[hmen]

Associated equipment
Transport - Pacific Valve Vanguard
Preamp BAT 31VK
Amp Atma-Sphere MK60 (mid and Tweeters)
Amp Wyred4Sound SX 250 (woofers
Speakers - VMPS RM40
All Interconnects ? Straley Reality Cables

Wesley of Neko Audio sent me the D100 MK2 as part of the audition tour. The D100 is a 24 bit DAC that uses a output transformer stage rather than OP Amps for it's output.
The DAC is very easy to hook up and compact enough to fit in a single space next to my Vanguard transport. For the audition I was replacing the Benchmark DAC in my regular system. Before listening I put on a long CD and went out to the store to give the tubes a chance to warm up. When I got back the first thing I played was Telemann?s Concerto for 3 Trumpets played by Musica Antiqua Coln. I immediately noticed the deep sound stage and was struck by the fact that I could actually hear all three trumpets separately, each in its? own space, even when they played in unison. The harpsichord was distinct and clear, with excellent transient response.  The overall sound was coherent but very well spaced and the soundstage was both deep and tall. Moving on to Clarinet and Recorder concertos I noticed the same thing, instruments well spaced, excellent transient response and almost no hint of harshness.
I then put on Frank Zappa?s Burnt Weeny Sandwich. On Holiday in Berlin the xylophone was crisp and sharp and seemed suspended in midair. Guitars, harpsichord and piano were all crisp, clean and airy. On Joni Mitchell?s Court and Spark vocals were well centered and forward of the speakers.
While listening to Holst?s The Planets conducted by James Levine I noticed what I considered to be the unit?s one weakness. On large orchestral passages there was a lack of dynamics when compared to my other DACs and a slight weakness in the lower bass region. The melodic passages in Jupiter were clear and smooth but the percussion in Mars, while extremely crisp and clean, lacked the impact I?m used to hearing.     
 I found that this DAC was extremely resolving. Minute details which were previously hidden stood out clearly. Instruments and vocals were well placed and the image was very stable. Compared to the Benchmark the Nikko D100 MKII was more musical, with less harshness and grain. It was more revealing of details and had a great, stable soundstage.       
The one area that I had a problem was that the DAC didn?t provide enough gain for my system. In most cases this wasn?t a problem. I simply turned up the volume. However, on some large orchestral pieces the dynamics were lacking and I didn?t get the room shaking bass I usually get on some rock tunes.
Overall, there is a lot about this DAC that I really liked. It?s smooth, musical and not at all fatiguing. l particularly enjoyed it on chamber, jazz and softer rock. I hope Wesley would consider making a higher gain version (perhaps with a big potted transformer on the top) that would be a better match for my system.     
 

[WGH]

I signed up for round 3 of the Neko Audio D100 MK2 tour in January and it will be here on Friday (6/15/12), just in time for the weekend.



I'll be comparing the D100 to the Van Alstine Insight+ DAC, electronics will be by Van Alstine and speakers are the Salk HT2-TL.

If you are interested in coming over to audition the D100 and compare it to your DAC send me a PM. I live close to downtown in Tucson.

I'll post a review with impressions in a week or two after the audition.

Wayne
 

[jtwrace]

Look forward to your review.

I was on the tour but canceled....

[SlushPuppy]

I signed up for round 3 of the Neko Audio D100 MK2 tour in January and it will be here on Friday (6/15/12), just in time for the weekend.

Wayne

I read Jack Roberts' review at Dagogo when i got home from work yesterday. That DAC is impressing some of my favorite reviewers. I look forward to your comments.

[WGH]

I recently had the pleasure of auditioning the Neko Audio D100 Mk2 during the demo tour this little DAC is making, thanks to Wesley Maw for making this tour possible.

The System

My music source is a basic CAPS low power computer without the SOtM tX-USB card. I use Windows 7 and the Foobar2000 player with Mike Galusha's excellent FlacWaveLoader as the front end. The FlacWaveLoader expands Flac files into WAV and loads the files into memory for flawless playback.

The electronics are a Van Alstine Insight+ pre-amp and 440+ double die amp with Straight Wire Encore cables, KingRex UC192 USB converter, DH Labs SPDIF cable and a generic USB cable. Speakers are the revealing and neutral Salk HT2-TL with the RAAL tweeter. I used the Neko Audio RCA to XLR interconnects for the audition.

The Review

The Neko DAC has been getting favorable reviews for a few years and I looked forward to hearing what it could do. The D100 Mk2 has a smooth grain free presentation that was relaxing and engaging at the same time. Stereo separation, imaging and depth of field was very good at this price point. Tonally the D100 has a slightly warm non-oversampling sound, almost tube like. The Mk2 version has plenty of gain, compared to the AVA Insight+ DAC the volume was exactly the same making an A-B comparison as easy as switching the SPDIF cable. Bass was generous and plentiful, bass freaks will not be disappointed. Highs are clear and tame the digital nasties that plague many recordings.

The best nutshell description of the D100 Mk2 would be always musical with a terrific natural midrange.

The Comparison

The AVA Insight+ DAC and the D100 have been around since 2009 at the $900-$1495 mid-range price point with the Neko using the Burr-Brown PCM1794A DAC chips enabling it to play high-resolution 24-bit/192kHz recordings. The Insight+ is stuck at 16-bit/44.1. I don't have any high-resolution recordings so the comparison was done using Redbook recordings ripped to flac and wav.

It took a little while to get a handle on the differences between the two DAC's, at first they sounded very similar and it took quite a few back and forths before the changes became obvious. I warmed up both players with "Keith Don't Go" by Nils Lofgren, some Gillian Welch from The Harrow and the Harvest, and of course some Norah Jones from The Fall.

Next up was Norah Jone's latest album Little Broken Hearts



Little Broken Hearts is produced by Danger Mouse so the album has a different feel from anything Norah has done before. The synth bass is deep and powerful with Norah's voice soaring above, at least that is the way it is supposed to sound. The slightly warm flavor of the Neko was a bit too much muddying up the vocals. The bass tracks also revealed the D100's bass was not as tight and controlled as the Insight+.


This is Happening by LCD Soundsystem also has electronic bass beats. The Insight+ consistently produced cleaner and deeper bass tracks.



The album also has wide dynamic swings which were not as bold as when I switched to the AVA DAC, this may be because the D100 uses output transformers instead of opamps. Whatever the reason the D100 Mk2 has less of a jump factor.


Keith Richards's 1988 solo effort Talk is Cheap is a great rocker backed up by the X-Pensive Winos and a who's who list of contributing artists. The album is a classic with raw rock-n-roll as it should be played.



I noticed less air with the Neko and hand claps on "You Don't Move Me Anymore" were slightly muted. The album was not brash enough, like Keith was tamed and didn't want to offend.


Paul Simon's So Beautiful or So What has a lot going on.



A good song to check out imaging is "Rewrite" which has a finger picked acoustic guitar, a West African kora, a djembe drum, and a wildebeest. The D100 Mk2 sounds just a little more homogenized on this cut; when listening to the Insight+ individual instruments have more space around them and are easier to pin point in the mix.

The Conclusion

System synergy can make a stereo soar or just sound average. AVA electronics and Salk speakers have synergy so it is hard for another brand jump in and sound just right, it can be done but as some here can attest it can take a lot of experimenting.

The Neko Audio D100 Mk2 is an excellent smooth sounding DAC with a killer mid-range, great imaging and depth. If your system is on the cool side with tweeters that can be bright or you would like to move your sound stage from the first row to the 10th row then the Neko is just what you need. Many affordable speakers need a little help in the bass region, the D100 will give you the bass performance you crave. And if your musical tastes lean toward small groups and vocals the Neko DAC will put the performers in the room with you; imagine a little candle light, some wine with Barry White playing in the background through the Neko Audio D100 Mk2 and magic will happen.

Give it a listen, you won't be disappointed.

Wayne

 

[SlushPuppy]

Great detailed review Wayne 

[NekoAudio]

Thanks for putting together such a thorough review, Wayne!

[tonyptony]

My turn. I've been listening to the D100 Mk2 for the last 1-1/2 weeks. I originally told Wesley from Neko that I had my listening session complete after the first couple of days, but at his urging I held on to it for a bit longer. I'm glad I did. A note for anyone reviewing this next - even though this may be a burned in DAC, don't generate your first impressions within the first 24 hours of playback. My recommendation is to wait until the second or third day before starting serious critical listening - and keep it powered on. Anyway...

You can check my System link for the details of my setup. For this event I used my Proceed PDT3 as the source, and my PS Audio PWD Mk.II as the control DAC. Both were fed with the same custom coax cable (I tried Toslink but had a slight preference for the coax connection). Levels were matched using a 1KHz tone and pink noise, measured with TrueRTA and my calibrated Behringer ECM8000. Like WGH I used the Neko Audio RCA to XLR interconnects.

Music was my usual go to list from the likes of Bill Evans, Rickie Lee Jones, Bonnie Raitt, Dvorak, Jake Shimabukuro, John Tropea, Mahler, AK&US, Beethoven.

Listening impressions are from myself and my wife, who listened independently and made many of the same observations without my prompting or guidance.

In my system, the Neko D100 Mk2 produces an immediate soundstage that is (as noted by WGH) smooth and grain free. It has top end extension, but is a bit less dynamic in the extreme low end. I'm not so sure that it doesn't go down as low as my other DACs (I also compared it briefly to my EAD); I think it may be that the low end does not have quite the same expression of energy as the rest of the range.

I want to expand on the immediacy for a bit. After I listened for a good many days, it became clear to me that while the DAC's immediacy does grab your attention at first, I think it does so at the expense of depth and the 3-dimensionality of individual instuments and voices. I did not get the same sense of overall depth or holographic space around each musical component as from my PWD, although the differences were slight considering the difference in cost. The D100 pushed the back of the soundstage forward a bit until it seemed like its presentation was "flatter" than my reference. I find this interesting given WGH's assessment of the D100's depth and soundstaging. I know one of the PWD's strong suits is its soundstaging and depth - perhaps our relative assessments are based on our own points of reference? Although I note WGH's comment about air with Talk is Cheap. And I wonder if his notes about slight homogeny are similar to my sense of a "flatter" sound - like things sound like they're a little bit more in each other's space?

I agree with hmen that this DAC does transients very well. The thing that I felt contributed to the sense of transient cues is that the Neko favors the leading edge a bit, and also favors the upper harmonics I guess I'll say. When I was listening to full range playing on the piano I got the sense that the D100 favored the right hand, and when listening to double bass that it favored the pluck of the strings over the totality of the instrument. I think this may relate to the expression of energy I noted above in the low end. It's not that the D100 rolls off the low end - I don't think that's it at all. It's just that it favors the higher overtones in a way that makes everything from the midrange up to seem more "lit up". A good place to hear this is in the brushing of cymbals. You get more of the steely "hish" across the cymbal and lose a bit of the sense of warmer "bell bronze" to the sound. In this regard I'm at a loss as to WGH's sense of the DAC being tubelike. I again agree completely that it is smooth and grain free, but if it's tubelike in any way (IMO) it's more like an ARC than a CJ or Melos. It is not transistory, but I wouldn't call it warm or round.

My observations are not meant to be negative; they are what I feel are objective observations of how the Neko sounds in my system, but like many audio reviews the language we use tends to exaggerate the proportion of things. I've heard the Benchmark in a friend's system (not my own), but not many other recent DACs in this price range. With a price of $1500 I'd say the D100 Mk2 (from memory) betters a stock Benchmark in being smoother and a bit more musical. My opinion differs from WGH in that I think this DAC will work best in systems which have a strong, deep low end and (<<< see my post further down for a revision on this thoguht) an excellent inherent presentation of space, depth, and "organic wholeness" to the full range of harmonics and overtones. That doesn't mean roundy tubes, but a system that itself complements the attributes I've described. The Neko can be a fine choice when properly matched to such a system.

[WGH]

Although I note WGH's comment about air with Talk is Cheap. And I wonder if his notes about slight homogeny are similar to my sense of a "flatter" sound - like things sound like they're a little bit more in each other's space?


It's not that the D100 rolls off the low end - I don't think that's it at all. It's just that it favors the higher overtones in a way that makes everything from the midrange up to seem more "lit up". A good place to hear this is in the brushing of cymbals. You get more of the steely "hish" across the cymbal and lose a bit of the sense of warmer "bell bronze" to the sound. In this regard I'm at a loss as to WGH's sense of the DAC being tubelike. I again agree completely that it is smooth and grain free, but if it's tubelike in any way (IMO) it's more like an ARC than a CJ or Melos. It is not transistory, but I wouldn't call it warm or round.

My opinion differs from WGH in that I think this DAC will work best in systems which have a strong, deep low end and an excellent inherent presentation of space, depth, and "organic wholeness" to the full range of harmonics and overtones. That doesn't mean roundy tubes, but a system that itself complements the attributes I've described. The Neko can be a fine choice when properly matched to such a system.

Another great review. I think tonyptony accurately described the flavor of the Neko DAC, the differences in the reviews can probably be attributed to the different types of speakers, too bad I have never heard the Shahinian Diapason speakers.

Yes the Neko has deep bass which will compliment almost any speaker except a speaker that has both very low and tight bass like the Salk's, then compared the the AVA DAC you will hear some wooliness creep in. Most systems don't reproduce really low notes so the slight blur won't be noticed.

"And I wonder if his notes about slight homogeny are similar to my sense of a "flatter" sound - like things sound like they're a little bit more in each other's space?"

Yup, that it.

Regarding a tube like sound, I was thinking of the classic slightly rolled off, less sharp but still musical tube presentation not the modern tube designs available today. Electronics and speakers that lean toward the analytical side will benefit greatly with the addition of the Neko DAC.

Wayne

[tonyptony]

Yes the Neko has deep bass which will compliment almost any speaker except a speaker that has both very low and tight bass like the Salk's, then compared the the AVA DAC you will hear some wooliness creep in. Most systems don't reproduce really low notes so the slight blur won't be noticed.

Thanks Wayne. I did enjoy my time with the Neko. I understand what you mean about the low end. I've heard at least HT3 and HT2 low end many times (but not the new Soundscapes yet). The Salks really do a great job of going low and doing it with speed. My Shahinians go quite low but in a slightly different way - stereo low frequency enclosures (it's a bit misleading to think of them as subwoofers), each with dual 8" drivers independently transmission-line loaded. They go low, and are quite articulate. Not much gets hidden down there. In my system the Neko came across as that extreme low end seeming not as articulate or at quite the same level of energy as the rest of the range. Perhaps you're right - maybe this DAC would do better with speakers a bit less like ours at least in their low end extension and dynamics. In fact, now that I think on it in those terms I'm sure you're right. I'll have to revise my matching system recommendation.