Bargain DAC Suggestions?

[amirm]

Well shoot, where's my credit card?
How can I ever live without one of the little POS's

Have one on order...

 

[Sal1950]

Have one on order...

What was it PT Barnum used to say? LOL

They may offer some type of improvement over what most laptops are able to supply, I don't know. (or care really. )
I do just find the whole premise a bit sketchy,
How do you squeeze any type of quality DAC + a reasonably high quality headphone amp into a small USB widget?
And power it all off the USB buss?
It just doesn't add up, unless the alternatives are really lame?

 

[watchnerd]

@amirm

Serious question:

Can you test the best budget DAC(s) vs the DACs built into a good smart phone?

(aka the one most of us already have 'for free')

 

[March Audio]

I can test a few phones

Hauwei p10 plus
Samsung S7 edge
HTC M10

Dacs to hand
Meridian Explorer 2
Chord Mojo

 

[watchnerd]

Upgrading is a disease in all hobbies. All guys want the latest shiniest toys ..bikes, cars , cameras , boats , golf, cycling gear, hifi , av, you name it.... and we all rationalize our need for it and like serial abusers , promise ourselves and SO's that it will never happen again...your end system...NOT!!!
Have a look at the 2x4hd plugin Am.
https://www.minidsp.com/images/documents/Product Brief-2x4 HD1 plugin.pdf

I actually stopped doing that.

Stopped buying PITA German luxury cars, went downscale to Japanese. Reduced the size of my tv set, might not buy one at all for my new house. Sold off my hifi separates an electrostatic speakers before I moved, now looking at (hopefully) one box solution or totally wireless active speakers. Got rid of my desktop computers, only have 1 mini and several laptops and and tablets, instead. Killed the cable tv subscription, etc etc.

One of the best things about leaning towards objectivist audio is that it helps curb the crazy materialism.

 

[watchnerd]

it this chinese model from Topping.

I just can't get past the name. Someone in should do a little market research on what things mean in English:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=topping

 

[watchnerd]

No worries.

I remember reading about ODAC during its development. Did anyone find out what happened to NWAVguy who designed it?

NWAVguy went into internet hiding after he got sick of dealing with internet trolls and after the Schiit fiasco.

 

[watchnerd]

Noticed the new <$100 AudioQuest DragonFly Black claims MQA...

I would love to make an 'MQA' DAC that doesn't do anything special except make the little MQA light go on and see who could actually tell the difference.

 

[watchnerd]

I can test a few phones

Hauwei p10 plus
Samsung S7 edge
HTC M10

Dacs to hand
Meridian Explorer 2
Chord Mojo

I better the jitter on the phone is still below the audible range.

 

[Thomas savage]

I would love to make an 'MQA' DAC that doesn't do anything special except make the little MQA light go on and see who could actually tell the difference.

I so love it when a special little light comes on , there's a little click and on comes the light, It makes me feel special.

I only get that when I play SACD but the SACD is often rolled off and very dull to listen to, still it has that special little light that comes on so..

 

[watchnerd]

I so love it when a special little light comes on , there's a little click and on comes the light, It makes me feel special.

I only get that when I play SACD but the SACD is often rolled off and very dull to listen to, still it has that special little light that comes on so..

You have an SACD player?

I told mine off, and all SACDs and CDs, 4+ years ago. Ripped it all to lossless, slapped it on a NAS. Done.

 

[amirm]

Can you test the best budget DAC(s) vs the DACs built into a good smart phone?

You read my mind partially as just an hour ago I thought about measuring my Samsung S8+. This is after measuring my laptop and being horrified at how bad it was! Plan to do an article on this.

Meanwhile I ordered three $25 and under external USB sound devices.

I will compare them to the Audioquest Jitterbug.

I found these randomly. Are there any you all have heard of in this super low cost category?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Here is jitter on a Nexus 6P phone.

I better the jitter on the phone is still below the audible range.

Here is jitter on a Nexus 6P phone. 10-14 khz shown.

 

[amirm]

Hi everyone,
I own an ODAC and it sounds pretty good to my ears and I believe it gets good reviews. Im looking at getting another DAC for my mancave system and was looking it this chinese model from Topping.
http://www.tpdz.net/en/products/d30/index.htm

It appears to get decent reviews on Head-Fi.org but I wonder would you be interested in testing it. It costs about 120 I think but im in europe. I like your forum and it gives me plenty of enjoyable reading time of an evening.
Ray

I have this and have posted some measurements on it already. Full review to come.

 

[amirm]

How do you squeeze any type of quality DAC + a reasonably high quality headphone amp into a small USB widget?
And power it all off the USB buss?

With surface mount devices it is not too hard. A lot of this silicon is targeting phones where space and power efficiency is paramount.

The AudioQuest is quite thick and chunky. It also has a good feel to it that I have not seen in any plug-in USB device.

 

[Thomas savage]

Here is jitter on a Nexus 6P phone.

Here is jitter on a Nexus 6P phone. 10-14 khz shown.
View attachment 8789

Those symmetrical peaks showing either side of the tone , that's jitter right?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Those symmetrical peaks showing either side of the tone , that's jitter right?

Yes, seems to be spread apart at 700 hz in the first few each side. Don't know why 700 hz.

Just a side note this phone has flat response to about 15 khz, and is down nearly 15 db by 20 khz. Impulse response indicates a filter with a couple cycles of pre-ringing and the rest post-ringing. THD is roughly -90 db and IMD is about -82 db. The noise floor over 20 khz is around -85 db though it has some noise increase at and below 40 hz (don't know why). If not for that the total noise over 20 khz would be a few db lower.

 

[March Audio]

Here is jitter on a Nexus 6P phone.

Here is jitter on a Nexus 6P phone. 10-14 khz shown.
View attachment 8789

What level is 0dB? I was wondering what to set the phone headphone output to so we can compare. 100 mV? Thats fairly loud in my Oppo PM3s. A bit unfair to run them at full whack.

 

[Blumlein 88]

What level is 0dB? I was wondering what to set the phone headphone output to so we can compare. 100 mV? Thats fairly loud in my Oppo PM3s. A bit unfair to run them at full whack.

Not sure now. I set the playback on the phone to max output. The test signals were at -1dbfs. I then set the ADC gain to get just short of max level by about 1 dbfs. I do recall it was rather low in level as I had to turn up the gain pretty far on the ADC.

 

[March Audio]

Just getting to grips with this Keysight U8903B. Not overly impressed.

Huawei P10 Plus

Set the volume to max before clipping. 418 mV RMS. Load set to 300 ohms