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Okto dac8 stereo DAC Review

watchnerd

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The difference in sound between Okto and the others, regardless of price, was night and day. The Okto sounded like it had compressed dynamic range, narrow sound stage,and weird tonality.

I've had similar experiences with regards to dynamic range and tonality from DACs that otherwise measured well.

I know, lack of level matching can account for many things -- but even when I did that, there are some DACs, like Mini DSP, that I really wanted to like for the features, but just couldn't warm up to.

It's entirely possible it's placebo, but sometimes I wondered if things like cheap power supplies were a factor.
 

mp006ltk

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It didn't matter what I set the volume control to. Besides, I think the measurements here showed higher than normal output voltage.

At the same time I had been selling an old pair of speakers and don't like having people I don't know in my house, especially since it was the early days of Covid. So I setup a quick demo in the garage with the lightest dac I had which was the Okto. The guy almost didn't buy the speakers until I ran in the house and grabbed the Antelope.

He bought the speakers about 20 min later....

WRT placebo... I will point out that the Antelope isnt a high priced component like the others. It's probably worth 900 on ebay. No DSD and no remote but...... I originally bought it as a word clock for the Elgar, but the DAC isn't bad.

The build is also much better than the DAC8. The windows on the Okto were loose and flexible if you accidentally touched them, and plastic knob with thir cheap encoder doesn't exude quality.
 
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Doodski

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I know, lack of level matching can account for many things -- but even when I did that, there are some DACs, like Mini DSP, that I really wanted to like for the features, but just couldn't warm up to.
That's too bad because the miniDSP is a great package.

It's entirely possible it's placebo, but sometimes I wondered if things like cheap power supplies were a factor.
It is possible that they might use common voltage rails for the power supplies although it is so uncommon that I doubt it. But that would explain some issues if they use common supplies. Otherwise dedicated power supplies for analogue and digital circuitry should eliminate all but the worst of incoming power deviations and unwanted energy while keeping digital switching noise out of the voltage rails and out of the outgoing AC waveform. I am advised by peeps here at ASR that the miniDSP has a lot of hiss. Not sure where that comes from.
 

Sonic-Wall

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@mp006ltk
Thanks for this great feedback!

Actually I miss in most reviews aspects like sound quality, special features and usability which matters more to me than a couple of dBs of dynamic range.
Best example is the RME ADI-2 Pro FSR which provides such a great feature set that I‘m more than happy with „just“ a SNR of 120dB :)
 

Purité Audio

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Cognitive bias is very powerful yet rarely discussed, unless the comparisons were performed level matched and unsighted they mean very little.
Keith
 

mp006ltk

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:facepalm: I think I lost you there? It requires extra stylish balanced cables?
No it takes headphone style balanced connectors instead of xlr

It has xlr, but they are fixed output only, so they will toast your speakers if you plug in to them.
 
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AudioSceptic

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I figured I would chime in. Enough time has passed since selling my unit as to not anger my buyer. Please note that while my product quality issues were well documented on here, I don't hold grudges and my poor opinion of the sound is completely independent of the ownership experience.

I was greatly underwhelmed by the sound. This DAC absolutely proved to me beyond doubt, that great measurement doesn't mean great sound. When I had this in my listening room, I was in the process of upgrading dacs so I had several great pieces to compare against. Obviously they would all measure much worse than the DAC8. I had a dcs Elgar with Purcell, an Antelope Pure2, a Berkeley Alpha 2, a Mytek Manhattan 2, and my current hardware, the Meridian Ultra DAC.

The difference in sound between Okto and the others, regardless of price, was night and day. The Okto sounded like it had compressed dynamic range, narrow sound stage,and weird tonality.

I understand that some of the units I listed are several times the price, but even amongst the group I listed the rank order wasn't in order of cost.

My preference by rank.
1. Meridian Ultra Dac (i currently own this)
2. Berkeley Alpha 2 (i wouldn't recommend since no usb input)
3. Antelope Pure 2 (requires pro audio style cables on balanced output) BEST VALUE!!!
4. Mytek Manhattan 2 (almost indistinguishable sound from Antelope, but cost is much higher)
5. dCS Elgar Plus/ Purcell ( great in its day, harsh by today's standard)
6. Okto Dac8 Stereo ( would be further down but I only had 6 units on hand at the time)

For reference I'm not one for audio foolery. My cables are bulk wire. My amplifiers are Hypex. My speakers are my design and are all ScanSpeak drivers.

I recognize that the industry has devolved into madness with insane prices and snake oil everywhere. That said you just can't sum up great sound with measurements. If the DAC8 is perfect I will gladly take flaws. Don't fool yourself that you're getting the world's best DAC.

Just my $0.02

Note: I only listed components I was actually able to plug into my system that day. None of these were based on comparison across dealer demo systems. I auditioned many more including the Dave and the Rossini, but its impossible for me to campare apples to apples.
That is surprising to say the least! Do you have any idea how such differences would not show up in measurements, IOW what are we *not* measuring that matters?
 

EchoChamber

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For what is worth, I still love my Dac8 Stereo and have no intention of replacing it. To me it was end game. Most of my gear is now… ASR greatly contributed to it. :) I did have a good amount of high SINAD dacs in my systems in 2020 and could still perceive subjective sonic differences between units, I settled for the Dac8 as the most neutral and natural sounding.
 
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John1959

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The Okto Research DAC8 has been consistently very well reviewed , not only because the measurements but also the subjective sound quality (e.g. Stereophile). That's a fact. But no doubt there are a lot of DAC's these days which perform equally good and maybe some are even better in some ways. But what I really like is its features and flexibility. Most important for me: it is a 8 channel device with bidirectional USB input so I can use it in my active system. No need to buy 3 or 4 DAC's or even a separate active crossover!
 
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I figured I would chime in. Enough time has passed since selling my unit as to not anger my buyer. Please note that while my product quality issues were well documented on here, I don't hold grudges and my poor opinion of the sound is completely independent of the ownership experience.

I was greatly underwhelmed by the sound. This DAC absolutely proved to me beyond doubt, that great measurement doesn't mean great sound. When I had this in my listening room, I was in the process of upgrading dacs so I had several great pieces to compare against. Obviously they would all measure much worse than the DAC8. I had a dcs Elgar with Purcell, an Antelope Pure2, a Berkeley Alpha 2, a Mytek Manhattan 2, and my current hardware, the Meridian Ultra DAC.

The difference in sound between Okto and the others, regardless of price, was night and day. The Okto sounded like it had compressed dynamic range, narrow sound stage,and weird tonality.

I understand that some of the units I listed are several times the price, but even amongst the group I listed the rank order wasn't in order of cost.

My preference by rank.
1. Meridian Ultra Dac (i currently own this)
2. Berkeley Alpha 2 (i wouldn't recommend since no usb input)
3. Antelope Pure 2 (requires pro audio style cables on balanced output) BEST VALUE!!!
4. Mytek Manhattan 2 (almost indistinguishable sound from Antelope, but cost is much higher)
5. dCS Elgar Plus/ Purcell ( great in its day, harsh by today's standard)
6. Okto Dac8 Stereo ( would be further down but I only had 6 units on hand at the time)

For reference I'm not one for audio foolery. My cables are bulk wire. My amplifiers are Hypex. My speakers are my design and are all ScanSpeak drivers.

I recognize that the industry has devolved into madness with insane prices and snake oil everywhere. That said you just can't sum up great sound with measurements. If the DAC8 is perfect I will gladly take flaws. Don't fool yourself that you're getting the world's best DAC.

Just my $0.02

Note: I only listed components I was actually able to plug into my system that day. None of these were based on comparison across dealer demo systems. I auditioned many more including the Dave and the Rossini, but its impossible for me to campare apples to apples.
Am an owner of a DAC 8 Stereo myself. I can also add my experience here. The Okto is directly coupled to my power amplifier via a balanced cable. The amplifier I am currently using is a GamuT D200. It features adjustable gain. Initially I had set it to the highest gain because I had to turn the Okto very loud before a certain level of sound was produced which is strange considering the potential of the GamuT.

This configuration was listened to for months. Because I wanted to add a subwoofer and it played way too quietly relative to the speakers I lowered the gain to -14dB. Because of this the Okto now often has to be set to near maximum.

To my surprise I found that the sound quality is now much improved compared to before.

It is true that the Plexiglas window is a bit light, but to say that the quality is poor is to distort the truth.

I am a very satisfied owner and find it hard to imagine that there is a device that can outperform the Okto.

The only real downside I can cite is the volume control. Between -99dB and -50dB there is almost no difference in volume. As a result, this section is never used. Actually, the volume control in my system happens between-45dB and 0dB, often playing at -8dB and not even exceptionally at -0dB or full open.
 

mdsimon2

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Am an owner of a DAC 8 Stereo myself. I can also add my experience here. The Okto is directly coupled to my power amplifier via a balanced cable. The amplifier I am currently using is a GamuT D200. It features adjustable gain. Initially I had set it to the highest gain because I had to turn the Okto very loud before a certain level of sound was produced which is strange considering the potential of the GamuT.

This configuration was listened to for months. Because I wanted to add a subwoofer and it played way too quietly relative to the speakers I lowered the gain to -14dB. Because of this the Okto now often has to be set to near maximum.

To my surprise I found that the sound quality is now much improved compared to before.

It is true that the Plexiglas window is a bit light, but to say that the quality is poor is to distort the truth.

I am a very satisfied owner and find it hard to imagine that there is a device that can outperform the Okto.

The only real downside I can cite is the volume control. Between -99dB and -50dB there is almost no difference in volume. As a result, this section is never used. Actually, the volume control in my system happens between-45dB and 0dB, often playing at -8dB and not even exceptionally at -0dB or full open.

Using the -14 dB gain setting makes sense to me.

Assuming the power rating of your amp is honest and you have the standard dac8 with 4 V outputs at 0 dB volume you could drive the amplifier to full power (400 W at 4 ohm) but you could never drive the amplifier to clipping regardless of volume position. That would mean you would creep towards the high end of the volume range (especially if you have lower level recordings) but I do not think that is a bad thing, if you are using the full range of your volume control you are doing something wrong with gain staging.

Michael
 

Feyire

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The difference in sound between Okto and the others, regardless of price, was night and day. The Okto sounded like it had compressed dynamic range, narrow sound stage,and weird tonality.
Given that your Okto DAC came with a dead-on-arrival headphone amplifier section, I'm wondering if perhaps the DAC section had undiscovered issues? Maybe it had a rough shipping and handling or something went wrong during assembly? Was the DAC going straight into the amplifiers or was there any pre-amp or similar in between?

I'd certainly like to understand why you perceived it to be so poorly sounding, given that other Okto DAC owners who post here are satisfied with the sound, myself included.

Out of curiosity, did the new owner share any listening impressions with your DAC after he received it?
 

mp006ltk

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It is true that the Plexiglas window is a bit light, but to say that the quality is poor is to distort the truth.

I am a very satisfied owner and find it hard to imagine that there is a device that can outperform the Okto.

WRT Quality.... In my post above I have largely stayed away from the QC issues and focused on sound, but in the area of quality, my experience from last year was well documented on here. My initial board had a dead headphone amplifier. Then they didn't check the board they sent for replacement and sent an 8 channel accidentally, and lastly they finally shipped the correct board some time later.

The initial board failure was no mystery. Under the microscope there were multiple dry solder joints upstream and on the headphone amplifier IC. There's no way that should have passed QC, but again, it did.

They did fix the issue with the replacement eventually, but when you bring up the issue of quality, I must add my experience. I hope that their process is better now.


With regards to anything outperforming the Okto, I would just say I'm happy that you're happy. I'm particularly happy to have unloaded mine and for my buyers sake, I hope it held up.

On the issue of sound, I felt like it wasn't just me when the guy who bought the speakers, commented on the "bad DAC" and had never heard of Okto or the Antelope that I substituted in. He was unaware of price points, or any other facts that could cause bias. As I said, it was not a slight difference.
 

mp006ltk

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Given that your Okto DAC came with a dead-on-arrival headphone amplifier section, I'm wondering if perhaps the DAC section had undiscovered issues? Maybe it had a rough shipping and handling or something went wrong during assembly? Was the DAC going straight into the amplifiers or was there any pre-amp or similar in between?

I'd certainly like to understand why you perceived it to be so poorly sounding, given that other Okto DAC owners who post here are satisfied with the sound, myself included.

Out of curiosity, did the new owner share any listening impressions with your DAC after he received it?

Seemed to sound the same with the replacement board..... I haven't owned a preamp for over a decade.

Never spoke to the buyer after the sale. With the issues I had, I kind of squinted and crossed my fingers.

I'm only trying to share my genuine experience. I'm not saying that there was anything crazy going on, or that there's no hope. I'm sure dCS started somewhere before they were building 6 figure hardware.

I'm not even discounting measurement entirely. I used to own an AP 25 series test setup myself. (active xover project)

That said, I just wouldn't put my faith completely in the measurements on this one, and there seems to be some additional utility for money spent on a DAC. Maybe it's in DSP secret sauce.... Maybe I'm paying for pleasant distortion... I don't know, but after briefly owning the Okto, mine was not in the same league.

I'm not the guy with voodoo power cables, or anaconda size speaker wire with mystery boxes. I'm not the guy with the tube amps, or the guy who will swear that vinyl is better. I don't own a rack made of anything that could possibly dampen vibration or improve LOL the sound. No ridiculous power conditioner, and no other "mods". I've owned a ton of gear over the years, from hundreds of dollars to well into the 5 figures. I will readily admit that money often doesn't correlate to sound quality.

All that said, on this one the high end gear spanked the lesser priced piece in my experience. You will have to pry my Meridian from my cold dead hand, at least until it breaks and Meridian is no longer around to fix it, cuz they suck at marketing and modernizing. It doesn't look good for their survival.
 
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EchoChamber

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Never spoke to the buyer after the sale. With the issues I had, I kind of squinted and crossed my fingers.
I don't think your Dac8 was broken, your buyer would probably have complained or left you negative feedback somewhere by now... Perhaps your expectations of what a system should sound like and the quality of the recordings you like made you think the Dac8 was at fault. The more transparent a system is, the more recording flaws you will hear. High SINAD gear is just very transparent and doesn't really "sound" like anything (and shouldn't really, it is just a tool to get to the music). Many, many good music has been recorded poorly. Hence, love of tubes, to mask these defects with some "good sounding" distortion... Not counting issues with room acoustics, etc... My Genelec's sound pretty unimpressive and muddy without proper calbration...
 

JP

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And sold out that fast?
 
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