DAC for Piano

[scriabin]

I am new to this forum. I listen primarily to classical piano music. I listen to CD's only no streaming. I have been researching DAC's for about 6 months and reviews focus primarily on streaming. What DAC (s) would you recommend I research? Price range below $5000. Thank you.

 

[staticV3]

DACs aren't tuned for specific genres of music.

You DAC does not know if you're playing piano or dubstep through it.

$5000 is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a DAC.

Imagine looking for a pack of tissues with a budget of <$200. I'm sure some cheesy luxury brand will sell you some gold leaved, caviar smelling pack of tissues for $179.

That's your $5000 DAC. It will do its job not an ounce better than some $100 DAC, but your pockets will be $4900 lighter. Is that an advantage to you? Your call.

 

[GXAlan]

Are you listening with headphones or speakers? The *speaker* as opposed to to the DAC is where you need to invest the greatest amount of money to get you the best piano reproduction.

Unless there are specific pianists and performances you specifically listen to, which are only found on CD, if you like physical media, I would recommend investing in a good SACD player. This has nothing to do with the added resolution of the SACD layer over 16/44 but the recording/mastering of today's SACDs are better than CDs and you more commonly find SACD Text support.

$5000 is a great budget to work with.

 

[scriabin]

Are you listening with headphones or speakers? The *speaker* as opposed to to the DAC is where you need to invest the greatest amount of money to get you the best piano reproduction.

Unless there are specific pianists and performances you specifically listen to, which are only found on CD, if you like physical media, I would recommend investing in a good SACD player. This has nothing to do with the added resolution of the SACD layer over 16/44 but the recording/mastering of today's SACDs are better than CDs and you more commonly find SACD Text support.

$5000 is a great budget to work with.

I am listening through B&W 801 Matrix Series 3 speakers - 1994 vintage.

 

[Theodore8]

Welcome to ASR @scriabin !

DAC is a solved problem nowadays.

Use the Master Audio Review Index on the site to find reviews of all DACs tested by @amirm. The SINAD ranking bar chart is a good reference to compare overall performance level.

In short, for $420 you can get SOTA performance with a SABAJ A20. For $1,000 an RME ADI-2 gives you its renown « loudness contour » feature, and a lovely screen to look at. Anything beyond that will pay for improvements beyond audibility, for adding usability features, fancy chassis, perceived prestige, the satisfaction of having a product designed by a renown engineer (such as the Mola mola Tambaqui) or advertised in « audiophile« magazine covers, or, perhaps, the extra spending will just satisfy an urge to spend unnecessarily (which Is perfectly acceptable too, although perhaps somewhat pointless).

In any case, the music you listen to should have zero influence on your choice. A good DAC should be « transparent », i.e., add as little noise and/or distortion as possible. That’s the whole point of a DAC. The good ones do that, and for very reasonable money, which is why DACs are considered a solved problem.

Since you listen to CDs, one last important detail. Do use a CD transport with a USB output to connect to the DAC, and so allow the DAC’s clock to be the « master » that times the digital signal. A good modern DAC will have a better clock than any older CD player. Otherwise, you can also use SPDIF, but please avoid TOSLINK, which introduces too much jitter.

And, of course avoid any « external clock » system. As @amirm has shown, this will actually lower performance compared to a good DAC with internal clock.

Enjoy!

 

[scriabin]

DACs aren't tuned for specific genres of music.

You DAC does not know if you're playing piano or dubstep through it.

$5000 is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a DAC.

Imagine looking for a pack of tissues with a budget of <$200. I'm sure some cheesy luxury brand will sell you some gold leaved, caviar smelling pack of tissues for $179.

That's your $5000 DAC. It will do its job not an ounce better than some $100 DAC, but your pockets will be $4900 lighter. Is that an advantage to you? Your call.

I would happily spend less - Until this forum almost all reviews I have read are of Denafrips Terminator and Holo May/Spring.

 

[scriabin]

Welcome to ASR @scriabin !

DAC is a solved problem nowadays.

Use the Master Audio Review Index on the site to find reviews of all DACs tested by @amirm. The SINAD ranking bar chart is a good reference to compare overall performance level.

In short, for $420 you can get SOTA performance with a SABAJ A20. For $1,000 an RME ADI-2 gives you its renown « loudness contour » feature, and a lovely screen to look at. Anything beyond that will pay for improvements beyond audibility, for adding usability features, fancy chassis, perceived prestige, the satisfaction of having a product designed by a renown engineer (such as the Mola mola Tambaqui) or advertised in « audiophile« magazine covers, or, perhaps, the extra spending will just satisfy an urge to spend unnecessarily (which Is perfectly acceptable too, although perhaps somewhat pointless).

In any case, the music you listen to should have zero influence on your choice. A good DAC should be « transparent », i.e., add as little noise and/or distortion as possible. That’s the whole point of a DAC. The good ones do that, and for very reasonable money, which is why DACs are considered a solved problem.

Since you listen to CDs, one last important detail. Do use a CD transport with a USB output to connect to the DAC, and so allow the DAC’s clock to be the « master » that times the digital signal. A good modern DAC will have a better clock than any older CD player. Otherwise, you can also use SPDIF, but please avoid TOSLINK, which introduces too much jitter.

And, of course avoid any « external clock » system. As @amirm has shown, this will actually lower performance compared to a good DAC with internal clock.

Enjoy!

Excellent. This is why I have joined this forum to draw upon great knowledge. This will save me a lot of money. Thank you.

 

[FrantzM]

HI

DACs are a solved problem. If you are serious stay here , you will learn.
Oh and for the record, I would suggest you try a $120 Topping DAC...

Peace.

 

[radix]

Do you have EQ or room correction in your system? The RMI DAC has EQ. You might consider something like a miniDSP Flex and feed it toslink or coax from a cd/sacd transport. I'm not sure what the rest of your system is like.

I believe you'd get overall better playback if you rip the CDs and then stream them from a NAS. When you rip the CD, it can do multiple non-realtime reads to fix dropouts that would otherwise be interpolated during realtime playback. But I understand liking to handle physical media, I do that too sometimes with CDs and LPs.

 

[gvl]

Topping DACs are known to have issues on SPDIF inputs, for use with CD players I’d get somethig else.

 

[Theodore8]

I would happily spend less - Until this forum almost all reviews I have read are of Denafrips Terminator and Holo May/Spring.

FWIW, Denafrips is a special type of DAC implementation technology called R2R. It is structurally lower performance, but many of us with an engineering bent admired its complexity and craftsmanship, even if the end result is of lower quality. Similar to a ROLEX that will be way less precise than any quartz TIMEX, but is of immeasurably higher and admirable craftsmanship. And that is why a ROLEX is a conversation piece and a TIMEX is not. And that is Denafrips’ niche.

 

[MRC01]

When Archimago tested different anti-aliasing filters, minimum vs linear phase, he included a few different music tracks. Among them one was piano, another was a plucked instrument like mandolin. Results among test participants indicated a slight preference for linear phase with piano. This makes sense given the piano's complex harmonics, but whether that is statistically significant is a different question. Yet while linear phase is the most "correct" filter, some audio DACs use minimum phase since they think it is more "musical". Ugh I hate that term, and it could all be random statistical variation, but it's worth mentioning.

The Linear vs. Minimum Phase Upsampling Filters Test [Part III]: SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS

A blog for audiophiles about more objective topics. Measurements of audio gear. Reasonable, realistic, no snakeoil assessment of sound, and equipment.

archimago.blogspot.com

 

[staticV3]

I would happily spend less

Here are some well-priced DACs:

Spoiler: Single ended

-JDS Atom DAC+ ($110)
-Topping D10s ($110)
-SMSL C100 ($120)
-Schiit Modi+ ($130)
-SMSL Sanskrit 10th MKIII ($140)
-Topping E30 II ($150)

Spoiler: Balanced

-Topping D10 Balanced ($140)
-SMSL D-6 ($170)
-Topping E50 ($200)
-Schiit Modius E ($230)

Balanced DACs don't sound better than single ended DACs, but they have a louder signal so you can turn down the Amp a bit -> less noise.
And they are more resilient to interference, which is important for long cable runs. But you need equipment that supports balanced input to use them.

 

[scriabin]

Here are some well-priced DACs:

Spoiler: Single ended

-JDS Atom DAC+ ($110)
-Topping D10s
-SMSL C100 ($120)
-Schiit Modi+ ($130)
-SMSL Sanskrit 10th MKIII ($140)
-Topping E30 II ($150)

Spoiler: Balanced

-Topping D10 Balanced ($140)
-SMSL D-6 ($170)
-Topping E50 ($200)
-Schiit Modius E ($230)

Balanced DACs don't sound better than single ended DACs, but they have a louder signal so you can turn down the Amp a bit -> less noise.
And they are more resilient to interference, which is important for long cable runs. But you need equipment that supports balanced input to use them.

Thank you.

 

[GXAlan]

If you are in the United States where there are in home trials/return policies…

R-N2000A Network Receiver - Yamaha USA

Yamaha R-N2000A network Hi-Fi receiver compatible with lossless and high-resolution music sources and streaming services.

usa.yamaha.com

You can even drop ship to Amir for testing

Since most of your content is CD, you are more than fine with any basic DAC. Yamaha gives you the peace of mind that they know pianos, which is psychological and not necessarily true, but still a reason why people have their favorite egg or milk brands.

It is one of the rare Class AB amps with room correction, and YPAO RSC is relatively benign and handles the high res audio that you might choose to playback with streaming down the line all in one convenient box.

I am going to make the assumption that it is reasonably close to the higher end s3200.

Yamaha A-S3200 Integrated Amplifier Lab Report

Lab Report We reviewed the first of Yamaha's 'new retro' integrateds over six years ago and, in common with the shared aesthetics, it's also very tricky to determine any significant performance change between the aforementioned A-S3000 [HFN Nov '13] and the latest A-S3200 we have here. Both...

www.hifinews.com

They do pretty well with noise. Weakness is lack of balanced inputs.


NAD M33 is another option for integrated dac/amp with room correction. That had some weird issues with excess noise when used as an integrated and the roll off filter wasn’t great for your CDs.

NAD M33 Streaming Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the NAD M33 Streaming Player with Purifi Eigentakt Amplification. It is kindly sent for testing from a member and has a retail cost of US $4,999. The NAD is part of their "Masters" series and has one of the best industrial designs of any audio...

www.audiosciencereview.com

if you can compare the two, you can see which interface you like better.

 

[kemmler3D]

Great advice ITT already, I would just point out that if you already have a CD player you like, check the performance of specific inputs on the DAC you intend to buy. The RME will be great with anything, but a few lower-budget DACs have oddly high jitter on certain connections due to poor implementation. Most are great even in the $150 range, but just make sure you double check.

Now, realistically that jitter will be inaudible in all but the most inconceivably extreme edge cases, for all but the very worst DACs. But if you are the sort of person to throw $5K or even $1K at a DAC, I imagine you enjoy the peace of mind that theoretical perfection beyond practical perfection brings.

 

[JustJones]

If you're happy with your speakers, amplifier and CD player and are considering streaming and perhaps room correction I'd look at the Minidsp SHD.

 

[Theodore8]

Thank you.

In the “attractively priced“ category let us not forget the recently released SONCOZ QXA1, designed by our fellow ASR member @Ben1987, of Khadas Tone Board fame (another high-performing, moderately priced DAC that proved a wild commercial success).

Prior to this latest DAC design, @Ben1987 had already distinguished himself by achieving top rankiNg measurements and “recommended by @amirm“ status in the ASR reviews of the —slightly higher priced— SGD1 and SGA1 models.

Besides strong performance, Soncoz products have the advantage, in my view, of a premium look for their price range.

 

[scriabin]

HI

DACs are a solved problem. If you are serious stay here , you will learn.
Oh and for the record, I would suggest you try a $120 Topping DAC...

Peace.

You are correct, I am learning from this site. I am 69 and nice to keep learning and spend less money.

 

[scriabin]

Do you have EQ or room correction in your system? The RMI DAC has EQ. You might consider something like a miniDSP Flex and feed it toslink or coax from a cd/sacd transport. I'm not sure what the rest of your system is like.

I believe you'd get overall better playback if you rip the CDs and then stream them from a NAS. When you rip the CD, it can do multiple non-realtime reads to fix dropouts that would otherwise be interpolated during realtime playback. But I understand liking to handle physical media, I do that too sometimes with CDs and LPs.

No EQ or room correction. Thank you for your comments.