Post by sidvicious on Oct 7, 2015 19:09:21 GMT -5
Audio Research DAC8 Review:
Well everyone I took back the Audio Research CD8 back to the dealer on Saturday, 10-03-15, wow, what a player!!! While I was there, I saw a Audio Research DAC8, that had just came in on trade.
I was chopping at the bits to take this home and listen to it. On Tuesday, 10-06-15, I arrived at the dealer after work and took it home. I first set up my Marantz NA-7004 network streamer up using an Optical Cable. A little bit of background I have a the original Cambridge Dac Magic DAC and a Emotiva XDA 1. I listen for five minutes and wow, it sounded like I had a new streamer, cd player and now today a different laptop.
System used for this review:
Audio Research VT100 MKIII, Audio Research LS-17se, a Cambridge 350, Marantz NA-7004 and a Toshiba Laptop with an AMD processor and graphics.
Vandersteen 2ce Signature II's. Windows 7 on the laptop and Windows 8 for the streamer to my main pc and of course Windows Media Player.
Music used for this review:
Bernie WIlliams- Moving Forward on the Laptop and Chon-Grow on the Marantz NA-7004 (which is streamed from my main PC, which is connected via, LAN Cable.
The DAC8:
The DAC8 is the same size of the LS-17se and looks like the LS17se and is silver in color with silver handles. It has provisions for Digital outs, XLR and RCA's. The Digital Ins are USB-2.0, RCA, BNC, Optical and XLR-AES. I used the XLR for connecting to the preamp using Audioquest King Cobra XLR's, 1.5 meter. I used a generic optical cable-Marantz NA-7004 and a Monster 300 Rca Cable-Cambridge CD350 and a generic usb cable for connection to the laptop. The DAC8 has four metal silver buttons in front of it Power, Invert, Input and Mute. The procedure, if you are going to use USB, you must download Audio Research's driver from disc or internet. After the software is downloaded you get a small indicator in the task bar. You can go into the menu, which is the DAC8 Control panel and change the Sampling Rates and hit apply. When you do this the DAC8's led's change to reflect your changes, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192khz. The issue with this is if the music wasn't recorded in those sampling rates you will get a windows error about the sampling rate.
The DAC 8's remote has a Power, Mute, USB, RCA, BNC, XLR and Opt button on the top half. In the middle is an unusual array of buttons labled USB Interface, which consist of a top-play/pause arrow button, a fast forward and reverse or track ahead or behind button and a stop button. ( the fast forward or reverse buttons were not tested because Media Player doesn't support them) The USB controls have the ability to control these features inside of I-Tunes, Media Monkey, Win Media Player, Foobar, J River Media Center. In Media Player the play/pause and stop buttons worked.
The Review:
I had longed to hear this when my dealer first had this in his shop and he told me that Audio Research was going to discontinue this item and he had reduced the price by, $1000 dollars. Well I waited thinking it would get reduced more, but no after 2 months it was gone. I had saw one of these on Audiogon when I got my preamp for a price I would have paid, half off, and I attempted to wait, but one week later after the ad went up the item was gone, darn it!!! I told myself that this might not happen any time soon and then a couple of weeks ago Audigon had one come up for sale and it's still there for more than half off, and I said no and I waited. Well upon taking the CD8 back I saw this item and upon taking it home and plugging it in, I was shocked, first with the Marantz, the second song from Chon,Story is great instruments sound as if they are in their own place, bass, treble and midrange is outstanding. I played the CD Player and again wow, is this the same player, I had, I listen to Diana Krall-Girl in the Other Room and KEM-Kemistry and guess what, they songs sounded pretty close to what I was hearing with the Audio Research CD8. (No wonder my dealer was asking me what transport I would be using) The CD8 has the DAC8's dac in it.
The instruments were pin-point accurate and the percussions sounded real, WILLIAMS guitar playing is great, his plucking of that guitar, wow, I'm almost ready to say, what CD8?, what's that, it's all in the Dac Man, the Dac Man. Today I hooked up my laptop and downloaded the USB 2.0 driver to my laptop and connected the laptop. I played Bernie WILLIAMS moving forward the first song Moving Forward and again, wow, wow, man, I say wow!! I had always heard the dealer play computer files and he told me that he was getting more into digital computer files, cd-rips than almost anything else and that he himself wasn't going to invest to much more in a Cd Player. My Dealer told me he still listens to vinyl and loves it, but the Computer Audio is almost a passion now and he uses a Mac Computer in the store and at home.
Conclusion:
I really wanted to get into computer audio and bridge the gap between, the cd player, streamer and my computer and this DAC does it beutifully. I'm finally hearing at home what I hear at the dealer's shop, or very close to it. My Dealer stated he does have the hi-res 192 albums, but he finds the cd rips are practically just as good and cheaper. With the XDA-1 the first part of my songs were getting chopped off and on the Cambridge DAC Magic there was much to much bass on the XLR inputs and the whole thing was a mess the music just mushed together. On the XDA-1 the music sound better, but still nothing to write home about, but being able to use it as a preamp is cool.
The Audio Research DAC8 is everything that the reviews said it is regardless of what the Absolute Sound reviewer said. For the first time, you really could get rid of cd's after the rips (Not!!!) This Dac is the best dac I have ever heard and it's solid state at that. This is one beast of a DAC and I've decided that, I can't let this one go back so on Friday, I will be purchasing it. My next purchase will be a Audio Research PH6 or PH8, phono preamp. The Dac8 is making me almost forget about the CD8, I guess I never really knew the Dac was this important to sound quality, especially Computer Audio. Every thing will be connected through it at this point. I'll probably get the real J River media player, my trial period is over. I'm getting closer to my version of the Absolute Sound than I ever dreamed. Just a side note I heard the Audioquest Nighthawk Headphones and they are fabulous once broken in, especially through a SimAudio headphone amp, good stuff, guys good stuff.
Update:
I went to HD Tracks 10 mins ago and listened to sample songs and changed the sampling rates to match, 88.2, 192khz, I can now see why the dealer, who has bought from HD Tracks said he will continue his CD Rips, it's very, very good, but for what you are paying for, it's not great, something is missing here folks, I'll keep the money in my pocket for this and do the CD Rips as well.
Well everyone I took back the Audio Research CD8 back to the dealer on Saturday, 10-03-15, wow, what a player!!! While I was there, I saw a Audio Research DAC8, that had just came in on trade.
I was chopping at the bits to take this home and listen to it. On Tuesday, 10-06-15, I arrived at the dealer after work and took it home. I first set up my Marantz NA-7004 network streamer up using an Optical Cable. A little bit of background I have a the original Cambridge Dac Magic DAC and a Emotiva XDA 1. I listen for five minutes and wow, it sounded like I had a new streamer, cd player and now today a different laptop.
System used for this review:
Audio Research VT100 MKIII, Audio Research LS-17se, a Cambridge 350, Marantz NA-7004 and a Toshiba Laptop with an AMD processor and graphics.
Vandersteen 2ce Signature II's. Windows 7 on the laptop and Windows 8 for the streamer to my main pc and of course Windows Media Player.
Music used for this review:
Bernie WIlliams- Moving Forward on the Laptop and Chon-Grow on the Marantz NA-7004 (which is streamed from my main PC, which is connected via, LAN Cable.
The DAC8:
The DAC8 is the same size of the LS-17se and looks like the LS17se and is silver in color with silver handles. It has provisions for Digital outs, XLR and RCA's. The Digital Ins are USB-2.0, RCA, BNC, Optical and XLR-AES. I used the XLR for connecting to the preamp using Audioquest King Cobra XLR's, 1.5 meter. I used a generic optical cable-Marantz NA-7004 and a Monster 300 Rca Cable-Cambridge CD350 and a generic usb cable for connection to the laptop. The DAC8 has four metal silver buttons in front of it Power, Invert, Input and Mute. The procedure, if you are going to use USB, you must download Audio Research's driver from disc or internet. After the software is downloaded you get a small indicator in the task bar. You can go into the menu, which is the DAC8 Control panel and change the Sampling Rates and hit apply. When you do this the DAC8's led's change to reflect your changes, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192khz. The issue with this is if the music wasn't recorded in those sampling rates you will get a windows error about the sampling rate.
The DAC 8's remote has a Power, Mute, USB, RCA, BNC, XLR and Opt button on the top half. In the middle is an unusual array of buttons labled USB Interface, which consist of a top-play/pause arrow button, a fast forward and reverse or track ahead or behind button and a stop button. ( the fast forward or reverse buttons were not tested because Media Player doesn't support them) The USB controls have the ability to control these features inside of I-Tunes, Media Monkey, Win Media Player, Foobar, J River Media Center. In Media Player the play/pause and stop buttons worked.
The Review:
I had longed to hear this when my dealer first had this in his shop and he told me that Audio Research was going to discontinue this item and he had reduced the price by, $1000 dollars. Well I waited thinking it would get reduced more, but no after 2 months it was gone. I had saw one of these on Audiogon when I got my preamp for a price I would have paid, half off, and I attempted to wait, but one week later after the ad went up the item was gone, darn it!!! I told myself that this might not happen any time soon and then a couple of weeks ago Audigon had one come up for sale and it's still there for more than half off, and I said no and I waited. Well upon taking the CD8 back I saw this item and upon taking it home and plugging it in, I was shocked, first with the Marantz, the second song from Chon,Story is great instruments sound as if they are in their own place, bass, treble and midrange is outstanding. I played the CD Player and again wow, is this the same player, I had, I listen to Diana Krall-Girl in the Other Room and KEM-Kemistry and guess what, they songs sounded pretty close to what I was hearing with the Audio Research CD8. (No wonder my dealer was asking me what transport I would be using) The CD8 has the DAC8's dac in it.
The instruments were pin-point accurate and the percussions sounded real, WILLIAMS guitar playing is great, his plucking of that guitar, wow, I'm almost ready to say, what CD8?, what's that, it's all in the Dac Man, the Dac Man. Today I hooked up my laptop and downloaded the USB 2.0 driver to my laptop and connected the laptop. I played Bernie WILLIAMS moving forward the first song Moving Forward and again, wow, wow, man, I say wow!! I had always heard the dealer play computer files and he told me that he was getting more into digital computer files, cd-rips than almost anything else and that he himself wasn't going to invest to much more in a Cd Player. My Dealer told me he still listens to vinyl and loves it, but the Computer Audio is almost a passion now and he uses a Mac Computer in the store and at home.
Conclusion:
I really wanted to get into computer audio and bridge the gap between, the cd player, streamer and my computer and this DAC does it beutifully. I'm finally hearing at home what I hear at the dealer's shop, or very close to it. My Dealer stated he does have the hi-res 192 albums, but he finds the cd rips are practically just as good and cheaper. With the XDA-1 the first part of my songs were getting chopped off and on the Cambridge DAC Magic there was much to much bass on the XLR inputs and the whole thing was a mess the music just mushed together. On the XDA-1 the music sound better, but still nothing to write home about, but being able to use it as a preamp is cool.
The Audio Research DAC8 is everything that the reviews said it is regardless of what the Absolute Sound reviewer said. For the first time, you really could get rid of cd's after the rips (Not!!!) This Dac is the best dac I have ever heard and it's solid state at that. This is one beast of a DAC and I've decided that, I can't let this one go back so on Friday, I will be purchasing it. My next purchase will be a Audio Research PH6 or PH8, phono preamp. The Dac8 is making me almost forget about the CD8, I guess I never really knew the Dac was this important to sound quality, especially Computer Audio. Every thing will be connected through it at this point. I'll probably get the real J River media player, my trial period is over. I'm getting closer to my version of the Absolute Sound than I ever dreamed. Just a side note I heard the Audioquest Nighthawk Headphones and they are fabulous once broken in, especially through a SimAudio headphone amp, good stuff, guys good stuff.
Update:
I went to HD Tracks 10 mins ago and listened to sample songs and changed the sampling rates to match, 88.2, 192khz, I can now see why the dealer, who has bought from HD Tracks said he will continue his CD Rips, it's very, very good, but for what you are paying for, it's not great, something is missing here folks, I'll keep the money in my pocket for this and do the CD Rips as well.
