Heard around the water cooler:
You can really mess up the sound by combining modules, so much so, that
your configuration can easily sound like someone’s blowing their nose in the
background. Finding the right combination, is a lesson on how to assemble a
DAC, that will dispel many ideas you have about what makes a good DAC.
We learned a lot.
For one thing, and what we always suspected, was that the DAC chip makes
very little difference on how a DAC sounds. Well, we were right. When we
substituted the “looks good on paper” Wolfson codec for the vintage AD1852,
the sound stage shrank quite a bit and vocals took on a nasal quality.
Replacing the AD 1852 chip, the sound opened up and vocalists had their
throats back.
So what is the most important part? The input receiver, the DIR 9001 made a
huge difference. When we used the CS8416 chip, although we had 192K, the
sound became fuzzy, jittery and flat. Back to the DIR 9001, and presto, the
sound was back.
Next came the output buffers, the we liked the FETs over the Diamond. The
Diamond was more Levinson, the FET, more Audio Research SP-7 like. We
went with the richer tube sound over the FET.
So what about the stock? The “A” version stock, we think, is a down right
steal for the money. It was better than the stock Compass and has more detail,
dynamics and heft.
Ok, so where does this leave you?. Well these modules, if you are novice, are
not easy to replace or move about. You can really mess up the unit by doing
this – like bending the pins or inserting the module in the wrong place, thereby
screwing it up permanently. If you order the basic model, and want to tinker,
you are on your own as we cannot warranty the complexity.
