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Okto dac8 stereo DAC Review

rob58

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Oct 8, 2020
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I do not know. many say it is worth the wait. personally I think I have waited long enough. what bothered me is the initial lack of clarity (say 6/8 weeks) but the reality is profoundly different and the replies to the emails carry you for weeks with excuses that you no longer believe in the long run. I also have doubts as to whether what I have read exists.
unfortunately if it tells me that it has shipped and in 2 days I receive a tracking number and this does not happen after more than a week, I challenge anyone not to think wrong.
 

rob58

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I ordered June 26 and received order confirmation same day then I received payment receipt confirmation July 1
 

Okto Research

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Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing well in these crazy times and I want to assure you that we are working hard on manufacturing and delivering our products.

In the past couple of months, we have moved to a new, more spacious location. It took us quite a lot of time to equip it and establish the production, which caused our delivery times to spike, but it allowed us to increase our production volume and start catching up on the backlog of orders. We should be able to deliver most of the existing orders by the end of the year.

While it is going to be our manufacturing space and design studio, we also look forward to meet you here for a coffee, talk about audio and to hand you your dac8 Stereo/PRO if you ordered one. We hope it is soon going to be possible for everyone to travel abroad and visit Prague.

Also, the firmware update package for the dac8 Stereo/PRO is coming in a few days. This one is not going to bring many new functions, but rather fix all the known issues of the previous versions and increase robustness thanks to rewritten USB stack.

Pavel, Okto Research

@rob58 It didn't happen to us yet that the parcel would get lost on a way to a customer. Naturally, we have no proof for that and I am sorry that you don't believe me. In order to not to make an impression of being deceptive, we have refunded your order. Please send us the payment after you receive your dac8 Stereo if you decide to keep it.
 

Zooqu1ko

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So I guess there won`t be any good time to order this dac soon.

The best time to order one would be 3 months ago. If you failed to oder one back then then, ordering now is the best option available if you want your DAC as soon as possible.
 

Vasr

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So I guess there won`t be any good time to order this dac soon.

When the Euro is at the lowest relative to your currency. ;)

Anyone who ordered it early this year around March from the US got a 10% discount.
 

Pritaudio

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Does the even better sinad below human hearing affect high resolution music reproduction at higher bit rates than cd quality.
im just not sure when it’s 20bit perfect. Please explain.
 

AudioExplorer

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Sep 13, 2020
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I would like to use my DAC connected directly to a power amp and use the digital volume control. Is there any detail available regarding how much attenuation is possible before the loss of resolution in bits starts to affect quality?
 

Feyire

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Also, the firmware update package for the dac8 Stereo/PRO is coming in a few days. This one is not going to bring many new functions, but rather fix all the known issues of the previous versions and increase robustness thanks to rewritten USB stack.
Hey Pavel, any update on the firmware update becoming available?
 

Kal Rubinson

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i just received my stereophile issue and saw kal’s sidebar on okto. looks like an official review..........................................
41G0sWOLkdL._AC_.jpg
 

Stretchneck

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Got my Okto Stereo (15 weeks) but it wont play anything.
Tried my CD Transport via coax SPDIF and there is a II (pause) mark to the left of the source name Coax2.
I loaded the windows driver that Pavel sent a link to (DIYINHK), but neither Qobuz or Groove music want to play on my laptop via USB. Qobuz App says-"The selected device has not been recognised by the application" Same II mark next to USB2 source on Okto.
When trying an external RPi/MoOde I get this MPD alsa fail message.
View attachment 87662

What's particularly worrying is the CD Transport not playing.
Drop my Topping D90 back in and all of these sources work. Even the DIYINHK ASIO Driver works with Qobuz and the D90.
Any clues where I might start?
This is a Linux ALSA error - no surprise there - you just need to reset what DAC the RaspPi should be outputting to. On other Linux distros you would do this: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Audio/Alsamixer
But also must be some way of setting the DAC in Mo0de as well.
 

Cortes

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Sorry about the silly question. In practical terms, what does it mean the custom output voltage options they give?. Better to stick to the dafult ~4V, or there are reasons to reduce it losing some dbs in SINAD?.

Anyone knows the output impedance of the XLRs?.
 
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Snafu

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Is it possible to get this Okto stereo with HDMI-input ? would like connect 4k player/tv with it. would't it sync better with picture than toslink ?
 

Oklei

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Anyone knows the output impedance of the XLRs
Output impedance xlr is 50 Ohm. I ordered a slightly increased output voltage to use it with my purifi modules without additional opamp buffer amplification.
 

AnalogSteph

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Sorry about the silly question. In practical terms, what does it mean the custom output voltage options they give?. Better to stick to the dafult ~4V, or there are reasons to reduce it losing some dbs in SINAD?.
Well, I mean, if you have to ask... It all depends on what you need, you know?

In the big studio space, for example, you'll see DAC output levels of +24 or even +28 dBu (19.5 Vrms). Traditionally, balanced input stages will have input noise somewhere between -106 and -98 dBu, so that was the only way to even get ~130 dB of dynamic range into one of these big mixing consoles at all. It should be obvious that levels this high are going to be much more taxing on the analog stage.

You may also want to drive a Benchmark AHB2 in low-gain mode, which takes up to +22 dBu to produce a 100 W / 8 ohm output. I mean, I don't see why you would want or need a near 130 dB dynamic range out of that, but whatever. I guess you'd be set for any speaker sensitivity from at least 90 to 110 dB / 2.83 V / m (or 84 to 104 dB when using two in mono mode) without having to change anything.

BTW, having to select output level when ordering is kinda lame. Some mastering grade gear was even offering 0.5 dB steps to the user in the past. A look at RME, Benchmark or Prism Sound products may be instructive.
Is it possible to get this Okto stereo with HDMI-input ?
Implementing HDMI is $$$. It is generally out of reach of small-scale manufacturers. So I wouldn't be holding my breath.
 

Dvass13

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Feb 8, 2020
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Just as an update to those waiting for their order - I purchased my dac8 stereo in black with streaming on July 15th and just received shipping confirmation today. Hopefully this will give others insight into when theirs will be shipping.
 
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