Let me confess that I have had a man-crush on the look of the teac NT-503 for quite a while! 
Compared to a lot of utilitarian DACs that I test, the Teac looked so much nicer and professional in the pictures. Alas, at $1,000 retail price, I was reluctant to purchase it. Fortunately due to kindness of a friend of a member here, I received a unit for evaluation.
As noted above, the unit is quite handsome: https://smile.amazon.com/NT-503-Dua...F8&qid=1509320332&sr=1-1&keywords=teac+nt-503
In person the rack handles are a bit much and get in the way a bit so could do without them. There is a handsome white LED/OLED that is informative and pretty. Menu navigation is through the handle in the middle and easy to figure out. Outputs are controlled through that which means it shuts off one or the other (RCA or XLR) depending on which one you need to use. Not sure why this was necessary.
The unit is hefty and sits where you put it which I very much like.
Plenty of inputs is provided including S/PDIF in coax and optical plus USB and even an external clock sync! Format support is excellent , all the way up to DSD 256 and PCM up to 384 Khz.
I used the unit without any of the drivers, letting Windows 10 creator edition automatically detect it. Playback was through Roon which used WASAPI but not without turning off event driven mode. Better compatibility would have been nicer.
Measured Performance
For measurements I decided to compare it to my Exasound E32 (retail $3,500) and Topping D30 (retail $120) bookmarking it pretty well at the high and low end.
As usual, I started with my testing with j-test signal, first comparing it to more expensive Exasound E32:
Here, the Exasound shows lower noise floor, and absence of low frequency noise components and close-in sidebands. Of course we are talking very small values so not an audible concern. But from engineering point of view, the Exasound beats the NT-503 DAC.
Next I compared it to the Topping D30 which is my current champ of budget DACs:
Here, I am powering the Topping D30 with my lab supply. Otherwise it would also have some more low-frequency noise, created by mains leakage of its switchmode supply. The D30 also has some close-in side-band jitter like the Teac NT-503. But it also has lower noise floor. Overall, despite its cost being 8X lower, I give the medal to Topping D30.
Next up is 1 Khz harmonic distortion test. Contrary to prior tests, I am using my Audio Precision analyzer as the source, creating a 1 Khz 0 dbFS output. First up is comparison to Exasound E32 DAC:
Once again we see that the Teac NT-503 has higher noise floor than the Exasound E32. Harmonic distortion is more or less comparable. This is using the left channel. For some reason, my Exasound E32 has substantially more distortion in the other channel! If I had used that, the Teac would win this race as far as harmonic distortion. The Teac distortion was similar in both channels as it should be.
Comparing to Topping D30 we get this:
So again we see similar results with the Topping D30 DAC having lower noise floor. The Teach is free of 5th harmonic distortion however compared to D30.
In order to make my tests more comprehensive and comparable to what John Atkinson does in stereophile, I have added a test of a very low amplitude -- -90 dbFS 24-bit, undithered sine wave -- to my testing. In an ideal situation we would see a perfect sine wave. Anything else indicates noise or lack of linearity at extremely low amplitudes. Here is how the Teac NT-503 did using coax input:
We see a facsimile of a sinewave, albeit with some noise and distortion. Likely reason is the low-frequency noise we saw in the J-test. There is also a shifting up and down level in the way the waveform goes up and then comes down (not shown). This could be AC mains leakage causing drift.
Let's compare that to Exasound E32:
Ok, ok. So money does buy you more happiness when it comes to low level accuracy. While we still have the shifting up and down the sinewave is very accurately rendered and definitely clearer than Teac NT-503. Not shown but when testing the balanced output of Exasound E32, the performance suffered quite a bit here! Will post more about this later so for now, this performance is only available through its unbalanced/RCA output.
Here is our budget DAC, Topping D30:
It is splitting hairs to say whether the D30 is better than NT-503. The Topping output level does not shift up and down so I would give the nod to it.
Summarizing, the Teac NT-503 doesn't bring anything objectively to the table than the Topping D30 which retails for 1/8 its price. The Topping is also feature rich but lacks XLR output or a display. And headphone output.
Listening Tests: Headphone
For this test, I compared the Exasound E32 headphone output to that Teac NT-503. AB testing is difficult because I had to plug and unplug my headphones and the Teac mutes and unmutes its headphone output every time you do that. So we are talking 8-10 second switching which is not ideal at all.
Keeping that constrain in mind, I preferred the output of the Teac NT-503 to that of Exasound E32 when testing my Sony MDRv6 headphones (DC resistance: 78 ohms). The NT-503 had better impact in bass and more separation of instruments. This could of course be biased so take it with some grain of rice. Until I create a test set up that allows me instant switching, this is all I have to offer.
Listening Tests: Unbalanced Line Out:
For this test, I used my Stax SRM-007t. I used this because it has dual inputs and allows me to make very fast AB switching. I then used Roon and ganged the NT-503 and Exasound and then NT-503 and Topping into zones. The outcome was synchronized playback on both devices at the same time. Boy do I love Roon!
Testing first against the Exasound, I could not detect any difference. Both the Exasound E32 and Teac NT-503 produced delightful sound. Gone was what I was hearing with headphones. Alas, the Exasound drivers are quite fragile and just after a few clips, it refused to initialize no matter how many times I restarted Roon, Exasound or plugging and unplugging the USB cable. The Teac was also flakey until I put it in non-event driven mode in which it became much more reliable So all in all, this testing was cut short but I stand behind the outcome.
Testing against the Topping D30 resulted in tiny preference in favor of Topping D30. Alas, its output is also 1 or 2 db higher and I think that is what I was hearing. Longer term I will do more level matched testing. Outside of that tiny difference, again both were delightful to listen to. Indeed I am doing that as I type this and would be happy with either device playing my reference playlist.
Summary
The Teac is a beautifully made networked DAC. I had no use for its networking (because it doesn't support Roon), but outside of that, other than some tiny issues, its measured performance is without concern. Alas, it loses to both cheaper and more expensive DACs so no advantage is provided there.
Its headphone output though seems excellent, driving my high impedance Sony headphone with ease and authority. To that end, I think it makes an excellent benchtop DAC next to your computer -- something neither the Topping D30 (which has no headphone output) or the Exasound (not as nice of a headphone amp) can do.
If you don't need headphone output, or balanced out, my suggestion is to save money and by the Topping D30. This is a little DAC that could!
As always, appreciate any feedback, questions, concern, correction and wisecracks.
Compared to a lot of utilitarian DACs that I test, the Teac looked so much nicer and professional in the pictures. Alas, at $1,000 retail price, I was reluctant to purchase it. Fortunately due to kindness of a friend of a member here, I received a unit for evaluation.As noted above, the unit is quite handsome: https://smile.amazon.com/NT-503-Dua...F8&qid=1509320332&sr=1-1&keywords=teac+nt-503
In person the rack handles are a bit much and get in the way a bit so could do without them. There is a handsome white LED/OLED that is informative and pretty. Menu navigation is through the handle in the middle and easy to figure out. Outputs are controlled through that which means it shuts off one or the other (RCA or XLR) depending on which one you need to use. Not sure why this was necessary.
The unit is hefty and sits where you put it which I very much like.
Plenty of inputs is provided including S/PDIF in coax and optical plus USB and even an external clock sync! Format support is excellent , all the way up to DSD 256 and PCM up to 384 Khz.
I used the unit without any of the drivers, letting Windows 10 creator edition automatically detect it. Playback was through Roon which used WASAPI but not without turning off event driven mode. Better compatibility would have been nicer.
Measured Performance
For measurements I decided to compare it to my Exasound E32 (retail $3,500) and Topping D30 (retail $120) bookmarking it pretty well at the high and low end.
As usual, I started with my testing with j-test signal, first comparing it to more expensive Exasound E32:
Here, the Exasound shows lower noise floor, and absence of low frequency noise components and close-in sidebands. Of course we are talking very small values so not an audible concern. But from engineering point of view, the Exasound beats the NT-503 DAC.
Next I compared it to the Topping D30 which is my current champ of budget DACs:
Here, I am powering the Topping D30 with my lab supply. Otherwise it would also have some more low-frequency noise, created by mains leakage of its switchmode supply. The D30 also has some close-in side-band jitter like the Teac NT-503. But it also has lower noise floor. Overall, despite its cost being 8X lower, I give the medal to Topping D30.
Next up is 1 Khz harmonic distortion test. Contrary to prior tests, I am using my Audio Precision analyzer as the source, creating a 1 Khz 0 dbFS output. First up is comparison to Exasound E32 DAC:
Once again we see that the Teac NT-503 has higher noise floor than the Exasound E32. Harmonic distortion is more or less comparable. This is using the left channel. For some reason, my Exasound E32 has substantially more distortion in the other channel! If I had used that, the Teac would win this race as far as harmonic distortion. The Teac distortion was similar in both channels as it should be.
Comparing to Topping D30 we get this:
So again we see similar results with the Topping D30 DAC having lower noise floor. The Teach is free of 5th harmonic distortion however compared to D30.
In order to make my tests more comprehensive and comparable to what John Atkinson does in stereophile, I have added a test of a very low amplitude -- -90 dbFS 24-bit, undithered sine wave -- to my testing. In an ideal situation we would see a perfect sine wave. Anything else indicates noise or lack of linearity at extremely low amplitudes. Here is how the Teac NT-503 did using coax input:
We see a facsimile of a sinewave, albeit with some noise and distortion. Likely reason is the low-frequency noise we saw in the J-test. There is also a shifting up and down level in the way the waveform goes up and then comes down (not shown). This could be AC mains leakage causing drift.
Let's compare that to Exasound E32:
Ok, ok. So money does buy you more happiness when it comes to low level accuracy.
While we still have the shifting up and down the sinewave is very accurately rendered and definitely clearer than Teac NT-503. Not shown but when testing the balanced output of Exasound E32, the performance suffered quite a bit here! Will post more about this later so for now, this performance is only available through its unbalanced/RCA output.Here is our budget DAC, Topping D30:
It is splitting hairs to say whether the D30 is better than NT-503. The Topping output level does not shift up and down so I would give the nod to it.
Summarizing, the Teac NT-503 doesn't bring anything objectively to the table than the Topping D30 which retails for 1/8 its price. The Topping is also feature rich but lacks XLR output or a display. And headphone output.
Listening Tests: Headphone
For this test, I compared the Exasound E32 headphone output to that Teac NT-503. AB testing is difficult because I had to plug and unplug my headphones and the Teac mutes and unmutes its headphone output every time you do that. So we are talking 8-10 second switching which is not ideal at all.
Keeping that constrain in mind, I preferred the output of the Teac NT-503 to that of Exasound E32 when testing my Sony MDRv6 headphones (DC resistance: 78 ohms). The NT-503 had better impact in bass and more separation of instruments. This could of course be biased so take it with some grain of rice. Until I create a test set up that allows me instant switching, this is all I have to offer.
Listening Tests: Unbalanced Line Out:
For this test, I used my Stax SRM-007t. I used this because it has dual inputs and allows me to make very fast AB switching. I then used Roon and ganged the NT-503 and Exasound and then NT-503 and Topping into zones. The outcome was synchronized playback on both devices at the same time. Boy do I love Roon!
Testing first against the Exasound, I could not detect any difference. Both the Exasound E32 and Teac NT-503 produced delightful sound. Gone was what I was hearing with headphones. Alas, the Exasound drivers are quite fragile and just after a few clips, it refused to initialize no matter how many times I restarted Roon, Exasound or plugging and unplugging the USB cable.
The Teac was also flakey until I put it in non-event driven mode in which it became much more reliable So all in all, this testing was cut short but I stand behind the outcome.Testing against the Topping D30 resulted in tiny preference in favor of Topping D30. Alas, its output is also 1 or 2 db higher and I think that is what I was hearing. Longer term I will do more level matched testing. Outside of that tiny difference, again both were delightful to listen to. Indeed I am doing that as I type this and would be happy with either device playing my reference playlist.
Summary
The Teac is a beautifully made networked DAC. I had no use for its networking (because it doesn't support Roon), but outside of that, other than some tiny issues, its measured performance is without concern. Alas, it loses to both cheaper and more expensive DACs so no advantage is provided there.
Its headphone output though seems excellent, driving my high impedance Sony headphone with ease and authority. To that end, I think it makes an excellent benchtop DAC next to your computer -- something neither the Topping D30 (which has no headphone output) or the Exasound (not as nice of a headphone amp) can do.
If you don't need headphone output, or balanced out, my suggestion is to save money and by the Topping D30. This is a little DAC that could!
As always, appreciate any feedback, questions, concern, correction and wisecracks.
Last edited:
