1mii Lavaudio DS400 Review (DAC & HP Amp)

[amirm]

@amirm Is it a "true balanced" or symmetrical output with booth lines driven?

It is differential. What the impedance is for each leg, I don't know.

 

[milosz]

$91 including Amazon Prime shipping. That's less than a tank of gas.

I would like to see if anyone could actually hear the difference between this unit and something which tests better like the Topping gear, if a double blind test were performed at levels within this unit's abilities. I get that it's not going to drive HiFiMan HE6 to concert volume levels, but I will bet that very few people - if any - could demonstrate that they can hear the levels of noise and distortion present in something like this.

 

[amirm]

I would like to see if anyone could actually hear the difference between this unit and something which tests better like the Topping gear, if a double blind test were performed at levels within this unit's abilities.

That's the challenge here. The hp output level is not in the same class as desktop products (from Topping or otherwise). It will get audibly distorted when pushed.

 

[respice finem]

To what degree are such at-home tests affected by the YT's audio compression algorithm and the headphone FR at a given volume, I wonder? Pretty much all of @amirm 's headphone measurements show several significant (i.e. 10-20dB or more) dips, albeit narrow ones, in the mids and treble, said to be caused by various resonances, mechanical fitting to the test fixture, etc., and superimposed on the roughly Harman curve that is far from being flat.

These will certainly be limiting factors, also the noise level in the room will affect the results.

But, looking at the diagram https://external-preview.redd.it/LY...bp&s=4399b3aea5334712a19097f396af12b18d75743d the magnitude of treble loss at 8 kHz is about 10dB in 40 years old males, and certainly won't get better above 8 kHz. If it will be 18-24 dB at 16 kHz ("mentally extrapolating"), the (per se not small) 3-6 dB "hardware and software" error won't save us from being disillusioned...

Luckily, contrary to the stories of influencers and marketing lyrics, already the 12-16 kHz is of limited relevance musically, and above 16 kHz practically not at all.
If this were different, musicians and orchestra conductors would have to retire at the age of 40.

Another self test I could think about, but with music: Select some "treblish" track and play it with Audacity or a comparable program, allowing you to set steep low pass filters.
Determine, at which value you will hear a "dulling" of the sound. This is a bit flawed though, because the overall SPL will fall minimally, but again, compared to the scale of treble loss, IMHO negligible.

Disclaimer: No liability for possibly resulting depression.

 

[jasonhanjk]

Lower power is never an advantage. If you don't need all the power just use a device with gain switches like the Topping NX7

It depends.
NX7 did not mentioned it's input impedance, distortion might increase depending on the source.

Device with higher power normally designed with higher voltage supply.
As ICs quiescent current remain the same, higher voltage supply also means higher power loss.
For battery product, you want to have the lowest power consumption so you can use it outdoor longer.

In my use case scenario, lower power is an advantages.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Seems a little pointless to me. Other devices have better features/performance. Price is low enough I guess.

For portable use the price is a deciding factor when you have to toss the thing in a bag. But the lack of a battery in it makes it much less desirable and more "portable" than portable for me. Granted its easier to find than a dongle and has actual controls for your fingers, but it will empty out the battery of the laptop that much faster if you are running current-hungry headphones of some sort. If it had a 3,000 mAh battery for a few hours of runtime with a cellphone as the source I would be all for it. Bring it along with something cheap but good like some 560S' and it would be a nice accessory for travel. Probably ok for a desktop PC, but at that point, it has loads of competition.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

To what degree are such at-home tests affected by the YT's audio compression algorithm and the headphone FR at a given volume, I wonder? Pretty much all of @amirm 's headphone measurements show several significant (i.e. 10-20dB or more) dips, albeit narrow ones, in the mids and treble, said to be caused by various resonances, mechanical fitting to the test fixture, etc., and superimposed on the roughly Harman curve that is far from being flat.

The headphones will be the deciding factor. They will exhibit rather deep nulls at certain frequencies, not to mention you will indeed see their response impressed on any tests you do. I don't know of all the limitations of the current compression they use on YT, but it seems quite reasonable. When tinkering with such things its a good idea to set the volume to something reasonable at around 1-2 kHz, say 70-75 dB, and leave it there. Don't want to try and use it as a hearing aid as you cannot hear above a certain frequency. Found that out when testing an amp and I left a 20 kHz test tone in the background going at full volume. Kept wondering why the speakers sounded terrible and the amp kept going into protect after a second or so. Fortunately no damage to the tweeters, or me. But something to keep in mind. There is also Earful from user pkane here at ASR. Its a neat piece of software if you want to explore your hearing a bit.

 

[Madlop26]

Some small usb dongles have more power than this!

yup, the 9038S G1 was measured at [email protected]Ω, so almost double, but be careful, I got the Xduoo Link2 Bal was advertised at [email protected]Ω but when measured got only [email protected]

 

[DudleyDuoflush]

For "technical elegance", yes, for real listening anything above 15-16 kHz hardly matters, because only very young persons can hear anything above, at normal listening levels.
https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/mti9lr The scale ends at 8 kHz, because medical audiometry only goes this far - but the curves leave no hope for the range beyond it anyway...

Post iucundam iuventutem, post molestam senectutem, nos habebit humus...

This is why it's not worth listening to subjective reviewers when it comes to comments regarding higher frequencies. If you don't know their hearing acuity it is almost meaningless.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

This is why it's not worth listening to subjective reviewers when it comes to comments regarding higher frequencies. If you don't know their hearing acuity it is almost meaningless.

From the research done it seems older listeners prefer more treble-centric sound with reduced bass, presumably to offset the loss in acuity. Ironically there is a valid market for speakers that can provide a flatter or even upward sloped frequency response for older audiophiles, but the notion that the speakers are "perfect" and any form of tone controls are "blasphemous" makes any sort of rational implementation a hopeless endeavor.

Only take-away for me from that graph is that my figure bears a striking resemblance to the portly man with the crossed arms. I'm offended! Its only water weight! How dare you!!! But lets be real, much like me and the climbing needle on the bathroom scale, we are often hard-pressed to admit our limitations and shortcomings. Most of these reviewers are likely not aware or don't appreciate how much their hearing has degraded. I guess I should be lucky enough to still have my high frequency hearing intact despite being middle-aged. I can still hear those flyback transformers in old CRT TVs when I run across one, but they are not nearly as annoying as they used to be. A reminder that age gradually and naturally takes a toll on hearing.

 

[respice finem]

From the research done it seems older listeners prefer more treble-centric sound with reduced bass, presumably to offset the loss in acuity.

Confirmed - is exactly my case @age 55.

 

[odarg64]

Lower power is never an advantage. If you don't need all the power just use a device with gain switches like the Topping NX7

Please explain. Thanks.

I've had to reject headphone amps with 'low' gain settings that are still far too loud (JDS Atom Amp+, Lehmann Rhinelander) and, therefore, unusable.

 

[laudio]

Did somebody forget a line out to be used as a standalone DAC? Was looking at their web site... kind of funny.

 

[jae]

Can anyone confirm the spdif is actually an output and not an input?

 

[beagleman]

Can anyone confirm the spdif is actually an output and not an input?

I think most would want a digital connection to avoid noise and degradation etc...

The add on box is probably for the small minority that still use an analog only device I would assume.

 

[laudio]

Add on box? Not following. Their website says it has line level outs but there are none. So can you use this as a DAC with the headphone out (guessing no).

 

[respice finem]

Maybe they mean digital line out? Is there a definition limiting it to analog?

 

[laudio]

Maybe they mean digital line out? Is there a definition limiting it to analog?

Maybe but then it's not a DAC right?

 

[respice finem]

Maybe but then it's not a DAC right?

It is, but only for the HP Yes the concept is a bit strange... It's not a DAC/preamp, it's a DAC/HPA with an additional USB to SPDIF converter.

 

[laudio]

Considering the manufacturer says it has line outs but it doesn't (the guy taking the picture had a hard time finding them), and the product description says it's a DAC and it isn't, I think that's why it's on sale right now

And I don't dispute the respectable measurements but a real review of the product would address the full feature set vs. what it is advertised to be IMO. Heck the original review didn't even notice it had outputs on the back (which require another DAC to use if you want to connect it to an analog input amplifier).

Carry on.