New Stealth DC-1 owner

[jdbrian]

Hi folks

 Just bought a slightly used DC -1 dac. I bought it to take a listen to Hi Rez. before spending big$ on a DAC. I also wanted to take a listen to a neutral DAC to compare to my DB Labs Tranquility NOS dac. The Emotiva seemed like a good choice given it's high performance/$ ratio. 
  I use a Mac Mini and Pure Music. I have also recently added a W4S Recovery to  the USB input. This really cleaned up the sound on the NOS DAC. 
  I initially had some trouble getting the DC1 to talk to the mac but once all the settings were sorted it worked fine in 44.1 and also upsampling to 176. The only weird thing is that it shows up as "Speaker" in the Audio Devices list. I had read on this forum that there can be some problems with getting the DC1 to work on USB with older Mac computers. Mine is a 2010 mini recently upgraded with more ram, ssd and El Capitan. Perhaps the "Speaker" name is a result of this issue but since the Recovery is inline with the computer it all works. Whatever the name is all that matters is that it works. 
  So far I find the sound is quite different from the NOS dac. No. 1 is more bass in the bottom octave. This is an issue with the Tranquility becaue of a design decision to use small .22uf caps on the outputs. So even with a 50k input impedance you get rolloff in the bottom octave. 
   I'm letting it settle into the system for a while  before doing any more comparisons. I'm also just installed a new set of DIY Neutrik/ Mogami 2534 XLR cables and am running the DC1 balanced into a W4S sti500. 
  Too many changes going on to make any big judgements on sound yet. I do notice that the DC1 has good clarity and seems able to sort out busy musical passages quite nicely. 
  I'm also wondering if any DC -1 users have experimented with upsampling and if so, what changes in sound you encountered. 

[boomzilla]

For up sampling, you'd want to talk to garbulky. He's tech-savvy and has plenty of experience with his DC-1. In his system, the DC-1 is one of the best DACs I've heard. In my system, not so much. Go figure...

But I'm glad to hear that the DC-1 is working for you (as it does for the overwhelming majority of its owners). It's the best DAC you can get for less than $2,000 says Mr. Gar.

Best of luck with it!

Boomzilla

[KeithL]

Good choice, the DC-1 is not only very good, but quite neutral.

There is no reason why upsampling in and of itself should make any audible difference whatsoever.
And, as far as we know, there is no reason why the DC-1 should sound different with IDENTICAL content that has been upsampled.
However, there's almost always some filtering involved, and all filters alter the signal slightly.

So, while the upsampling process itself isn't going to necessarily make any difference, you CAN expect any software or hardware that you're using to do it to potentially make an audible difference.
Likewise, if what you're using to perform upsampling offers different upsampling algorithms or filter choices, you can expect a subtle but possible audible difference there as well.

Note that upsampling CANNOT add real information that wasn't in the original signal, so the signal itself is NOT "more accurate" because it is upsampled.

However, because of the way they're designed, many NOS DACs do sound very different at different sample rates.
That's because most use a filter which causes a significant roll-off near 1/2 of the Nyquist frequency.
So, for example, a typical NOS DAC might be -3 dB @ 20 kHz with a 44k sample rate, but flat to 20 kHz, and only -3 dB @ 40 kHz with a 96k sample rate.
In that case, the rolloff with the 44k sample rate will be clearly audible, and the 44k content will sound much duller or "more laid back" than the 96k content.
(A normal oversampling DAC will have insignificant roll off in the audio band with both, so the difference, if any, will be much smaller.)

Generally "USB cleaners" can be expected to make a relatively large difference with non-asynchronous USB inputs....
Which means that, since the DC-1 IS asynch, I wouldn't expect as major difference there.

Aug 12, 2016 11:21:47 GMT -5 jdbrian said:

Hi folks

 Just bought a slightly used DC -1 dac. I bought it to take a listen to Hi Rez. before spending big$ on a DAC. I also wanted to take a listen to a neutral DAC to compare to my DB Labs Tranquility NOS dac. The Emotiva seemed like a good choice given it's high performance/$ ratio. 
  I use a Mac Mini and Pure Music. I have also recently added a W4S Recovery to  the USB input. This really cleaned up the sound on the NOS DAC. 
  I initially had some trouble getting the DC1 to talk to the mac but once all the settings were sorted it worked fine in 44.1 and also upsampling to 176. The only weird thing is that it shows up as "Speaker" in the Audio Devices list. I had read on this forum that there can be some problems with getting the DC1 to work on USB with older Mac computers. Mine is a 2010 mini recently upgraded with more ram, ssd and El Capitan. Perhaps the "Speaker" name is a result of this issue but since the Recovery is inline with the computer it all works. Whatever the name is all that matters is that it works. 
  So far I find the sound is quite different from the NOS dac. No. 1 is more bass in the bottom octave. This is an issue with the Tranquility becaue of a design decision to use small .22uf caps on the outputs. So even with a 50k input impedance you get rolloff in the bottom octave. 
   I'm letting it settle into the system for a while  before doing any more comparisons. I'm also just installed a new set of DIY Neutrik/ Mogami 2534 XLR cables and am running the DC1 balanced into a W4S sti500. 
  Too many changes going on to make any big judgements on sound yet. I do notice that the DC1 has good clarity and seems able to sort out busy musical passages quite nicely. 
  I'm also wondering if any DC -1 users have experimented with upsampling and if so, what changes in sound you encountered. 

[garbulky]

Hi there! I am an enthusiastic owner of the DC-1.
I would hesitate to say its closest competition is $2k. Where B'zilla is getting that from is that my upgrade plan to the DC-1 is the Schiit Ygdrassil which is $2300. (Also needed is an audio gd HE-1 preamp $2300 approx).
But to get dacs that sound as good as it does can I assume be had for less - however I haven't heard them. Well I did hear one but i haven't heard it in my recent setup since I added the XPA-1 gen 2s. Which btw, one of the best buys I've done.

However, there's no doubt it's a great DAC. I've heard some DACs - which do cost around 2k do better at it in resolution however I haven't heard one beat it better all around. There is something to be said for top to bottom coherence. In my opinion there's two slight weaknesses to it. And they are both slight. One is the bass though there and very tight and extended isn't as "full" or strong as the rest of the signal. This is a DAC that is more mid-range centric in its character.

However the bass it does have - when paired to the XPA-1 gen 2 sounds very detailed to me. More transparent bass if you will. Very little bloat and I hear texture that I didn't use to hear. Interestingly on less powerful amps, I didn't hear this detail.

Okay so upsampling? Well I haven't tried it a lot. I use foobar and I thought that maybe upsampling 16 bit to 24 bit made a slight difference but I might have imagined it. I wouldn't waste any sleep on upsampling. The 44.1 to 192 khz upsampling however was unnecessary and I preferred it at 44.1 khz.

Here's what I've noticed.

- Leave it on. You'll notice it gets warm. That's just fine
- USB: well it was better than the USB for the XDA-1 which wasn't saying much to be honest. But other than that, honestly it was the worst sounding connection. ( I used USB 2 asynchronous and had the jitter control on, also tried with jitter control off). The problem was in the treble. Now of course it's digital connections so the differences are slight. But of all of the USB was the worst.
Out of the others I haven't noticed a worthwhile difference.

- More input options! You may be interested to know that your BNC input can also take a Coax (RCA) connection using a passive RCA to BNC adapter. No digital conversions. The BNC can take RCA.
Also a third coax connection can be made by purchasing an RCA to optical converter. I purchased a cables to go converter from Amazon for about $15. Cheap way of adding a third RCA connection if needed. I then stuck that in to the optical input.

However a downside of this is that the converter converts everything to 48 khz - so it's not bit perfect. I haven't heard an audible difference. But I thought I'd put it out there.

- Run it fully balanced. You made the right choice buying a fully balanced amp. The DAC has a bit more going for it this way.

- XPA-1 synergy - I don't know what but I think its class A and fully balanced nature really helped out this DAC. It sounds really nice imo.


- Reposition your speakers! When you change electronics some repositioning is needed to get it just right. If you recently stuck it in your system - do yourself a favor - reposition your speakers. Take time, adjust the toe down to minute quantities. Move them around a bit. Get yourself in the center position between the speakers on your couch. Etc.
If your speakers are right up against the wall you might want to pull them forward etc etc.



Also if you haven't got one of these completely worth it. I stick mine behind my couch on the wall at head level.
www.atsacoustics.com/item--ATS-Acoustic-Panel-24-x-48-x-2--1001.html