Listening Tests

Other players I had

My first audiophile player was a Marantz CD63SE. I loved this player. However, there was always an irritating, harsh, "digital" quality to the music I was listening to. I first blamed the speakers (changed them), then the amp (tried others), then the room (put blankets on walls), the cables... but I could never get rid of the harshness. Then I tried another source and it was the revelation ! It was the CD player that stank !

So I bought a Rotel RCD 971. Went from oversampling sigma-delta to real multibit PCM63 converters. This was a huge improvement in sound ! No more electronic sounds, this machine made music.

Then, I had this project of putting all my CDs, losslessly encoded, on a computer for the ultimate Jukebox. This system is running now, with 800 albums on it. It has a RME Digi96 board with its companion DAC. It can also be used as a 4-way stereo digital active crossover, which I'm going to use for my speakers very soon.

I was shocked when I noticed that this soundcard sounded a lot better than the Rotel player. All this inside the very noisy environment of a PC case. The guys at RME know their stuff.

Then there is this DAC we're talking about here.

Rest of the system

Amp : Cairn 4807 (a relatively unknown French brand), which is very good and friendly sounding.

Speakers : Triangle Comete bookshelfs. While cheap, these speakers are very good for their price. They have the mark of their kind (a bit boxy on female voices) but apart from that they are nice. Even though I have heard much better speakers, I still like these. They have shortcomings I can live with, as opposed to unbearable defects as some other cheap speakers have. I have a speaker project running though.

Notes

Like all non-oversampling, treble is a little bit recessed, making for a little laid-back sound. This is actually not a problem, as the ear gets used to it quite fast and I think it adjusts its sensitivity. Now I don't notice it anymore. Or maybe this was just break-in.

Or maybe this is just an impression given by the excessive harshness of other players which has now become the norm. Without harshness, it sounds a bit "laid-back".

The output stage is very important. Of all the combinations I tried, the final one mentioned in the pages about output stages sounded by far the best. The sound of this DAC can be ruined by selecting an improper output stage.

First impressions

I have been listening to this DAC for some time now. Now what I notice is that this device produces the most awesome sound I ever heard. Unfortunately I am not very well versed in stereophile-lingo, so what can I say ?

Air : outstanding. Air is the sense of space around instruments, the ability to hear through everything into the tiniest details and then into the black background behind. This works very well. There is no masking or congestion.
Ambience recovery : outstanding.
Imaging : good. Horizontally, the image stays between the speakers, but it has good height, and good depth too. Instruments and voices are well pinpointed and do not move or wobble. I think I should fix my room and position my speakers better before commenting on this.
Rythm (or "air guitar factor") : extreme. On recordings with good rythm, this is awesome.
Voices : Delicious apart from a little boxiness from the speakers. Especially no over-sibilance even on reputedly hard recordings like Diana Krall.
Trumpets, Trombones and other brass, and especially Saxophones : unfuckingbelievably you-are-there. Sex mob-Din of Inequity as loud and as burning hot as it was live.
Drums : Good feeling of hitting skin. Great slam, very good dynamics. Sound very natural. Cymbals are incredible.
Listening pleasure : very, very good.

As you can tell I'm quite enthusiastic with this machine !

Comparison with my other players

CD63SE died from too much tweaking.
Rotel CD971 died on its own after only one and a half year of use. Fuck Rotel quality control.
RME is therefore the only competitor, fortunately it was the best of the three.

No more suspense : this DAC completely walks over the RME soundcard, in all aspects. Mind you, the RME is good. It is studio equipment, and my ears tell me that it's good. But the extremist-DAC has immensely better tone, image, spaciousness, dynamics, and the most important : listening pleasure. I can't listen to my jukebox anymore. It's back to CDs, and this really sucks.

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