Behringer Ultramatch Pro SRC2496 with akm4396 that is modded direct out see site : Behringer 2496 direct out mods
this akm dac is a great dac (sorry)
well i just report what i hear from my akm4399 the way i have set mine is a personal choice and for the price $70 you can afford to take a couple of risks, and i am not biased because i don't work for a Dac manufacturer like some of the members in here who have the advantage of being in the audio business where some of these dacs are sold for hundreds of dollars. I am not stupid, i don't know about the technical side I just use my ears. And also have been a semi professional musician and have been around some great artists in my time. i know what sounds good..
well i just report what i hear from my akm4399 the way i have set mine is a personal choice and for the price $70 you can afford to take a couple of risks, and i am not biased because i don't work for a Dac manufacturer like some of the members in here who have the advantage of being in the audio business where some of these dacs are sold for hundreds of dollars. I am not stupid, i don't know about the technical side I just use my ears. And also have been a semi professional musician and have been around some great artists in my time. i know what sounds good..
I really have no idea what your rant is about, you are most certainly biased, we all are in all sorts of ways. I dont work for any manufacturer either, just an obsessed hobbiest for now. I avoided making any specific recommendations in case someone took that the wrong way, it seems this forum is more and more about making subjective assertions than technical recommendations, or advice these days.
direct out with no filter or buffer is suboptimal, its as simple as that. that would be why they recommend otherwise. its cool you enjoy your dac, but there are reasons its not recommended.
voxxonline: its pretty trivial to add a balanced->SE summing stage, dont let being balanced stop you, or you will not be able to build many dacs around these days.
there are many ways, the search function is your friend
which is the specific link to this board. I cant see, maybe you are lucky and he has made SE output already (in which case you should just re[, I cant see any XLR, but its definitely a balanced DAC chip and nobody seems to have mentioned to you it has SE output. maybe someone will chime in and confirm. looks like the same or similar output stage used in his es9018 dac (which pretty much says it all, as they are completely different beasts), so maybe you'll be lucky
which is the specific link to this board. I cant see, maybe you are lucky and he has made SE output already (in which case you should just re[, I cant see any XLR, but its definitely a balanced DAC chip and nobody seems to have mentioned to you it has SE output. maybe someone will chime in and confirm. looks like the same or similar output stage used in his es9018 dac (which pretty much says it all, as they are completely different beasts), so maybe you'll be lucky
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sure, but it depends on what your motivation is. if its about getting something good cheaply, then I would argue that by the time you spend the cash and time on piecemeal upgrades/lashups, you could have just bought something better with the same money. if its about the 'tweaking' for the sake of tweaking, then sure its a cheap, if somewhat frustrating platform to start from and it will never be as good as what you can get by buying a decent kit to start with. the board, parts etc place a fairly low limit on performance. the power supply, decoupling, grounding and clocking are all pretty average, not just the parts.
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Peterma, thank you for your comments and input with regard to this DAC. As qusp mentioned what sounds good to you might not to others. If you are listening subjectively, you are maybe not tuned in to critical listening. If you are only listening for what you want to hear, you might be missing something else.
I have been considering purchasing an AKM4399 based DAC, hence following this thread, qusp comments “you could have just bought something better with the same money” I would be interested in his recommendations?
I have been considering purchasing an AKM4399 based DAC, hence following this thread, qusp comments “you could have just bought something better with the same money” I would be interested in his recommendations?
Now, thats a pity. Your oppinion as a musician is interesting and important for me and probably many other readers.
Gonna make a personal comment i wasnt but going too but anyway , enjoy the cheap stuff from china but if you want better specs buy a commerial brand gonna cost more ,will it sound better in your ear drum dont know, i dont need anyone here to tell me i cant hear quality i been around long enough, hey you guys with golden ears how much did you spend on your stuff? And you dont need to be special to hear well either i stand when i say i love this dacs sound , am i qualified to say that ? yes . My experience starting when i first bought hifi in the late 1970s till now. I rant i know i am passionate about not following the staus quo. Enjoy the music ps. Fender guitars sound different to rickenbacker does one sound better? Deppends on your taste!
but peterma, here, you ARE following the status quo, believing that your ears are somehow a finely tuned and infallible instrument is pretty darn popular; as is 'getting rid of the dastardly opamps' instead of doing something positive about the output buffer/filter if you dont like it.
I dont care if you are Mozart, getting rid of the output filter and buffer completely on this DAC and driving a power amp directly will lower performance, possibly violate the output voltage compliance of the chip (probably not as its voltage out), subject the power amp to the glitching from switched capacitors etc etc. having good hearing, or musical ability will not magically make these things go away. it just means you personally cant hear them, or prefer a bit of distortion, but then I suppose you didnt really compare before/after with a good buffer.
I really dont see the need to bring your musical experience into the story so that I have to discount it for this test. this is no slight on your musical ability, but you speak of preference only and thats cool, but leave it at that, which would be perfectly admirable.
musicians are human too...
I dont care if you are Mozart, getting rid of the output filter and buffer completely on this DAC and driving a power amp directly will lower performance, possibly violate the output voltage compliance of the chip (probably not as its voltage out), subject the power amp to the glitching from switched capacitors etc etc. having good hearing, or musical ability will not magically make these things go away. it just means you personally cant hear them, or prefer a bit of distortion, but then I suppose you didnt really compare before/after with a good buffer.
I really dont see the need to bring your musical experience into the story so that I have to discount it for this test. this is no slight on your musical ability, but you speak of preference only and thats cool, but leave it at that, which would be perfectly admirable.
musicians are human too...
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