. Offsets swings from +/- 100mv when fresh and drops to sub 1mv after the local supply decoupling caps ate fully formed. All clearly measurable as leakage on the caps and at the output of the buffer. Its audible as well, stereo image width and soundstage precision all clearly improve during this period.
I accept that this particular circuit is an extreme example and that in most cases it's just us becoming accustomed to a new sound.
Interesting example...thank you for that. Would you expect it to remain stable after that point?
Can you think of any 'normal' situation where it should be considered?
Cut-Throat
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I just bought a D90. While awaiting for the shipment, I downloaded the manual. It's in pdf format and the pages appear small and vertical. I have never cared for Adobe (even though I'm a software engineer). Can someone help me get a readable manual? Or tell me how to make this Adobe document readable. Thanks.
Probably only the zoom control which appears either on the toolbar or within the 'view' menu.
Someone has analyzed a section of 2L track with DXD as reference against the MQA core decode (1st unfold only) and as well as the MQA renderer (2nd to final unfold). You can see that MQA can't even retrieve the original DXD past 1st unfold as the information is already lost and cannot be retrieved once the bits and the sample rate are truncated. The render part just adds quantization noise that is definitely NOT the same as the original DXD track.
Veri
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Now this is juicy.Someone has analyzed a section of 2L track with DXD as reference against the MQA core decode (1st unfold only) and as well as the MQA renderer (2nd to final unfold). You can see that MQA can't even retrieve the original DXD past 1st unfold as the information is already lost and cannot be retrieved once the bits and the sample rate are truncated. The render part just adds quantization noise that is definitely NOT the same as the original DXD track.
The manual is very readable. Simply open the PDF and use the zoom function in whatever PDF reader you are using.
Edit: Also in the box you will receive a printed manual.
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Cut-Throat
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I have usually opened a PDF FIle and there was Pages of text arranged vertically. These are arranged Horizontally as well as vertically. It says there are 2 pages (Which is true Vertically), but there are many more pages horizontally. I opened zoom and clicked a few things, but it was not intuitive. This is the worst PDF document I have opened in over 25 years. I really don't get it. Maybe I have the wrong download link
http://www.tpdz.net/newsinfo/371566.html
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Use another PDF reader or wait for the printed copy in the box. Maybe it is not intuitive for you, but with some effort you will figure it out eventually. Better get used to it, because this is the only manual there is. No use complaining about it.
Hello to everyone.
Would it be possible to use this DAC connected to PC for listening music? As i have quite a big collection of High quality music.
Also, if i would like to play games, how it would perform? Just curious.
Earphones: Shure SE846
Regards
Tomas
Would it be possible to use this DAC connected to PC for listening music? As i have quite a big collection of High quality music.
Also, if i would like to play games, how it would perform? Just curious.
Earphones: Shure SE846
Regards
Tomas
Would you want a DAC with a headphone amp?
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