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So I can now confirm that in terms of impedance matching they're is no issue going Ares II - > Saga S - > xduoo-ta-26 - > Audiolab 8300A. There is no loss of bass. There is however a boost in treble, which changes the sound enough to make me take out the schiit from the signal path and use roon...

Thanks, assumed as much, so essentially would be the same as converting to pcm and attenuation digitally, as is the case in Roon.

Is anyone using the 3.14 usb volume driver, does it allow for volume attenuation of dsd without conversion to pcm? Thanks

No idea to be honest, but as far as I understood it should be using the windows mixer, which for ne means it converts dsd to pcm. Was actually looking for someone to confirm.

Looking at adding a Schiit Saga S in passive mode between my Ares ii and an xduuo Ta26 preamp to get a remote volume control. The Ares has 625ohms output impedance, the schiit is 10k input and 4.8kohms max output impedance, and the input impedance of the xduuo is 47kohm (based on ne searches I...

Ok, let's say you are right and DACs perform up to spec, why then do we have a lineup of DACs with almost identical specs from Topping and SMSL and the people who listen to them find differences? Let's just get one and call it a day. Why bother to review and measure nearly identical DACs and...

Narrow soundstage, artificial precision (instruments sound like cutouts and not 3d like a tube sound but edgy and annoyingly harsh), very forward to the point of claustrophobic with acoustic singing. That being said, maybe in someone else's system it could sound great, but with my speakers and...

To that end I didn't actually like what I heard with a burson. Tube swapping on the hand is a whole other story. Anyway, nice talking to you guys/gals on the forum, busting myths and all. Nevertheless I will still keep listening to what I like, even though in theory there should be only subtle...

Lack of hardware to do it would be the prime reason. There is a measurement on the forum of Opamp swapping and it doesn't show anything conclusive which can explain the changes in sound, hence logically everyone doing opamp swapping must me imagining things.

:D good one No need for analogies. Let's just agree to listen to what we like and leave it at that.

If you listen to the same three songs over and over again and know which passage to listen to I don't think it is overestimating but good enough knowledge of the material. Of course I would measure the difference if I could.

I don't remember mentioning ethernet as affecting sound but merely as the source of the music and not being able do a proper comparison component for component. You can actually have different sounding dacs with the the same chip, as well as similar sounding dacs with different chips. I have...

Fair enough. Just missing the point of having an objective discussion about a product if it makes me buy something I don't like, but hey - gotta start somewhere. This is why I really prefer having a sound-based comparison review in addition to measurements. As abstract as calling a sound...

Just got an Ares II. Went through an onkyo tx-8130 internal dac, Tempotec Serenade idsd and E30II before that. Excluding the Onkyo as a dac, as this is fed the files through Ethernet, all the other DACs sounded different. All except the Ares use AKM chips, obviously different ones and different...

I am using the xduuo for a couple of months, but I have tried listening without it in the chain. I cannot say that with the tubes the added the difference was night and day - just a little more depth and less edges, not the holographic holy grail of tubes I assume is there when your power amp...

Vintage Onkyo sc-660 speakers, SVS pb-1000, xduoo ta-26 with NOS tubes and an Onkyo stereo AVR. Except for the svs everything else is much cheaper than the Ares II. Nevertheless the difference is quite astonishing to me. For me so far it is all about synergy.

I just have to say that I coughed up the dough for Ares II and I am lacking the adjectives to describe how happy I am. I tried to like the E30II, I really did! But one sounds like an imitation of what music is supposed to sound like and the other sounds like you are in the music. I can...

Means capable.

Definitely biased review but doesn't mean the DAC is not great. Honestly what bothers me is that while we do live in the age where you can order anything from almost anywhere, you need to rely on someones opinion and can't really go to a store and compare equipment, even if it is going to sound...

I have the E30 ii and pop noises are barely noticeable compared to other DACs. Based on your comment I do wonder how we have almost the same results in terms of measurements, but different sound in the end. What is the goal then of comparing measurements after a certain point of THD? For...