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Review and Measurements of Okto DAC8 8Ch DAC & Amp

waynel

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Nope can't see appeal or reason for 8 channel dac, what what said earlier up with minidsp I'd never do
This is not the DAC you are looking for.
 

kevinh

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Oh sorry did not know you are talking about digital only. I think digital only should have the same performance as PC because it is just calculating maths in the chips. The adc and dac in minidsp are not very good measuring.


Well IF I was talking about a analog output from Minidsp products there would be no need for the Octo.

The SHD that Amir reviewed had IIRC pretty good specs.
 

Veri

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And, let me remind all of you again just for sure;

DAC8PRO's high quality Headphone OUT is another line-level analog out of CH-1+CH-2 "under the control" of gain and master volume. If you like, you may use it as RCA unbalance OUT of CH-1+CH-2 with gain and volume applied.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ssover-and-multichannel-dac.12489/post-420921
View attachment 75500
Hmm isn't this kind of thing prone to (grounding) noise? Not to mention how erm, elegant it looks :D
 

John1959

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Anyone heard any more news about firmware updates? It's been a while...
Nothing heard from Okto recently. I have FW version 1.34 in my DAC8 PRO, shipped end of June 2020 and don't know about more recent ones. I have no problems with this version or with the DAC in general so I am not keen to replace it unless some marvelous new features come with it (which I don't expect, it's just a DAC anyway :)).

John
 

Vincentponcet

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Nothing heard from Okto recently. I have FW version 1.34 in my DAC8 PRO, shipped end of June 2020 and don't know about more recent ones. I have no problems with this version or with the DAC in general so I am not keen to replace it unless some marvelous new features come with it (which I don't expect, it's just a DAC anyway :)).

John
I'm curious to know the FW release notes.
I have FW version 1.0
 

John1959

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I'm curious to know the FW release notes.
I have FW version 1.0
1.0? I can understand you are curious about the changes. I don't know if there are FW Release notes but if I remembered well Pavel from Okto Research has posted a little info about some features and bug fixes in FW upgrades. I can't find exactly where, possible not this forum, but if I find it I will post links. Best of all is an answer of Pavel himself of course.
 

Neddy

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1.0? I can understand you are curious about the changes. I don't know if there are FW Release notes but if I remembered well Pavel from Okto Research has posted a little info about some features and bug fixes in FW upgrades. I can't find exactly where, possible not this forum, but if I find it I will post links. Best of all is an answer of Pavel himself of course.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...kto-dac8-8ch-dac-amp.7064/page-78#post-408327
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...kto-dac8-8ch-dac-amp.7064/page-82#post-450024
 

Verausci

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In all FW versions, the menu settings are only stored when a soft power off is performed (no matter if using knob or remote) in order to save flash memory write cycles. The settings from the last session are lost if power cord is pulled, so this behavior is normal.

Is this still a thing? This is really concerning for me, as I always turn the power off at the wall when I go to bed or won't be using devices for some time.

What is the default configuration? How much messing around will I need to do to restore a 5.1 config? I can live with changing the volume back every time I power it up!
 

dualazmak

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dualazmak

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Hmm isn't this kind of thing prone to (grounding) noise? Not to mention how erm, elegant it looks :D
At least with my DAC8PRO (firm 1.32) in my multichannel environments, the RCA unbalance headphone OUT signal (CH-1+CH2) is working perfectly with no (grounding) noise. The spec of the headphone OUT is as good as XLR balance out.

In DAC8PRO's Owners Manual, we can read;

Analog connectivity
Main outputs (back side)

8 x Neutrik gold-plated XLR connector
Output level: 4.1 V RMS differential full-scale
output impedance: 200 Ohms
Headphone output (front side)
6.3 mm (1/4”) TRS connector
Output level: 4.1 V RMS full-scale
120 mA linear output current
fixed to output channels 1 and 2
output impedance <100 mOhm
 

waynel

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dualazmak

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With my DAC8PRO (1.32), all of the relative gains and master volume are memorized/retained both by hard off (plug off) and soft off, and all the values at the time of hard off (plug off) and soft off are correctly reflected on next power-on, very nice!
 

TonioRoffo

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So, all we need to make a kick-a** quality receiver, is hack a fairly recent one.

Find the I²S channels before dac/volume, convert them to AES/EBU, route to MiniDSP 88D, do bass management & Dirac there, output AES/EBU to the DAC8PRO, connect a bunch of ncore/eigentakt amps & nice speakers, profit.
 

Verausci

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With my DAC8PRO (1.32), all of the relative gains and master volume are memorized/retained both by hard off (plug off) and soft off, and all the values at the time of hard off (plug off) and soft off are correctly reflected on next power-on, very nice!
Great that's good to hear. Can anyone else confirm this is the case with theirs?
 

Neddy

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Yes. But I always do a soft power off before hard (which is rarely, since I use the Okto remote & 12v out to power up/down all the other gear!).
 

dualazmak

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Yes, again! Just same as Neddy said, I always do a soft power-off followed by hard-off by a multiple power distributor supplying power to all of the gears in my audio system.
 

Neddy

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Yes, and is kind of neat controlling ~ a couple of kW of power with that tiny little remote!
:eek:
 

Verausci

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Thanks for the responses on the power-off save uncertainty!
In all FW versions, the menu settings are only stored when a soft power-off is performed (no matter if using knob or remote) in order to save flash memory write cycles. The settings from the last session are lost if power cord is pulled, so this behavior is normal.
I initially interpreted stored as kept, which lead me to think the settings would be lost on a full power-off. Judging from the responses, I think what they were saying is that a soft power-off is used to save the current configuration to memory. Once saved, a full power-off can be performed without losing the current settings. If however a full power-off is performed with 'unsaved' changes, these changes will be lost.

Actually that leads me to a (hopefully) final question on this issue:
Once the settings are saved with a soft power-off, can multiple full power-offs be performed and the settings kept? Thanks.
 
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