[WGH]

It turned out to be an interesting and informative Saturday afternoon at Herman's house. I brought the Van Alstine FETValve Hybrid DAC ($2500), Dave brought a new PS Audio PerfectWave MkII DAC ($4000), and Herman has an extensively modded Twisted Pear Buffalo DAC. Three completely different state-of-the-art designs. The Twisted Pear uses a  ESS Sabre32 Reference (ES9018) DAC chip and both the AVA and PS Audio DAC's use the Wolfson 8742 DAC chipset. The FETValve has two 6CG7 tubes, the others are all solid state.

Herman's system has too many parts to mention but it is very musical. The restored Linn Isobaric speakers are tri-amped with modded and upgraded Naim amps. I had one of the Naim amps driving my Salk HT2-TL speakers a couple of weeks ago, we compared it to the AVA Synergy 450 and NCore amps. The sound was real close to the AVA, a little warmer but very,very nice; both amps blew the pants off the NCore which was not musical at all. Herman system has a control center so after level matching we could compare two DAC's at a time with the flip of a switch.

The sound of all three DAC's was so close that is took us all afternoon and a small scotch to tease out the differences. At first, no matter what combination we tried whenever we flipped the switch we could hear absolutely no difference. Finally after many recordings we found the Buffalo has a very slight sharpness in the upper frequencies, some would call it added definition, others a digital glare. Since the Buffalo is a DIY DAC the sound can be fine tuned with a software mod so it is always evolving.

The sound of the PS Audio and AVA DAC's was even closer, both have no faults that we could hear. The only way we could hear a difference was to use the digital filters built into the PerfectWave. Gritty digital recordings made in the early days can be ever so slightly altered to make them listenable. Between these two DAC's it all comes down to how you plan to use it. The PerfectWave has all the bells and whistles including asynchronous USB connectiion and a remote control. The FetValve Hybrid is either on or off, no remote or display and if you need a USB connection you have to bring your own, I use a KingRex UC192 with excellent results.

This is not the last word, over the summer we will be doing a follow-up with more revealing systems to check out imaging, depth of field, and bass control, yea, lots of bass. Besides my Salk/AVA setup we are going to plug the DAC's into a Magnapan 3.7/Krell/REL Sub system.

Wayne


 

[WGH]

Reserved for follow-up.

[kernelbob]

Of the three DACs discussed, I only have experience with the PS-Audio PWD Mk-II, upgraded from a MK-I.  I've never seen a need to upgrade the software since I've been happy with the DAC with whatever version came from the factory (or with the Mk-II upgrade).  After reading the discussion threads on the PS-Audio site, I installed the most recent version, 2.0.4.  I wasn't expecting to hear any difference, but the sound definitely improved with more details of instruments' harmonics apparent.  Not a night-and-day difference, but still a definite difference.  Just my 2 cents worth.

[martyo]

Thanks Wayne.

[jhm731]

What was the digital source feeding the DACs?

The PWD can be had for a lot less than $4K.

If you want to pay list price, PS Audio will give you a free PWT transport.

[WGH]

The digital source was a Mac. You are right, the PWD we used was a $2995 B-Stock unit bought from the PS Audio website, 30 day trial, free shipping AND free return shipping if you don't like it.

Wayne

[poseidonsvoice]

Wayne,

If Herman can expand upon what the 'extensive modifications' to the Twisted Pear Buffalo dac was, that would be cool to read about.

Thanks,
Anand.

[WGH]

Wayne,

If Herman can expand upon what the 'extensive modifications' to the Twisted Pear Buffalo dac was, that would be cool to read about.

Thanks,
Anand.

I'm working on it, if I knew beforehand how amazing the Buffalo looked with all the add-ons I would have brought my camera (and taken notes).

[DAE]

The other digital source was an Oppo-105 via Optical to the PS and Coax to the Twisted Pear or the Van Alstine.
David

[wilsynet]

What was the preamp in use?

[fsimms]

That was an interesting comparison. It is amazing that the DACs are so close.

Herman's system has too many parts to mention but it is very musical. The restored Linn Isobaric speakers are tri-amped with modded and upgraded Naim amps. I had one of the Naim amps driving my Salk HT2-TL speakers a couple of weeks ago, we compared it to the AVA Synergy 450 and NCore amps. The sound was real close to the AVA, a little warmer but very,very nice; both amps blew the pants off the NCore which was not musical at all. Herman system has a control center so after level matching we could compare two DAC's at a time with the flip of a switch.

Wayne

I had a similar experience comparing my McCormack DN225 amp with NCore NC400 amps.  At first, the McCormack blew the socks off of the NCores.  As you say, the NCores were less “musical”.  I would call the McCormack warmer and the NCores more neutral.  I then used warm NOS Mullard tubes in my tube preamp and the McCormack easily lost the battle.  By comparison, the McCormack seemed to be less clear and less musical.  The NCore had a much wider, clearer and more transparent soundstage.  The McCormack did a bit better with low bass impact.  The Mullards did seem to soften the high treble.  Though, I didn’t see any drop off of high frequencies when I shot a frequency response curve on my system.

Bob

[WGH]

What was the preamp in use?

I believe it was also a Naim, Herman's system is tri-amped with outboard crossovers connected to each amp, some mono, some stereo so there are a lot of black boxes piled on top of each other and around the speakers, kind of like a mad scientist's stereo.

Wayne

[WGH]

That was an interesting comparison. It is amazing that the DACs are so close.

I had a similar experience comparing my McCormack DN225 amp with NCore NC400 amps.  At first, the McCormack blew the socks off of the NCores.  As you say, the NCores were less “musical”.  I would call the McCormack warmer and the NCores more neutral.  I then used warm NOS Mullard tubes in my tube preamp and the McCormack easily lost the battle.  By comparison, the McCormack seemed to be less clear and less musical.  The NCore had a much wider, clearer and more transparent soundstage.  The McCormack did a bit better with low bass impact.  The Mullards did seem to soften the high treble.  Though, I didn’t see any drop off of high frequencies when I shot a frequency response curve on my system.

Bob

That sounds like my experience too, unfortunately I have no way to tune my pre-amp to that extreme. The NCores will work in some systems and not another just because they are drier with a less full midrange. Softening the treble with the NCore is a good thing, the highs are less clear and more brittle compared to the AVA amp. The Salk speakers were designed with the AVA amp so there is synergy involved, throwing in another component can kill the magic.

Wayne

[iamjaymo]

Nice review...since I own the AVA Fet Valve DAC, I'm glad to see it didn't get beat up 

I really like it - detailed yet smooth; makes digital files completely non-fatiguing.  The AVA is the only DAC I could really hear a difference in, most of the others I have had in my room (Schiit Bifrost, PS Audio DL-III, Emotiva XDA-1) I couldn't tell any difference at all.

[mrlittlejeans]

I wonder how the NAD M51 would compare here.  I had a Vision DAC and was in between purchasing another or the NAD.  I ended up going with the NAD b/c of the range of inputs on it but I'm still curious how they would compare.