Review and Measurements of Okto DAC8 8Ch DAC & Amp

[somebodyelse]

I'll dig thru my emails and see if I documented what I did - though it had to have been a either a full reset, or simply unplugging and leaving it that way for a while before plugging it back in and powering up.

That's conceivable - if the display driver has got into some odd state it may need an extended power down for the supply lines to drop low enough to fully reset everything, rather than a quick off then on, especially if 'off' isn't really off for all parts. I've had something similar with a phone - the battery had to go into protective cutoff before it would do anything other than bootloop after it overheated on a dashboard.

Oh, and a Venu360 I'd used for years was completely killed dead by a storm event of some kind...so it can happen.

It can indeed - sometimes enough to kill it entirely, and sometimes enough to damage but not render completely inoperable. The latter can lead to some very odd behaviour that's very difficult to diagnose the cause of.

 

[dziemian]

I've turned the Okto off for 12 hours and reinstalled 1.6 firmware. The problem still persists. I have reported it to the Okto Research.

 

[Neddy]

I've turned the Okto off for 12 hours and reinstalled 1.6 firmware. The problem still persists. I have reported it to the Okto Research.

Sorry to hear that.
Did you unplug it, or just power off via menu? I do recall that unplugging it made a difference.
I dug thru my old emails to Pavel, and didn't find any mention of the display glitches.
Either I never mentioned it, or I can't find the email that covered it.
He was extraordinarily helpful, however, so I would encourage contacting him directly.
IRCC, it was as weird as what you showed.

 

[dziemian]

Yes, I unplugged it for 12 hours. Didnt make a diffrence.

 

[wineds]

Yes, I unplugged it for 12 hours. Didnt make a diffrence.

Try to reflash the firmware.

 

[dziemian]

I have. I have also got a reply from Okto. According to them it's a burn-in. A small shift between lines is being caused by a change in firmware. I can order a new display for 50 euro plus shipping and set auto-dim and auto-off next time which I recommend to everyone.

 

[somebodyelse]

I have. I have also got a reply from Okto. According to them it's a burn-in. A small shift between lines is being caused by a change in firmware. I can order a new display for 50 euro plus shipping and set auto-dim and auto-off next time which I recommend to everyone.

People speculated about whether burn-in would be a problem early in this thread, and Okto included the auto dim/off settings before any burn-in had appeared. It's unfortunate that you get to confirm it's a real issue, but now we know for sure.

 

[dualazmak]

Yesterday and today, we @fabriceo and myself, had an important (but finally disappointing) discussion on the possibility of two DAC8PRO sync aggregation using its ASIO driver on a Windows PC in "pure USB" configuration.

Please refer to our posts #95, #100 and #101 on the thread "Okto DAC8 update with DSP".

 

[dziemian]

You can use an older Lynx AES16e or RME HDSPe AES AES/EBU PCI Express card with 32-channels and 2 or more Okto DAC8 Pro in Pure AES mode. I have seen Lynx AES16e on ebay for around $300 lately.

 

[dualazmak]

You can use an older Lynx AES16e or RME HDSPe AES AES/EBU PCI Express card with 32-channels and 2 or more Okto DAC8 Pro in Pure AES mode. I have seen Lynx AES16e on ebay for around $300 lately.

Looks, sounds, interesting!
You would please let me (us) know, if you would find any article and/or post describing the details of such actual "Pure AES mode" sync aggregation of two DAC8PRO on a Windows PC, hopefully with evidence and validation of strict synchronization.

At least in my case, at present, my DSP "EKIO" or VB-AUDIO MATRIX (as system-wide ASIO/VASIO/VAIO routing center) needs to recognize the 16-Ch (you say 32-Ch) through ASIO driver of Lynx AES16e or RME HDSPe AES/EBU PCI Express card.

 

[dziemian]

I guess you need to write to either Lynx or RME support and ask these questions directly. RME has its own ASIO driver and the RME HDSPe AES supports both AES and Word Clock synchronization.

 

[Neddy]

I have. I have also got a reply from Okto. According to them it's a burn-in. A small shift between lines is being caused by a change in firmware. I can order a new display for 50 euro plus shipping and set auto-dim and auto-off next time which I recommend to everyone.

Thanks for the update!
As soon as the display options were added, I implemented them, and have had no OLED problems since (other than the weird glitching early on, mentioned earlier.)
At least the box is pretty easy to get into, and the cost is not outrageous.

 

[welwynnick]

You can use an older Lynx AES16e or RME HDSPe AES AES/EBU PCI Express card with 32-channels and 2 or more Okto DAC8 Pro in Pure AES mode. I have seen Lynx AES16e on ebay for around $300 lately.

Be careful.
Some Lynx cards are PCI.
Some Lynx cards are PCIe.

 

[PGAMiami]

Apologies if this has been asked and answered. If I aggregate two Okto Pro as one device connected via USB to an M4 Mac Mini, will the IR control on one Okto control both? I’m trying to get 11 channels of high quality IR volume controlled DAC. Or is there a better way to do this? Maybe with an Apple TV Bluetooth remote controlling the attenuation within the Mac and leaving the Okto at full volume ?

 

[carolimagni]

Apologies if this has been asked and answered. If I aggregate two Okto Pro as one device connected via USB to an M4 Mac Mini, will the IR control on one Okto control both? I’m trying to get 11 channels of high quality IR volume controlled DAC. Or is there a better way to do this? Maybe with an Apple TV Bluetooth remote controlling the attenuation within the Mac and leaving the Okto at full volume ?

Well, you train the remote to the Okto inside the settings of the Okto. It's like a wizard where it cycles through each control waiting for an input received over IR. So I suppose yes, if your IR remote is decent and the units are beneath each other they could theoretically remain synced. The remote is out of stock still according to the site; but I've had success with a Topping rc-22 remote and then separately a PiBeam.

Edit: the IR receiver appears to be behind the LED display in my testing, could be wrong though.

 

[PGAMiami]

Well, you train the remote to the Okto inside the settings of the Okto. It's like a wizard where it cycles through each control waiting for an input received over IR. So I suppose yes, if your IR remote is decent and the units are beneath each other they could theoretically remain synced. The remote is out of stock still according to the site; but I've had success with a Topping rc-22 remote and then separately a PiBeam.

Edit: the IR receiver appears to be behind the LED display in my testing, could be wrong though.

Thank you but I need a more robust solution with wife, kids …

 

[carolimagni]

To better answer your original question, the USB host is not natively aware of what the volume control of the Okto is, to my knowledge. The xmosusb tool made by fabriceo can read it (I use this for my dac8pro volume control background script in Linux) but I don't think the drivers inform the OS of this; the volume level in Windows/Linux/Mac are just attenuating the signal sent to the device. Offloading the volume control solely to the Mac Mini might be more robust, I'm not hot on Macs. There might be more opportunities for the volume to be reset to max on the Mac side if you left the Okto at max volume though, not sure that's much better. Whether you use 2 Oktos via USB or linked AES, the places for volume control to sit remain the same, in the source (Mac / AES decoder) or on the Oktos. If childproofing is needed and you go with an Okto using the volume limits might be sensible depending on your setup.

If you need 16 channels more tightly integrated, the highly anticipated miniDSP Tide16 might be more up your street.

HomeTheater Series: Tide16

miniDSP Tide16 - Holy Grail with 16 Channel Atmos/DTS:X, high SINAD

 

[welwynnick]

Apologies if this has been asked and answered. If I aggregate two Okto Pro as one device connected via USB to an M4 Mac Mini, will the IR control on one Okto control both? I’m trying to get 11 channels of high quality IR volume controlled DAC. Or is there a better way to do this? Maybe with an Apple TV Bluetooth remote controlling the attenuation within the Mac and leaving the Okto at full volume ?

I think it will probably work OK . Unless you have a Topping, where the IR beam is narrow, the remote will probably illuminate the IR sensors on both DACs together.

If that doesn't work, you could always do what Kal Rubinson did with three Benchmark HPA-4 (and possibly three Topping Pre90):

Review and Measurements of Benchmark HPA4 Headphone Amp/Pre

Is it safe to conclude that in terms of the lowest measurable noise floor, the most accessible "end game" stack is Benchmark LA4/HPA4 + AHB2? Like this:

www.audiosciencereview.com

Benchmark LA4 line preamplifier Multichannel Application | Stereophile.com

Sidebar 1: Multichannel Application I am, by preference but not exclusion, a multi-channel guy and, while the LA4 is a two-channel line amplifier, I wondered how using three LA4s might work for my 5.1 setup. It seems that Benchmark does this for show demonstrations, so they were quite willing to...

www.stereophile.com

With IR remotes, I expect that volume control across 3 LA4's is not 100% guaranteed.

That is a problem but largely solved by the tiny gadget on top of the right stack. It is a IR receiver/transmitter with the receiver dangling between the stacks and three transmitters which can be seen covering the IR receivers on the LA4s. It assures that all the LA4s get a "synchronous" input. Not perfect but close.

Topping Pre90 line preamplifier Page 2 | Stereophile.com

Moving to a larger ensemble—10 voices and players—L'Escadron Volant de la Reine (The Queen's Flying Squadron) offers a stylish program of music in the French style by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger (Il Tedesco, Harmonia Mundi HMM 902645, 16/44.1 PCM download). The opening a cappella of "Lunge da...

www.stereophile.com

Multichannel use
I introduced this review by saying that I needed a multichannel preamp. But the Topping Pre90 is a stereo preamp—not multichannel—and this review has been conducted in stereo. What gives?
I bought three Pre90s. In principle, the volume on all three Pre90s can be controlled with a single carefully aimed remote control and monitored via the numbers on the front-panel display. But I tried that approach with the Benchmark LA4 and found it a less-than-ideal solution. It's not ideal because the volume can easily get out of synch among the three preamps, and we already know that the Pre90's remote control is finicky.
With the Benchmark preamplifiers, I improved things by buying an IR receiver/splitter on the internet for about $20. This little box accepts a tiny, wired IR sensor as input and has four tiny, wired IR transmitters as outputs. I attached one transmitter to the IR sensor on each of the three Benchmark LA4s. It's a bit of a kludge, but it worked. I intend to try the same thing with the Topping preamps.

 

[john61ct]

Hi, typically for home theater we see users having a Yamaha DME24N ou DME64N for the treatment and then up to 4 AES connexion to a dac8pro. The difference in SNR and thd is an order of magnitude...

Which one is better at DA / AD conversion, Okto or Yamaha?

 

[welwynnick]

Which one is better at DA / AD conversion, Okto or Yamaha?

Please see post #1.