DAC 60 with Sonic Craft mods

crooner · « **Reply #60 on:** 29 Mar 2006, 07:53 am »

Absolutely!

I've also found that as you upgrade to better speakers, the more revealing your system becomes. Excellent recordings will be impressively reproduced and some that you thought were ok, will expose their warts. The crappy ones will be even more obvious!

I have a few early CDs from CBS/Sony, including catalog 35DP-1 the very first released (Billy Joel's 52nd street), and with perhaps one or two exceptions, they all sound quite bad. And it's a pity given the Japanese fanatical attention to detail. I have several jazz CBS/Sony releases in LP from the same period and they are so much better!

Early CDs remastering's poor sound has been associated with less than ideal second generation master tapes or tapes equalized for LP release. However, I believe the early Sony Analog-To-Digital converters were much to blame for the crappy sound.

The early CDs are nearly all mastered using "emphasis" BTW. Perhaps an acknowledgement that linearity of both ADC and DACs in 1982 was far from the state-of-the-art!

Quote from: SSassen

/exits from lurking mode

Quote
was due to poor mastering practices rather than the medium itself.

Obviously that's a given; if the source material is not up to spec then the reproduction by your equipment won't be either, regardless of the pricetag attached to your equipment. The real challenge however is to pick out the real gems among the millions of mediocre or plain dull sounding recordings.

Best regards,

Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com

SSassen · « **Reply #61 on:** 29 Mar 2006, 08:14 am »

It is both a blessing and a curse really; CD's you used to enjoy on less revealing equipment might have their obvious recording flaws exposed on better equipment and ruin the experience for you. On the other hand even very well recorded CD's all sound similar on mediocre equipment.

What's more troubling (at least to me) is the fact that all major labels use dynamic compression on most popular music (the top 100 kind) and often use a bathtub curve to boost the high and lows. Obviously this is done to make their CD's sound good to the iPod generation. When listened to on proper equipment this is just awful however.

Best regards,

Sander Sassen
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com

dcbingaman · « **Reply #62 on:** 30 Mar 2006, 03:58 am »

Crooner, ANYTHING Tom Jung touches sounds amazing, IMHO. My guess is he figured out how to get the most that the CD medium could provide in that recording you've got. You should hear his SACD's on DMP. The Gaudemus multi-channel choral recording is just downright spooky. Tom, Doug Sax and Keith Johnson are in a league of their own when it comes to getting good sound onto a record, (I'm showing my age again), er disc !!

Jon L · « **Reply #63 on:** 30 Mar 2006, 06:15 am »

Quote from: SSassen

It is both a blessing and a curse really; CD's you used to enjoy on less revealing equipment might have their obvious recording flaws exposed on better equipment and ruin the experience for you. On the other hand even very well recorded CD's all sound similar on mediocre equipment.

Off topic, but is that a Focal 7K2 midrange driver in your Avatar? Love'em in mine..

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery;area=browse;user=1086

spacedghost · « **Reply #64 on:** 31 Mar 2006, 10:10 pm »

Quote from: Charles Calkins

Sure glad I've got mine.

Cheers
Charlie

Whoo hoooo

Just in time for the weekend (Boy my wife is going to love this...)...

Hmmm what to listen to first....

Shaun

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #65 on:** 31 Mar 2006, 10:57 pm »

I think I'm getting better performance out of my DAC 60 with a Monster cable powerline 200 power cord that I had laying around in my cable collection junk box. Maybe the dac 60 is just getting broken in but I seem to hear a difference when I use the Monster 200 rather than the stock power cord.

Cheers
Charlie

crooner · « **Reply #66 on:** 1 Apr 2006, 03:27 am »

Awesome! keep us posted on your findings!

Quote from: spacedghost

Quote from: Charles Calkins
Sure glad I've got mine.

Cheers
Charlie

Whoo hoooo

Just in time for the weekend (Boy my wife is going to love this...)...

Hmmm what to listen to first....

Shaun

spacedghost · « **Reply #67 on:** 1 Apr 2006, 03:55 am »

First of all I would like to say how well this thing appears to be built, heavy little bugger. I'm not sure I had mentioned this in my previous posts but I ordered the black face model. This works out well with my current components (silver probably would have worked to, but not with the wife.

).

Ok out of the box it sounded pretty good, not exactly what I was expecting but ok. Well give this DAC some time to warm up and it starts to shine (which I should have known, but with all that wait I want it NOW). I only have about 6 hours on it, but the soundstage is much wider. I have really noticed the depth of the stage. Instruments and voices are not necessarily clearer, but they are more separated ( I believe this is imaging?).

I can't wait for this thing to really break in, I have all kinds of CD's I want to through at it.

Ok now for the dumb question...

Should the clock rate (Hz) ever change? If not why is it shown? Ok not too much flaming....

F-100 · « **Reply #68 on:** 1 Apr 2006, 04:59 am »

SpacedGhost,
Is your DAC stock or modded version?

Danny Richie · « **Reply #69 on:** 1 Apr 2006, 02:13 pm »

The clocking rate will change depending on input. I have seen mine click over to 96 went it received a 96k input.

His is a modded unit and most of those caps will need about a hundred hours on them. The Sonic Platinum's in the output coupling cap location will take much longer though so it will go through a continuos improvement over quite a while.

spacedghost · « **Reply #70 on:** 1 Apr 2006, 02:45 pm »

If this thing is only going to get better, then my wife is going to shoot me for buying CD's to feed it.

Thanks again Danny for your responses and help.

Ok here comes the dumb one again... Are there any redbook CD's that are recorded at rate higher than the 44.1....kHz?

Shaun

Gordy · « **Reply #71 on:** 1 Apr 2006, 03:51 pm »

Hi Shaun,

Here's a brief definition of the redbook standards... http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci503642,00.html

spacedghost · « **Reply #72 on:** 1 Apr 2006, 04:47 pm »

Gordy

Thanks for the link, I really appreciate the info.

Shaun

GHM · « **Reply #73 on:** 2 Apr 2006, 11:52 pm »

FWIW, I noticed this DAC 60 uses the same DAC chip find in the Wadia 861. The difference being the Wadia uses 2 per channel. That DAC should sound great!!

dallasstarsfan · « **Reply #74 on:** 6 Apr 2006, 08:48 pm »

Got mine 2 days ago. The black faceplate looks great and the unit is quite hefty. Build quality looks to be first rate like others have mentioned. I put about 25 hours of burn-in via the Squeezebox 3 (gotta love the SB for that) and gave a short listen last night.

My initial impression is that this DAC sounds GREAT ! Wide soundstage and very very clear rendition of vocals and acoustic instruments.

I want to give it the full 100 hour or so burn-in and then post more feedback (as well as comparison to other DACs that I have owned.

BTW, system is SB3 (with elpac linear psu) --> DAC60 via HDVX digital cable --> Emotiva DMC-1 pre/pro in source direct mode (via grover UR6 ICs) --> Emotiva amp --> Onix Ref 3 speakers.

spacedghost · « **Reply #75 on:** 14 Apr 2006, 12:13 pm »

Good Morning

Just wondering if the Coax and Optical were different signal paths, and if so would this require equal break in times?

Shaun

MarkM · « **Reply #76 on:** 14 Apr 2006, 04:22 pm »

Quote from: spacedghost

Good Morning

Just wondering if the Coax and Optical were different signal paths, and if so would this require equal break in times?

Shaun

I think the signal goes through a selection sw. I'm guessing there would not be much of a difference in break in time. There is a cap just before the cs8414 and then it goes to the clock & df1704. I'm sure someone will correct me.

Do you notice any difference between the two? I just got my SB setup and I prefer the sound of the digital out from my Sony player over the SB digital out to the DAC 60. The SB may need some tweaking, but love the features.

spacedghost · « **Reply #77 on:** 14 Apr 2006, 05:45 pm »

Not enough data to answer, must do more research.....

Actually last night I ran my dvd player through the optical so I could listen to concert DVD's through it. Sounded good, pretty similar to what I remember right out to the box for CD's. That's why the question came into my (4 beer) head...

Shaun

Nick V · « **Reply #78 on:** 19 Apr 2006, 09:08 pm »

I went searching for DAC's recently at all the audio stores in my hometown and my favorite seems to be the Musical Fidelity Trivista DAC 21 (for the price). I was looking at picking one up on audiogon but it's looking like it's going to cost me somewhere in the 1500+ range (especially if I want the Parts Connexion mods).

Basically just wondering how the DAC-60 fully modded out might stack up? What other DAC's/Players have you guys compared with the DAC-60 or have you guys basically been upgrading from DVD players and low budget cd players?

Right now I'm running a Denon DVD-3910 into a monolithic sound PA-1 preamp and a Rotel RB-1070 amp. Speakers are GR Diluceos. I'm looking to make a significant step up in playback quality.

Also just wondering if there's any word on the USB input upgrade?

P.S. The amp is also getting upgraded this summer, thinking Butler TDB 2250.

Charles Calkins · « **Reply #79 on:** 19 Apr 2006, 09:33 pm »

Nick V
Can't remember what my first DAC was it's been a long time ago that I had it. My second DAC was one of those Musical Fidelity X can series. It was okay. Nothing to rave about. The third one I had a few years ago was the Bel Canto DAC 2. What a disappointment!!!. I mean bad!!
The DAC-60 with Sonic Craft mods I have now is the best I've ever heard in my system. For the price you can't go wrong. No disappointments either!

I've got the DAC hooked up to an SB3 squeeze box system. Don't know what the results would be hooked up to a CD player or transport.

Cheers
Charlie