Bargain DAC Suggestions?

[Zerohour]

I'm definitely interested in performance of one of the Weiliang/Breeze Audio SE4 USB DAC, one has Savitech USB other has a chip from TI (the SE version, also a bit more expensive). Both use the ES9028Q2M which is a step above most USB DACs of the same size using the older 9018.

The SE version is a bit cheaper since the TI chip version doesn't support DSD (yeah, the chinese are weird with the naming like that). Boggles my mind that they released an even cheaper version when the Savitech SA9226 version is already super cheap (not to mention the 3 data cable included, a long braided micro-USB to USB, a short Micro-to-Micro and short Micro-to-Type C)

 

[decayed.cell]

That would be great. Personally I am not too interested in the thumbdrive ones since there are so many available locally. The breeze audio stuff is more interesting in that regard. Please start a conversation with me when you want to send it and we can coordinate.

And oh, welcome aboard!

Started a conversation with you

 

[decayed.cell]

I'm definitely interested in performance of one of the Weiliang/Breeze Audio SE4 USB DAC, one has Savitech USB other has a chip from TI (the SE version, also a bit more expensive). Both use the ES9028Q2M which is a step above most USB DACs of the same size using the older 9018.

As I've mentioned to Amir it would be a good idea to get a few of these to send at once, as Taobao charges 1kg minimum. I also saw a post about the Colorfly BT-C1. They claim to use the ES9318 though, not the ES9311. Also has Bluetooth 5.0

 

[Ron Texas]

Here is an entire system for under $1000:
https://www.soundstagehifi.com/inde...m-you-can-begin-live-and-grow-with-for-926-95

It's based on a NAD 3020 V2.

 

[garbulky]

Here is an entire system for under $1000:
https://www.soundstagehifi.com/inde...m-you-can-begin-live-and-grow-with-for-926-95

It's based on a NAD 3020 V2.

See that's what bugs me. $1000 seems interesting but I just can't see myself wanting or reccomending that system. Somebody who is jumping in for $1000 and he gets some tiny box and a set of drab bookshelves? It looks like some old used stereo you'd find at garage sales. If at all possible I would reccomend towers. Usually if somebody is spending a $1000 - it's their first time jumping in to hifi and it's pricey for them. Nobody wants to spend a $1000 and be without bass extension. The speakers cost $200 but they spent $179 on AudioQuest cables. "I was worried it was a bit pricey for entry level cables." Uh yes, Doug they were a "bit pricey". Isn't he like a veteran reviewer?

 

[andreasmaaan]

The speakers cost $200 but they spent $179 on AudioQuest cables. "I was worried it was a bit pricey for entry level cables."

Absolutely! Hadn't read the full article so didn't realise nearly 1/5 of the budget was spent on cables, but now I understand why the system seems so measly for $1k.

It's not just that they're bookshelf speakers, it's that they're quite mediocre-measuring bookshelf speakers (although I suspect they're deliberately designed to have a "loudness button always enabled" type of response).

In the $1k price range you'd be better off spending $800-900 on a pair of active monitors and the rest on a solid-performing budget USB DAC.

 

[Ron Texas]

Absolutely! Hadn't read the full article so didn't realise nearly 1/5 of the budget was spent on cables, but now I understand why the system seems so measly for $1k.

I have to agree that spending that much money on cables is lame. Whether the bookshelf speakers are drab is a matter of opinion. The real point which the last two posters appear to be mission is a unit like the D3020 is a high value proposition and you don't need a standalone DAC.

Another interesting selection is the Audioengine HD6, powered speakers with a built in DAC.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I have to agree that spending that much money on cables is lame. Whether the bookshelf speakers are drab is a matter of opinion. The real point which the last two posters appear to be mission is a unit like the D3020 is a high value proposition and you don't need a standalone DAC.

Another interesting selection is the Audioengine HD6, powered speakers with a built in DAC.

Agree, I think the D3020 is a great product and if you're set on using passive speakers it would probably be the go-to DAC/amp in the sub-$500 range.

I don't think the speakers are deficient only as a matter of opinion though.. The measurements I posted earlier, which are from a trustworthy source, indicate that they will heavily colour the sound.

 

[garbulky]

Absolutely! Hadn't read the full article so didn't realise nearly 1/5 of the budget was spent on cables, but now I understand why the system seems so measly for $1k.

It's not just that they're bookshelf speakers, it's that they're quite mediocre-measuring bookshelf speakers (although I suspect they're deliberately designed to have a "loudness button always enabled" type of response).

In the $1k price range you'd be better off spending $800-900 on a pair of active monitors and the rest on a solid-performing budget USB DAC.

Yep. For my friend I reccomended him an Emotiva DAC and a set of airmotiv 5 speakers which he hooked up via XLR cables. They had the bass he was looking for plus a remote control. He was pleasantly surprised that they were clearer and his old Klipsch Promedia 2.1 setup.

If people aren't keen on monitors.
Emotiva TA-100 $400
Emotiva Airmotiv T1 Towers $700
Or Tekton Design Mini Lores $700
All those options will give you better sound than his reccomendations while providing some decent bass and volume capabilities. Because I promise you when I first spent money on my hifi I would have been very dissapointed if I got a setup with at least a modicum of full range capability. Nobody buying their first hifi is looking for crystal clear mid range because they don't know much about such things. It's about volume and bass at that point. Luckily my previous suggestions have both quality and punch - (in my subjective opinion).

 

[Krunok]

In the $1k price range you'd be better off spending $800-900 on a pair of active monitors and the rest on a solid-performing budget USB DAC.

+1

 

[andreasmaaan]

Yep. For my friend I reccomended him an Emotiva DAC and a set of airmotiv 5 speakers which he hooked up via XLR cables. They had the bass he was looking for plus a remote control. He was pleasantly surprised that they were clearer and his old Klipsch Promedia 2.1 setup.

If people aren't keen on monitors.
Emotiva TA-100 $400
Emotiva Airmotiv T1 Towers $700
Or Tekton Design Mini Lores $700
All those options will give you better sound than his reccomendations while providing some decent bass and volume capabilities. Because I promise you when I first spent money on my hifi I would have been very dissapointed if I got a setup with at least a modicum of full range capability. Nobody buying their first hifi is looking for crystal clear mid range because they don't know much about such things. It's about volume and bass at that point. Luckily my previous suggestions have both quality and punch - (in my subjective opinion).

I don't know much about those particular speakers but the Airmotiv measurements I was able to find looked promising.

The Tekton Mini Lores are an old-fashioned and suboptimal design IMHO. Large mid-woofer crossing to a non-horn-loaded dome tweeter. Would anticipate an unnecessarily poor horizontal polar response and high low-treble distortion. Not saying they are "bad", just that they're not how I'd choose to put together a large mid-woofer and a dome tweeter.

(Instead, I would place the tweeter in a horn/waveguide, which would linearise the off-axis performance, reduce nonlinear distortion, and increase max SPL.)

I've said this in another thread: I can't understand why so many manufacturers persist with direct radiating domes, especially when crossed to a much larger mid-woofer.

Ofc I say all this only tentatively - I haven't measured or heard either speaker.

Why in your opinion would anyone not be keen on monitors?

 

[garbulky]

I don't know much about those particular speakers but the Airmotiv measurements I was able to find looked promising.

The Tekton Mini Lores are an old-fashioned and suboptimal design IMHO. Large mid-woofer crossing to a non-horn-loaded dome tweeter. Would anticipate an unnecessarily poor horizontal polar response and high low-treble distortion. Not saying they are "bad", just that they're not how I'd choose to put together a large mid-woofer and a dome tweeter.

(Instead, I would place the tweeter in a horn/waveguide, which would linearise the off-axis performance, reduce nonlinear distortion, and increase max SPL.)

I've said this in another thread: I can't understand why so many manufacturers persist with direct radiating domes, especially when crossed to a much larger mid-woofer.

Ofc I say all this only tentatively - I haven't measured or heard either speaker.

Why in your opinion would anyone not be keen on monitors?

Most every bit of it is preference.
Well one perspective is mine. I prefer towers. Also I don't like having to find plug points to plug in the individual monitors. I also prefer to have my own amp - even if it's not doing more efficient active bi amplification like a lot of monitors. That way I can swap out amps etc. I don't throw the amps away when I get a different set of speakers.

The other perspective is a person jumping in to hifi putting a general 1k in to his system. For most of them they are not familiar with monitors for home use. They are just wrapping their head around a "DAC". They've heard of a receiever but they aren't quite sure what it does. Now we are talking about putting the amps in the speakers - which I doubt they've heard of - outside of soundbars and the such. If they can't understand it they will likely shy away.

The other is that monitors in that price range are usually not towers. And I think people would want to at the very least see they got something substantial for their 1 grand. It may mean barely anything in this hobby but for them 1 grand is an insane amount of money to spend on speakers. So coming away with smaller speakers may not be ideal for them.
The nice thing is that monitors tend to have some reasonable bass extension. But I think they'll be thrown off by their size and the concept. I know I was when I first became aware of them.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Most every bit of it is preference.
Well one perspective is mine. I prefer towers. Also I don't like having to find plug points to plug in the individual monitors. I also prefer to have my own amp - even if it's not doing more efficient active bi amplification like a lot of monitors. That way I can swap out amps etc. I don't throw the amps away when I get a different set of speakers.

The other perspective is a person jumping in to hifi putting a general 1k in to his system. For most of them they are not familiar with monitors for home use. They are just wrapping their head around a "DAC". They've heard of a receiever but they aren't quite sure what it does. Now we are talking about putting the amps in the speakers - which I doubt they've heard of - outside of soundbars and the such. If they can't understand it they will likely shy away.

The other is that monitors in that price range are usually not towers. And I think people would want to at the very least see they got something substantial for their 1 grand. It may mean barely anything in this hobby but for them 1 grand is an insane amount of money to spend on speakers. So coming away with smaller speakers may not be ideal for them.
The nice thing is that monitors tend to have some reasonable bass extension. But I think they'll be thrown off by their size and the concept. I know I was when I first became aware of them.

Depends very much on the particular monitors, but yeh, these sound like common reasons why people may prefer passive speakers. I only use active speakers now, but I'm still nostalgic for passive tower speakers and component systems.

Anyway, if it were a friend of mine and they were considering a passive-speaker based component system for their first hifi, I'd still probably try to convince them to change their mind

 

[Krunok]

Large mid-woofer crossing to a non-horn-loaded dome tweeter. Would anticipate an unnecessarily poor horizontal polar response and high low-treble distortion.

Let me check if I got this right - are you saying that all non-horn-loaded dome tweeter designs are suboptimal as avoiding to horn load the dome tweeter would increase low-treble distortion?

 

[JJB70]

I guess it depends what you want a DAC for. I tend to think that if it is for use with a smart phone or tablet then the budget approach is to just not bother as I think that the internal DACs in many devices are fine. Whether the headphone amp has enough oomph is another question but in many cases if your tablet or smartphone drives your headphones to your desired volume then you don't need an external DAC or amp.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Let me check if I got this right - are you saying that all non-horn-loaded dome tweeter designs are suboptimal as avoiding to horn load the dome tweeter would increase low-treble distortion?

Haha, I wouldn't put it so categorically. But yeh, what I'm saying is somewhat controversial. Please let me explain my point in detail.

Direct-radiating dome tweeters perform well at low to moderate SPLs, and are excellent in terms of value for money and/or where wide dispersion in the low to mid treble is desired.

However, they always perform poorly in the low-treble if pushed to moderate or high SPLs and not crossed over relatively high. Although different dome tweeters perform differently, ultimately there's no avoiding this. Importantly, the performance of the dome at moderate-high levels will be most compromised in the ear's most sensitive frequency range (1.5-5KHz).

This means that direct-radiating domes make sense only when crossed over relatively high and/or not asked to play too loud, such as when matched to a smaller midrange driver or midwoofer. So they make sense in smaller two-way speakers or in three-way speakers.

In this case, however, we have an 8" woofer and 1" direct-radiating dome (I think... I can't find a close-up picture, but if there is a small, shallow waveguide, it is very small and shallow). It's my opinion is that the use of a direct-radiating dome is a suboptimal design choice in such a case.

There are two problems here as I see it, and only one or the other can be solved.

On one hand, if we want the dome to play to the same SPLs that the woofer is capable of, without heavy distortion or risk of damage, it will need to be crossed over quite high. This will result in very narrow lateral dispersion at the top of the woofer's passband (larger woofers begin to beam at lower frequencies), and very wide lateral dispersion at the bottom of the tweeter's passband. (Also, since the acoustic centre of the 8" woofer is quite a long way from that of the tweeter, the result will be a pretty erratic vertical polar response around the crossover point.) In most rooms, such a mismatch will be a recipe for brightness/hardness.

On the other hand, if we want to try to get a closer match between the lateral dispersion of the woofer and tweeter at the crossover point, we'll have to cross over so low that the dome will be working too hard at even moderate SPLs.

I'm sure that the designers will have gone for the former option, since the latter option would put the tweeter at risk of damage under normal use. But I'd prefer neither option. Instead, I'd choose to horn-load the dome, which would reduce both the level of distortion and the lateral dispersion at the bottom of the dome's passband. This would allow it to be crossed to the woofer lower and/or play louder. It would also help match the two drivers' lateral dispersion at the crossover point.

Of course, while I believe my arguments are persuasive and supported by theory and evidence, this is still just my opinion. There are many other factors to consider in designing a speaker, and an 8" 2-way with a direct-radiating dome can certainly be made to perform quite well and sound quite good.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Btw @Krunok, I am using the term "horn" to also include what is commonly called a waveguide. The difference is semantic, since all horns control dispersion and all waveguides load the driver at particular frequencies. Perhaps my previous post reads less controversially if the word "waveguide" is substituted for the word "horn" in all cases.

 

[Ron Texas]

I don't think the speakers are deficient only as a matter of opinion though.. The measurements I posted earlier, which are from a trustworthy source, indicate that they will heavily colour the sound.

All speakers have things wrong with them. What I am more interested in is the proposition that building a budget system isn't just about finding a cheap DAC that works. If that were the case everyone should get a D30 because at $120 it's cheap enough and it works really well.

Not enough time is spent on doing budget systems as a complete concept. I would love to see more discussion of RPI's to learn about these super inexpensive endpoints.

 

[Krunok]

Btw @Krunok, I am using the term "horn" to also include what is commonly called a waveguide. The difference is semantic, since all horns control dispersion and all waveguides load the driver at particular frequencies. Perhaps my previous post reads less controversially if the word "waveguide" is substituted for the word "horn" in all cases.

Sure, I fully agree that waveguide is a better term. Would you say that this tweeter has waveguide or not?

 

[andreasmaaan]

Sure, I fully agree that waveguide is a better term. Would you say that this tweeter has waveguide or not?

That's a waveguide, yeh. Without knowing the dimensions it's hard to know down to what frequencies it would be effective in terms of dispersion and loading. Which tweeter is it?

EDIT: don't worry, I think I recognise it. Is it the tweeter/waveguide from the Revel Ultima 2 series?