This is the review and detailed measurements of the NAD Wireless USB 2 stereo DAC. It is on kind loan from a member and costs around $250.
The unit is smaller than it looks in NAD pictures. The transmitter is tiny and not much bigger than a USB charger. It is self powered over USB and gets warm. The receiver looks fine and sports both RCA analog out and Coax S/PDIF digital:
As you see there are three independent RF channels so you can have three such devices in your household.
The longest RCA cable I had allowed me to separate the receiver by about 12 to 15 feet (3 to 4 meters) and performance remained the same. Company spec is 40 meters.
NAD Wireless DAC 2 Measurements
Let's start with digital Coax output out of the unit and see the raw performance independent of the DAC:
Clearly the transmission line is capable of 24 bit output delivering almost that much in dynamic range. I expected RCA output to be underwhelming but this was NOT the case at all:
SINAD is limited by distortion with its highest component very close to threshold of hearing. This allows the Wireless DAC to run shoulder to shoulder with many excellent wired DACs:
Dynamic range is also unexpectedly good:
Native output is 2.3 volts by the way and hence the right side bar graphs.
Intermodulation noise and distortion is very competitive again with desktop products:
I expected to see some clock jitter and we have it:
Fortunately it is at harmless levels as indicated. Linearity is nailed in one channel and the other is almost there as well:
I was surprised to see my Multitone test run despite its 192 kHz sampling. Spec says 96 kHz but seems like the transmitter accepts this and performs some kind of resampling internally. The conversion generates some quantization error but results are still very good:
Finally, distortion vs frequency is very respectable as well:
Conclusions
Let's face it: this device has no business performing so well! I expected to see a SINAD of 94 dB and performance no better than 16 bits. With no expectation that someone like us would measure it to this level of a detail, an engineer made sure measured performance is this good. Oddly, the specs are very poor (SNR of > 80 dB for example). This is a first as well.
Dedicated wireless streaming is an extremely good feature allowing you to place your computer where you want and attach to your stereo without any of the hassles of Wifi and Bluetooth. Turn it and it works. I am willing to give up some performance to get there but NAD doesn't ask you to even do that. Combine that with the $249 price and you have a winner in my book. FYI there is one on sale on Amazon for just $149!
In the rare situation where you think you want even better performance, you can use the Coax to drive an external DAC.
It is my pleasure to recommend the NAD Wireless USB DAC 2. Job well done!
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The unit is smaller than it looks in NAD pictures. The transmitter is tiny and not much bigger than a USB charger. It is self powered over USB and gets warm. The receiver looks fine and sports both RCA analog out and Coax S/PDIF digital:
As you see there are three independent RF channels so you can have three such devices in your household.
The longest RCA cable I had allowed me to separate the receiver by about 12 to 15 feet (3 to 4 meters) and performance remained the same. Company spec is 40 meters.
NAD Wireless DAC 2 Measurements
Let's start with digital Coax output out of the unit and see the raw performance independent of the DAC:
Clearly the transmission line is capable of 24 bit output delivering almost that much in dynamic range. I expected RCA output to be underwhelming but this was NOT the case at all:
SINAD is limited by distortion with its highest component very close to threshold of hearing. This allows the Wireless DAC to run shoulder to shoulder with many excellent wired DACs:
Dynamic range is also unexpectedly good:
Native output is 2.3 volts by the way and hence the right side bar graphs.
Intermodulation noise and distortion is very competitive again with desktop products:
I expected to see some clock jitter and we have it:
Fortunately it is at harmless levels as indicated. Linearity is nailed in one channel and the other is almost there as well:
I was surprised to see my Multitone test run despite its 192 kHz sampling. Spec says 96 kHz but seems like the transmitter accepts this and performs some kind of resampling internally. The conversion generates some quantization error but results are still very good:
Finally, distortion vs frequency is very respectable as well:
Conclusions
Let's face it: this device has no business performing so well! I expected to see a SINAD of 94 dB and performance no better than 16 bits. With no expectation that someone like us would measure it to this level of a detail, an engineer made sure measured performance is this good. Oddly, the specs are very poor (SNR of > 80 dB for example). This is a first as well.
Dedicated wireless streaming is an extremely good feature allowing you to place your computer where you want and attach to your stereo without any of the hassles of Wifi and Bluetooth. Turn it and it works. I am willing to give up some performance to get there but NAD doesn't ask you to even do that. Combine that with the $249 price and you have a winner in my book. FYI there is one on sale on Amazon for just $149!
In the rare situation where you think you want even better performance, you can use the Coax to drive an external DAC.
It is my pleasure to recommend the NAD Wireless USB DAC 2. Job well done!
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
