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Leslie swimming in a sea of DACs

By Dan Rubin

In the member survey we conducted at end the end of last year, DACs was the most-requested product category for product comparison. So on Saturday, February 21, about 40 of us gathered at Leslie’s place to listen to seven member-provided USB DACs priced from $400 to $5,000. Here they are:

1. Emotiva XDA-2, $399
2. Micromega MyDac, $399
3. TEAC UD-501, $895
4. Benchmark DAC2 HGC, $1995
5. Auralic Vega, $3,500
6. Ayre QB-9 DSD, $3,250
7. Luxman DA-06, $5,000

The only variable we changed during the session was the DAC, each of which was warmed up before being inserted into the system. All other components, cables, etc., were identical except for the Micromega, which uses a wall-wart for power instead of a detachable AC cord. DACs with different filters were set to their owner’s preferred setting. We matched starting volume levels for the DACs (thanks to Roger Modjeski for technical assistance), but we may have wandered a bit from true rigor. The listening was sighted and was in the order listed above, which is roughly ascending order by price. Expectation bias? Sure, probably.

Leslie’s system, which sounded very good to me, featured her Vandersteen 3a Signature speakers (no subs), driven by the very impressive Merrill Audio Veritas mono block amplifiers (on loan from Merrill Audio) and Leslie’s Conrad-Johnson Premier 17LS-2 pre-amp. Everything was plugged directly into the wall. Music files were played from a Windows gaming computer running J-River, which connected to the DAC under test via Anticables Level 3.1 Reference Series USB cable (the version with the optional 5v power wire, which some of the DACs required).

We listened to a variety of music through each DAC, generally 4-5 tracks. For this session, we decided to play from the same albums (CDs) for each DAC but to vary the tracks. Leslie started us out with a track from Unflesh by Gazelle Twin. Other recordings were Kind of Blue, Norah Jones’ Feels Like Home, and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto #1 (Van Cliburn). Towards the end of the session, we added in some Dire Straits (first album) and the Reference Recordings Exotic Dances from the Opera.

A good thing about this shootout was that we heard a nice selection of popular DACs across the range of entry-level to mid-level pricing. In hindsight, however, it was too many DACs for the time that we had allowed. I didn’t think fatigue was an issue, but in order to get though all seven, we weren’t able to discuss as a group what we were hearing. There wasn’t even an informal polling of preferences at the end. My impression from conversations and eavesdropping is that many attendees felt the game changed in a meaningful way when we got to the Benchmark. And the Luxman was the preferred DAC overall. Both of those represent substantial price jumps over their immediate predecessor, so make of it what you will. I’ll say this: to my ears, all of the DACs acquitted themselves quite nicely. Yes, there were meaningful improvements with the higher-priced entries, but every one of the DACs played music. In fact, the Micromega MyDac (which Alón sent over since he couldn’t be at the event), which we used for part of the after-lunch Bybee demo, apparently impressed some attendees enough that they indicated intention to purchase one. I often seem to be an outlier on these things, but personally I loved what I heard as rich tonality from the Auralic Vega and the Ayre, and may have preferred them to the Luxman (and I own the Luxman).

Then we broke for lunch, which is always a highlight of these sessions. Members love talking to each other and it doesn’t hurt that Leslie puts out a great spread and has a wonderful deck with a lovely view.

Photo: Dan Rubin, Marc Stambuk & Jack Bybee

After lunch, Jack Bybee and his nephew, Marc Stambuk, from Bybee Technologies gave us a demo of a new product (in beta) they have developed. Jack and Marc were upfront about this being an “out-of-the-box” product. They are describing it as their new crystal technology and the product is called, or may be called, Room Neutralizers. It’s designed to deal with room issues. The product demo’ed to us consists of 8 smallish, thin rectangular devices with small antennae. They are placed around the room, affixed to walls. What the Bybee gentlemen said is that these devices work to make air molecules in the room more compliant so they provide less resistance to sound waves. Wait – come back, I’m not finished! I won’t attempt to provide further technical details because I don’t understand it and it does seem to belong to furthest reaches of audiophile voodoo. Nonetheless, for what it’s worth, about two-thirds of attendees said they could hear a difference. We put the devices up and took them down several times, listening mainly to a selection from the Exotic Dances release. What people seemed to hear (and I heard it too) was better definition in the midrange and high frequencies. As new member Anita E. observed, the rapid-fire triangle strikes (and misses) were easier to distinguish, as was the pizzicato of the string section. It was a fun demo and it will be interesting to see how this product develops.

 

Going forward, I’d like to see us do another DAC session this year. My idea: we include one or two standouts from this session and throw them in with DACs above $5,000. I’d like to hear the PS Audio DirectStream, MSB Analog DAC, Bricasti M1, and maybe something from dCS, Esoteric, Lampizator, or maybe the Berkeley Reference DAC. What would you like to hear? Do you have one of these DACs you can bring, or can you help us get one?

I’d also like to do a session or two on the “transport” side of the digital playback equation. From where I sit, there is a sea change underway. After years of pursuing PC- and Mac-based playback, there is a slew of server and streamer products hitting the market, and people seem to think they deliver better sonics than general-purpose computers. Let’s put Leslie’s PC system up against the Sony HAP-Z1ES, an Auralic Aries and maybe something from Aurender, Sonore, or one of the many other products in these emerging new categories. Interested?

 

What did you think of the DAC shootout?