Hi,
I currently have as my main DAC, a TEAC D-T1. This has served me well and I'm happy with it. I also have a Creative SB0270 USB sound card, which I use in digital only mode into the TEAC, to provide computer audio from a small Net-Top which I control from an Android device. I also have a couple of other digital devices connected to the TEAC, one of which being a Cyrus dAD3 CD player. All works well.
Looking around on eBay for the latest product, I have found the following:
HA INFO DA1 WM8805 + WM8740 USB DAC + Class A Headphone Amp + USB Converter | eBay
This seems to tick the boxes on-paper: a good DAC linked to one of the best receivers, and built-in USB.
The question is; just thinking out of the box here, is the above device (or anything similar) likely to result in an audible improvement? I know that the TEAC was a good DAC for its day (I think it uses two parallel TDA1547s), but the newer devices are much more likely to be capable of eradicating jitter to a fair degree which is a concern when it comes to the USB box (the sound quality from the PC doesn't seem to be quite as good as the CD player, and I put that down to jitter on the USB device -- it couldn't be anything else, right?).
It's a fair chunk of wedge if there is to be no appreciable improvement though, so any thoughts would be much appreciated.
I currently have as my main DAC, a TEAC D-T1. This has served me well and I'm happy with it. I also have a Creative SB0270 USB sound card, which I use in digital only mode into the TEAC, to provide computer audio from a small Net-Top which I control from an Android device. I also have a couple of other digital devices connected to the TEAC, one of which being a Cyrus dAD3 CD player. All works well.
Looking around on eBay for the latest product, I have found the following:
HA INFO DA1 WM8805 + WM8740 USB DAC + Class A Headphone Amp + USB Converter | eBay
This seems to tick the boxes on-paper: a good DAC linked to one of the best receivers, and built-in USB.
The question is; just thinking out of the box here, is the above device (or anything similar) likely to result in an audible improvement? I know that the TEAC was a good DAC for its day (I think it uses two parallel TDA1547s), but the newer devices are much more likely to be capable of eradicating jitter to a fair degree which is a concern when it comes to the USB box (the sound quality from the PC doesn't seem to be quite as good as the CD player, and I put that down to jitter on the USB device -- it couldn't be anything else, right?).
It's a fair chunk of wedge if there is to be no appreciable improvement though, so any thoughts would be much appreciated.
I'm actually starting to thing that my 'problem' may well be the Creative box.
Having taken it to bits it's a fairly standard AD1885/CA0185 sound card, which I believe is pretty low-end right?
Would I be better served just buying something like the HA Info U2 converter instead?
Would I be right in thinking that the TEAC is pretty much as good as the TDA1547 gets, and that the above Chinese DAC would need further tweaking to give of its best?
Having taken it to bits it's a fairly standard AD1885/CA0185 sound card, which I believe is pretty low-end right?
Would I be better served just buying something like the HA Info U2 converter instead?
Would I be right in thinking that the TEAC is pretty much as good as the TDA1547 gets, and that the above Chinese DAC would need further tweaking to give of its best?
Right, I don't know what the problem was with the Creative, but having looked again at the Linux drivers for the built-in sound card's SPDIF output I now have it working, and the sound is indistinguishable from the CD source when playing FLAC files.
And I think I've found my own answer to the question of whether this Chinese DAC would be better than the TEAC. A month ago I ordered a Muse TDA1543x4 NOS DAC, fully expecting that this would somehow beat the TEAC, given the reviews.
Well it doesn't. It's not bad, but I have to say that both the DAC7 in the TEAC, and the TDA1305 in the player-transport itself have the Muse licked. The Muse sounds slightly dull, muddy in complex sections of music, and lacking in soundstage.
It's something I've found in a lot of these Chinese 'audiophile' modules now. Lots of hype, reasonable sound, but when it comes down to it no match for proper hifi kit from 10-20 years ago.
And they say that all CD players sound the same
And I think I've found my own answer to the question of whether this Chinese DAC would be better than the TEAC. A month ago I ordered a Muse TDA1543x4 NOS DAC, fully expecting that this would somehow beat the TEAC, given the reviews.
Well it doesn't. It's not bad, but I have to say that both the DAC7 in the TEAC, and the TDA1305 in the player-transport itself have the Muse licked. The Muse sounds slightly dull, muddy in complex sections of music, and lacking in soundstage.
It's something I've found in a lot of these Chinese 'audiophile' modules now. Lots of hype, reasonable sound, but when it comes down to it no match for proper hifi kit from 10-20 years ago.
And they say that all CD players sound the same
Curiously, I've found that true of a lot of European hifi. A lot of marketing hype (check the Musical Fidelity website), people convincing themselves what a wonder product it is, then 6 months later (or sometimes sooner) selling it on.
I recently bought a Musical Fidelity M1 DAC and found it to be very lacking. I really wanted to like, considering the £400 I paid for it, but even after 90 hours 'burn in' the sound was very mediocre.
I then bought a HA INFO U2+ USB DAC for £46, and find it generally speaking better than the M1 DAC! There were 2 areas that the M1 was better in sound quality...timing and slightly better detail levels. But apart from that it was a very dull DAC.
I've bought a lot of Chinese HiFi products over the years a few have turned out to be poor or average but more often than not I've pleased with them especially considering the price!
I recently bought a Musical Fidelity M1 DAC and found it to be very lacking. I really wanted to like, considering the £400 I paid for it, but even after 90 hours 'burn in' the sound was very mediocre.
I then bought a HA INFO U2+ USB DAC for £46, and find it generally speaking better than the M1 DAC! There were 2 areas that the M1 was better in sound quality...timing and slightly better detail levels. But apart from that it was a very dull DAC.
I've bought a lot of Chinese HiFi products over the years a few have turned out to be poor or average but more often than not I've pleased with them especially considering the price!
Ha Info da1 dac/amp
Hi, I'm Croatian and I also noticed that Ha Info DA1 DAC / amp.
The forums have no experience described. I decided to buy it for $ 159.00 including postage.
I will use two inputs for PC and Squeezebox clasics. Analog output for stereo preamp and a digital output to the AV receiver. I believe that this will work well.
If up to now, someone already has experience with these devices, it would be nice to be sharing with us.
Hi, I'm Croatian and I also noticed that Ha Info DA1 DAC / amp.
The forums have no experience described. I decided to buy it for $ 159.00 including postage.
I will use two inputs for PC and Squeezebox clasics. Analog output for stereo preamp and a digital output to the AV receiver. I believe that this will work well.
If up to now, someone already has experience with these devices, it would be nice to be sharing with us.
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