DC-1

[monkumonku]

Jul 23, 2013 5:01:11 GMT -5 klinemj said:

Congrats Ricky...I get mine Thursday also!

Mark

I'm sure we'll be comparing notes!

[klinemj]

You bet...and I just got my order confirmation
confirmation. Now I just have to get home.

Mark

[monkumonku]

Jul 23, 2013 10:38:44 GMT -5 klinemj said:

You bet...and I just got my order confirmation
confirmation. Now I just have to get home.

Mark

Home never seemed so far away, eh?

[focal]

Jul 20, 2013 13:14:15 GMT -5 thorcorps said:

I had a few more hours to listen last night and a couple hours so far today.

I'm not even going to bother plugging my Vincent preamp back in and just stick with the DC-1 direct to my XPR-1's. After a week and a half of ownership and a couple of very small tweaks to my speaker positioning, it's doing great. For folks who only need 1 or 2 digital inputs and a single analog input, this is a great deal and is just what I was looking to find for my main 2-channel setup (super quiet DAC/preamp combo with lossless remote volume control).

I don't listen to headphones at home, so I can't comment on how the headphone section performs, Monku.

Since I'm not going to bother with any direct comparisons on the DAC/preamp side, now I just need to try out my TT with the analog input. I don't use my TT much at all, but at least the input is there for when I want it.

It might be a while before Dan puts out a "consumer" version with more inputs, because I don't think it's even been hinted at by Emo yet, just rampant speculation by forum members to this point.

While I hadn't planned on it, I may have to get another one for my HT setup and use the analog input on 100% as a HT bypass (anyone doing that yet?).

so you don't miss the slight tube coloration nor distortion from the Vincent? Not even curious? Have you run lower resolution music through the DC-1? Did it tame it or just make it worse? I found with my Spendors, that my previous solid state pre just made things too revealing. The Cary SPL-03 definitely did the trick. it makes HUGE financial sense to upgrade my DAC and be able to sell my CARY pre and my Musical Fidelity DAC. But trying to upgrade not side grade.

[thorcorps]

Jul 23, 2013 11:20:05 GMT -5 focal said:

so you don't miss the slight tube coloration nor distortion from the Vincent? Not even curious? Have you run lower resolution music through the DC-1? Did it tame it or just make it worse? I found with my Spendors, that my previous solid state pre just made things too revealing. The Cary SPL-03 definitely did the trick. it makes HUGE financial sense to upgrade my DAC and be able to sell my CARY pre and my Musical Fidelity DAC. But trying to upgrade not side grade.

Actually, the particular Vincent I was using previously was from their Solid State line, the SA-93, so no tube coloration. I do have a couple of their hybrids (the SA-31 pre and SP-331 amp, and the SV-226 MKII integrated), but this is purely solid state.

I'm not missing the Vincent's coloration, but since the balance (EQ) is a bit different coming from the DC-1 only, I have continued to tweak the speaker position a little at a time (couple of inches forward or back, little more toe in, etc.). I'd say the highs may fall into the too revealing category occasionally, but by midnight last night, I was cranking a lot of different types of music and it was all sounding excellent.

The only lower resolution that has gone through the DC-1 was a Tarja Turunen song that came up randomly last night from an MP3 album I downloaded from Amazon (used some MP3 credit from CDs I'd purchased). It sounded considerably better through the DC-1 last night than it has sounded before (always bugged me since almost everything else on my Squeezebox Server are lossless rips from CDs), but I can hardly make a determination based on a single song on a single night listening. I have a slightly older lossless album from the same artist, but this one always sounded much flatter to me (of course my subconcious knew it was an MP3 and was annoyed). But I was surprised last night that the song I knew was an MP3 download sounded good for the first time, of course I may have been listening louder than usual and some bloom could have helped it out.

[focal]

thanks thorcorps. my bad tracks sometimes aren't even low resolution. Just bad original recordings on CD (lossless). there was definitely no synergy with my last pre and the Spendor's

I'm really close to what I like so a DAC has got to be special independent of the bonus feature of a preamp in the DC-1. This emotiva has the potential to let me simplify and cash out some gear. Even though I just got the Cary.

[thorcorps]

There is definitely more detail there and some things do stand out more than before. When there is static/distortion in the recording (on purpose), it really jumps out now. For example, an album like Coup d'Etat from the Plasmatics is recorded at a really high level and with lots of distortion. It still sounds good (to me), but the static/distortion can be so heavy at times in the highs that it sounds like the tweeters are distorting (they're not) rather than the tweeters reproducing distortion. In a sense, that's more realism/lifelike and I should be happy, but occasionally it sounds so "real" that I get concerned that my ribbon tweeters are doing something wrong.

Hard to say if you'll prefer it or not since you're pretty happy with your current setup, but there is always a 30-day trial.

[Hair Nick]

Manual, Drivers, and AP report are now up on the Emotiva and Emotiva Pro site for the DC-1.

[deltadube]

Jul 23, 2013 10:51:18 GMT -5 monkumonku said:

Jul 23, 2013 10:38:44 GMT -5 klinemj said:

You bet...and I just got my order confirmation
confirmation. Now I just have to get home.

Mark

Home never seemed so far away, eh?

Hey Mark and Monkumonku looking forward to your views hopefully a few words tomorrow night...

thanks..

ps if you where using the dc1 as a dac cd...dc1...xsp1..amps what fixed volume level would you asign to the dc1?

[GreenKiwi]

You would probably just change the setting in the dac to not have variable volume. It is configurable via the menu.

[Deleted]

Just saw this:

www.digitalaudioreview.net/2013/07/emotiva-pro-launch-stealth-dc-1-dacpre-amplifier/

[monkumonku]

Grrr... well despite the FedEx site still saying the DC-1 is due to be delivered today, it doesn't show it having arrived at the local terminal. I called FedEx and was told the truck hasn't come in yet so it won't be delivered until tomorrow!!! I was thinking of having them hold it and I'd go pick it up but then I don't want to chance any further delay by them somehow bungling it and it not being available for pickup.

Today would have been the perfect day.. wife is at work, no limit on the volume control.

[thorcorps]

Sorry monku. Looks like another day dusting off the shelf that you're going to place it on and arranging your cables. Maybe cleaning all your gold contacts.

Perhaps some "before" photos. Kind of a "Wish You Were Here".

[klinemj]

Mine just arrived! I have unboxed it and am installing the USB driver on my computer right now. CD's are sitting out to compare the DC-1 from FLAC source to the ERC-2 in an A-B mode.

Review to come...in reviews section of course...

Good luck w/getting your today Ricky!

Mark

[monkumonku]

Jul 25, 2013 12:49:43 GMT -5 klinemj said:

Mine just arrived! I have unboxed it and am installing the USB driver on my computer right now. CD's are sitting out to compare the DC-1 from FLAC source to the ERC-2 in an A-B mode.

Review to come...in reviews section of course...

Good luck w/getting your today Ricky!

Mark

Congrats on the new arrival, Mark! I'm eagerly awaiting your impressions. Unfortunately mine won't be here until tomorrow. I called FedEx to arrange to pick it up but since it is Home Delivery it was so complicated and they have so many hoops to jump through I said just leave it as is and deliver it tomorrow.

Meanwhile the Schiit Bifrost is sitting there waiting to go head to head with the DC-1 tomorrow (unless someone should BUY IT NOW).

Question -my tracking info says it is a 16 lb package, 21" x 18" x 6" - is that how big the box is??? I hope Emo didn't send me an XDA-2 by mistake!

[klinemj]

The outer box is big...And there is brown paper filling in around the inner box which is smaller as you would expect.

Mark

[thorcorps]

Yep, big outer box for safety. Those dimensions sound right. I sat the empty outer box on end next to my RSP-2 box (out of the way in the office) and they were about the same length.

Guess it's easier to fill up pallets and shipping cartons with everything of a somewhat similar length.

But at least this way, Mark can post tonight and you can post tomorrow straight through the weekend.

[monkumonku]

Jul 25, 2013 14:19:03 GMT -5 thorcorps said:

Yep, big outer box for safety. Those dimensions sound right. I sat the empty outer box on end next to my RSP-2 box (out of the way in the office) and they were about the same length.

Guess it's easier to fill up pallets and shipping cartons with everything of a somewhat similar length.

But at least this way, Mark can post tonight and you can post tomorrow straight through the weekend.

Thanks for the info. But 16 lbs shipped weight for a 2.2 lb. product? Sounds like overkill to me! Anyway, I hope I get it tomorrow and don't wind up having to fly to Memphis to pick it up because some rep rerouted it trying to be helpful.

[thorcorps]

Heavy power cord.

[KeithL]

The DC-1 is super accurate, so I can't promise that it will make bad material sound better. (To do that you need to actually apply some selective distortion - the acoustic equivalent of a soft focus filter on a camera - which we don't do. HOWEVER, I've noticed that, on some marginal digital recordings where the high end is a little harsh, some DACs will tend to exaggerate overloaded high frequencies and sibilants while the DC-1 does not. I guess you could say that, while the DC-1 won't make a bad recording actually better, some other DACs manage to make bad recordings worse when the DC-1 avoids doing so. Of course, because it has such great detail, the DC-1 sometimes just shows you exactly what's wrong with a bad recording.)

The big problem (as I see it), with anything that "tames bad source material" is that it is also going to "tame" good source material - meaning that it will remove some of the detail - which is what makes it good sounding to begin with. The result is that both good and bad source material ends up sounding "not too bad" and none of it sounds really good anymore. (You can always blur your sharp photos in Photoshop if you like, but if you start out with a crappy camera, there's really nothing much you can do.)  To me that is an unacceptable compromise.

Honestly (and I'm not kidding here) if I listened to a lot of the sort of content that needed "smoothing out", and I liked the job that tubes did there, I'd probably take the analog output of my Roku (or whatever), plug it into a $200 tube buffer, or even a $299 DAC with a tube output section, and plug that into the analog input on the DC-1. That way I could use the cheap DAC, with the tube buffer or output, to "improve" the poor quality stuff, but still enjoy the full quality of the good stuff through the DC-1.] Of course, we may eventually come out with a DAC with a tube output section.... but that wouldn't be for a while - if at all - and you didn't hear it here

Jul 19, 2013 12:41:02 GMT -5 focal said:

I'm only looking at this as a DAC, but the analogue input really is appealing as the only other analogue input / source, is my TT. Would I need to keep my Cary preamp? The Cary was definitely needed to tame the digital material, especially poorly recorded ones. Curious how well the DC-1 handles internet radio or bad source materials?

thorcorps: Would the qualities of the DAC in the DC-1 translate over to using the Vincent pre instead?