I initially posted this review on the forums at Tweak City Audio but I thought it would be good to post it here too.
I've read some great information on DACs on this forum from various contributors and it's made me want to try one of the newer generation models for some time but I just never was able to find myself in a situation to do so. Recently I was lucky enough to be able to acquire an ONIX DAC25 and I became excited and curious to see what improvements, if any, I would notice in my system. Please be aware that this review is completely unscientific and is solely based on my ears and my memory.
My system consists of the following:
Sony XA7ES CD player
ONKYO DV-SP1000 Universal player
Bryston BP-25 preamp
2 x Carver TFM-55x power amps
Marchand XM 16 Electronic crossover
Marchand Bassis equalizer
BESL Series 2 MTM monitors
2 x Dayton 15" RS-HF subwoofers, each in 5cu. ft. enclosures run in stereo.
I received the dac about 2 weeks ago and I immediately installed it in my system and have had it running non stop. The dac itself is a very attractive piece visually, it feels solid and it's also bigger than I expected. The selection of inputs and outputs is very complete; coax, optical and USB for the inputs and both balanced and unbalanced for the outputs. It also has headphone output with a separate volume control for private listening. The selectable up sampling rates are also very handy.
Now for the sound. The first thing I noticed is that the balanced outputs are louder than the unbalanced ones. My Bryston pre-amp has both XLR and RCA inputs so it was pretty easy to switch between inputs and after adjusting for the volume I feel that the balanced outs of the dac sounded a little clearer to me. Overall I feel that this dac has taken my system up a level. I am noticing ambiance and details in my favorite music that I was missing without it. From Holly Cole to Van Halen, Zoot Simms to Junior Brown the music just sounds a little more alive. On Peter Frampton's Fingerprints CD all the bass lines sound tighter and every nuance of the guitar playing, particularly the acoustic guitars, just stand out more. The piano playing on George Winston's Linus and Lucy CD is just beautiful and notes are just so clear and the decay on the sounds are more noticeable. The different sampling rates had slight effects on some tunes and imperceptible effects on others so I just think you need to experiment with that to see what works best for a given disc.
I've had only limited experience with dacs before now. Years ago I owned a unit from Enlightened Audio Designs and more recently I had the Perpetual Tech dac. The DAC25 easily makes the most noticeable difference in my
system. While I haven't experimented much with the usb input and the headphone jack and volume control I can confirm that my laptop and headphones sound pretty good through the DAC 25 but I really haven't done much critical listening on those yet.
I am utterly and completely pleased with the Onix dac. Is it the best dac in the world, probably not but for the money it sounds fantastic and it's flexibility and build quality are excellent and I have no plans to remove it anytime soon. I suspect that to get a noticeable improvement in sound over the DAC 25 you'd have to spend a more noticeable amount of money.
I also just want to say thanks again to Hugh for the opportunity to acquire this great piece of equipment.
Best.....Carlo
