Articles, Reviews and Measurements of Audio Products

Went to clean up my work area and I find a box. Look inside it and it is another low cost DAC which I don't even remember ordering. I unbox it and find a nice little Chinese DAC called "S.M.S.L Mini DAC - Sanskritt 6th." Here is the Amazon link where I bought it ($107.99 including Prime shipping) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SY9RBOM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

As you see, it is a very functional device with multiple inputs, USB, Coax and optical. It comes with an external power supply which puts out 9 volts at 1.3 amps. It is mandatory as it would not power up with just the USB connection. It is labeled by their own name and seems a step above from cheap junk USB adapters thrown in by many other DAC companies.

The brushed, anodized aluminum case is hefty and stays put even with cables tugging on it. A...

Regular readers of this forum know that we have been searching for an excellent performing DAC for under $100. So far we have not found it. All DACs tested underperformed my reference, the iFi iDAC2 ($350).

If you missed them, here is the review of Schiit Modi 2: http://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/budget-dac-review-schiit-modi-2-99.1649/

And Micca Origen+: http://www.audiosciencereview.com/f.../budget-dac-review-micca-origen-usb-dac.1476/

Next up is a product from professional world (i.e. designed for music recording/playback), the behringer UMC204HD. I paid a meager $79.99 for it, shipping included: https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-UMC204HD-BEHRINGER-U-PHORIA/dp/B00QHURLCW

As you can see, this unit does everything but wash dishes. You have headphone amp, stereo input capture, multiple outputs, microphone phantom power, MIDI, etc., etc.

The unit itself seems quite stout and much more stable than the...

This is a performance review and measurements of Micca OriGen+ USB DAC and headphone amplifier.

I purchased the unit through Amazon for $109 including (prime) shipping.


As you see, the box is somewhat odd looking compared to typical DACs. But overall build feel is very good. The device is pretty hefty and for this price range, it has good number of features.

The good news stops at hardware though. Installing the software drivers in Windows 10 anniversary edition is quite convoluted. The only process that works is in their FAQ rather than manual. I never did manage to get it installed on my laptop. Frustrated I had my son install it on my desktop machine and he managed to get it working. If you want a plug-and-play device or a simple setup that just installs, look elsewhere.

The unit oddly has three outputs. One large headphone jack...

This is the measurements and review of two budget DACs, the FiiO Taishan and Signstek Mini USB DAC:
1. FiiO Taishan
https://www.amazon.com/D03K-Digital-Analog-Audio-Converter/dp/B009346RSS

2. SIGNSTEK Mini USB DAC
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00FEDH...00-other-smile-us000-pcomp-feature-scomp-wm-4

My reference for comparison is the iFi iDAC2 which retails for $349 or 17 times more money.

FiiO does not have USB input. To feed it audio I used the Coax output of iFi iDAC2. SIGNSTEK does have USB input so I used that as a complete system. It also has Coax input but I could not get it to work. Nor could I find a manual for it.....

Some of you have seen my previous measurements of Sonore MicroRendu (http://www.audiosciencereview.com/f...asurements-of-sonore-microrendu-streamer.577/). If you have not, this is a device that "remotes" your DAC by letting you use Ethernet networking to connect to a USB DAC. Outside of this functionality, many buy this for the presumed improvement in audio fidelity. My measurements did not show such improvement however. And to this date, no one has produced any that show otherwise.

For a part 2 of this project I thought I open the unit and show what is inside. The unit is inside of a small, cheezy aluminum case. Put aside any expectation of high-end fit and finish here. A couple of screws opens the one end and lets the guts slide out. What is inside is a main "I/O" board on which there is a daughter card that holds the main CPU that runs all the software.

Dealing with the CPU part, it is a typical all-in-one SoC (System on a Chip) on a PC...

NOTE: this is an updated review of microRendu. Measurements were updated to use bitperfect path and max volume.

Introduction
One of the latest trends in digital audio is to use a "streamer" device. This is something that sits between your music server on the home network, with then direct connection to the DAC. A lot of such devices have been built with Windows and Linux operating system on top of PC computer hardware. Sonore's microRendu is different in that it is built as an embedded, black box implementation.

This thread is about its measurements and not a full review. But briefly, this is a tiny device the size of a set of playing cards:



Both the packaging and aluminum enclosure scream "budget" equipment. So if you are getting this device as audiophile bling to impress your friends, this is not it.

The unit as mentioned, is a "bridge." It sits on the Ethernet network at one end and USB connection...

Here are measurements of the Entreq "signal grounding" box. If you don't know what that means, you are not alone . It is a type of device where you connect it to the ground or negative terminal of your audio signals and it is supposed to improve the fidelity of the system. I was kindly given a loan unit of Entreq Olympus Minimus for this testing by the company founder, "PO."

The box arrived a few weeks ago but have been too busy to test it until now. From the outside, it is a nicely made wooden box with a single terminal out back:



The box is very heavy so clearly filled with something substantial. I was not allowed to open the box so my evaluation is limited to measuring it.

I had thought of measuring a lot of things but once I got to it, the reality set in. The box has only one wire going to it, not two. That is, there is no return path for any electrical signal. Think of trying to test a...

Over the last few months I have had a number of requests to document my music server build. I finally got around to collecting and organizing my pictures and references.

There are a number of such efforts such as CA's "CAP" series of music server specs. I have read through them and much of what they do there doesn't make any sense to me and bring a ton of complexity. As an example is using a server-class motherboard, Windows Server OS which is expensive and very difficult to manage for ordinary users, expensive linear power supplies, etc.

The approach of then minimizing the tasks on the OS true third-party tools also doesn't make sense to me. From noise and jitter point of view, you want a chaotic/random activity. Removing all but a few system processes means both of these components can be become more correlated, predictable and hence potentially audible.

My goal in building my own server was much more down to earth:

1. 100% quiet. No fans. No spinning parts. Acoustic...

It seems intuitive that we would all have different tastes in sound reproduction. After all, there are thousands of different brands and models of speakers each with a different sound. Surely that is due to different people liking different sounds. Another fact that bolsters this intuition is that there is no reference for audio. So in that sense, there is no metric of accuracy either meaning it is a free for all, allowing anyone to pick any sound as being what they prefer.

Well, everything I just said is wrong! Turns out we are remarkably alike in what we prefer subjectively. We seem to have an internal compass that points to good sound and that when we only use that compass, we are able to determine what is proper and what is not. Dr. Toole in his book, Sound Reproduction, Loudspeakers and Rooms puts this most eloquently:

Really good talk/work by Bob Schulein, presented at Audio Engineering Society on how to determine an individual's dynamic range, and bandwidth that they can hear. There is a link to the files to be downloaded at the end. And summary results of the AES Chicago chapter.

Bob is a slow speaker so I watched it with no problem at 2x speed . Click on the gear and select the playback speed there.