This is a review of the Musical Fidelity V-DAC II including measurements. Member Ron Party was kind enough to l0an this to me. This is an older DAC, dating back to 2012 or so and retailed for $379. It comes with an external power supply which looks to be a linear one.
As usual, my first measurement is J-Test signal at 48 Khz sampling and 24 bits. Here is the outcome as compared to iFi iDSD which is a much newer DAC at similar price point:
As we see there, the noise floor of Musical Fidelity V-DAC II is lower than iFi iDSD even though its output is higher (i.e. has a better signal to noise ratio). Just eyeballing it, it seems to have 5 to 6 db advantage over iFi.
Given the linear power supply, its output is free of mains related harmonics. So overall, a very nice showing here.
I have also shown the performance of V-DAC using both its USB input and S/PDIF. S/PDIF was generated from my USB port using an Audiophilleo USB to S/PDIF converters. As we see, performance is the same putting to bed to the notion that "USB is a computer interface and hence noisier." It is not.
Next let's compare harmonic distortion at 7 Khz with 0dbFS signal:
Let's now compare that to Behringer UMC-204 HD which retails for just $80:
As we saw before, Behringer UMC204 HD remains king of low distortion, beating the V-DAC in second harmonic distortion level.
Behringer however puts out less output than the V-DAC II so in this regard, V-DAC II is superior (and if you compensate for the level difference the distortion difference shrinks too).
Conclusions:
Despite its age, the Musical Fidelity V-DAC II beats the much newer iFi iDAC2 in both jitter and harmonic distortion. It has the added advantage of including a S/PDIF input.
Compared to Behringer, it has higher distortion but also higher output level. Seeing how it can be picked up used at a few dollars more than Behringer, it makes for another good budget DAC.
As usual, my first measurement is J-Test signal at 48 Khz sampling and 24 bits. Here is the outcome as compared to iFi iDSD which is a much newer DAC at similar price point:
As we see there, the noise floor of Musical Fidelity V-DAC II is lower than iFi iDSD even though its output is higher (i.e. has a better signal to noise ratio). Just eyeballing it, it seems to have 5 to 6 db advantage over iFi.
Given the linear power supply, its output is free of mains related harmonics. So overall, a very nice showing here.
I have also shown the performance of V-DAC using both its USB input and S/PDIF. S/PDIF was generated from my USB port using an Audiophilleo USB to S/PDIF converters. As we see, performance is the same putting to bed to the notion that "USB is a computer interface and hence noisier." It is not.
Next let's compare harmonic distortion at 7 Khz with 0dbFS signal:
Let's now compare that to Behringer UMC-204 HD which retails for just $80:
As we saw before, Behringer UMC204 HD remains king of low distortion, beating the V-DAC in second harmonic distortion level.
Behringer however puts out less output than the V-DAC II so in this regard, V-DAC II is superior (and if you compensate for the level difference the distortion difference shrinks too).
Conclusions:
Despite its age, the Musical Fidelity V-DAC II beats the much newer iFi iDAC2 in both jitter and harmonic distortion. It has the added advantage of including a S/PDIF input.
Compared to Behringer, it has higher distortion but also higher output level. Seeing how it can be picked up used at a few dollars more than Behringer, it makes for another good budget DAC.
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