DAC Implementation/sonic differences between the Marantz HD-DAC1 and the Marantz NA6006 streamer

[Abe_W]

When it comes to Audio, most japanese brands (today) spend definitely more in marketing than engineering. Or it lacks japanese gears here to see how they are capable to produce SOTA electronics anymore. At the end: Country doesn't matter, except from a marketing point of view.

Since this is a science forum, better bring some sociological research to understand why...

You better be scared, then. According my poll, most active members here are living in Europe....

Hey, i did speak well of the Germans in Europe. Hopefully, the Germans will defend me against the unified wrath of the Spaniards, Brits, Frenchmen and Italians. Bwaahaha,

 

[Abe_W]

I've bought from AC4L many times over the past 15 years or so. Sometimes new, sometimes refurbs. I've never gotten a single DOA item from them. They are a legit dealer.

Thank you for the assurance, helping me pull the trigger.

 

[Audio Flynn]

I am sure Japanese companies do plenty of outsourcing with manufacturing like their American/European counterpart to cut manufacturing costs. But, when it comes to engineering R&D/design for manufacturin/quality/etc, I just have more faith in them.

I am a US engineer (not in the audio industry, different industry altogether) who's worked with engineers from various parts of the world. It is just an observation. The Japanese and Chinese engineers work like machines for so many damn hours a day. In the US, it's a hit or miss. Some guys work hard and some are lazy. But, boy, these European engineers are so damn lazy man ( German engineers, being the only exception). Getting even a honest 8 hr workday from a engineer from Spain, France, etc seems rather difficult (wining, dining and being on a semi-permanent vacation). It is just a general observation i've made over a couple of decades and there are exceptions (obviously). But, inefficient labor is non-value added cost and the consumer pays more for less, a.k.a less bang for the buck. I am sure this applies to the audio industry as well. I am sure some European guys on this forum are going to get real mad at me for this post. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. LOL

I am a USA engineer as well. France and Spain made me laugh. I have experienced the same. Although it is hard to get a german to respond during summer holiday and Octoberfest. LOL

 

[KxDx]

I ordered an HD-DAC1 last week, since there were some great sales to be found. Got it last night and played with it some. This one's a keeper. It checks off all the boxes in all the right ways (in terms of appearance, features, and interface).

The other two DAC's I currently have are Wyred 4 Sound DAC-2 (no upgrades) and TEAC UD-H01. The TEAC is unstable at 192k on coax and has a lower fixed output level so I can't make a valid comparison. The Marantz and W4S are more adjustable so I could match them better by ear (admittedly no instrumentation at hand).

My ears still reported no differences in sound to my brain. That's the result I desired, and all the validation I really needed. W4S has a lot more features to tweak, but the interface and menu system is horrible. I'm going to keep the Marantz and sell the other two once things settle down after the holidays.

 

[Bernard23]

I ordered an HD-DAC1 last week, since there were some great sales to be found. Got it last night and played with it some. This one's a keeper. It checks off all the boxes in all the right ways (in terms of appearance, features, and interface).

The other two DAC's I currently have are Wyred 4 Sound DAC-2 (no upgrades) and TEAC UD-H01. The TEAC is unstable at 192k on coax and has a lower fixed output level so I can't make a valid comparison. The Marantz and W4S are more adjustable so I could match them better by ear (admittedly no instrumentation at hand).

My ears still reported no differences in sound to my brain. That's the result I desired, and all the validation I really needed. W4S has a lot more features to tweak, but the interface and menu system is horrible. I'm going to keep the Marantz and sell the other two once things settle down after the holidays.

I bought one too a few days ago. It was that or a IFI or a Schiit entry stack, as the Marantz was heavily discounted. Works fine for me, drives my various phones to instant hearing loss should i choose without getting too flustered. I gave up critical listening some time ago, and just play music, if I get a thrill out of it, then it's done its job. Works well with Tidal and MusicBee, and prevents my Grados from ripping my ears apart.

 

[Abe_W]

I bought one too a few days ago. It was that or a IFI or a Schiit entry stack, as the Marantz was heavily discounted. Works fine for me, drives my various phones to instant hearing loss should i choose without getting too flustered. I gave up critical listening some time ago, and just play music, if I get a thrill out of it, then it's done its job. Works well with Tidal and MusicBee, and prevents my Grados from ripping my ears apart.

Sounds like you got it at the right time. It appears that Marantz has now discontinued the HD-DAC1 and NA6006

 

[Bernard23]

Does anyone have any measurements of the output impedance? I read somewhere it was around 11 ohms, which is suprisingly high given how much attention to detail Marantz appear to have made. It might explain why my Grados aren't quite as stunning as I expected, and my AKG 550 sound bloated and a slightly sloppy bass. Bizarrely, tracks played from MusicBee (FLAC on a HDD) sound better than the equivalent Tidal version. Both set to exclusive mode using the Maratntz proprietry driver.

 

[snapcrackle]

FWIW: my NA7004 received several free feature updates over its lifetime: gapless playback, AirPlay support, 192 kHz FLAC decoding... hopefully they'll keep up this level of support for new products as well - digital landscape keeps changing!

Interesting - I am one of those rare types that find the NA7004 annoyingly good - but I use it as its strength as a top notch spdif digital transport - as a transport the NA7004 is just absolutely incredible - annoyingly so, stopping me from moving onto a more functionally modern more feature rich streamer.

What strikes me about this post though is your update supporting gapless playback. I think it only does gapless on pull and not push. Nevertheless confirmation of this would be useful because I cannot make mine work gapless push as a UPnP endpoint and I am sure I am on the latest firmware.

But its pure strength as a digital transport has me hanging onto it - nothing else!